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helloitstsyu · 1 year

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Focus On Me - Tom Cruise [18+]

my masterlist

Summary : Tom makes you wait all day long while he does his endless meeting. Can you wait till he's done, or will you act up in the end to gain his attention back to you?

Paring: Tom Cruise x Female Reader

A/N : Aaahhh this is my very first writing content, can't believe i have the guts to put it out. I hope y'all like it as much as i do. I'm sorry for any grammar mistakes or typo cause English is not my first language.

Warnings : smut, curse words, oral sex, minor dni

Tagging : my favs writers cause y'all are so talented and y'all inspires me endlessly @youlightmeupfinn @malavera @cherrycola27 @call-sign-shark

You keep pressing that same button on your remote TV. You keep jumping from one platform to another, Netflix, HBO Go, Amazon Prime, and Disney + but no shows or movie that seems appealing to your eyes anymore. You either have watched them or... you're just too tired to watch another movie or another episode of a series. You spend your whole day in front of the TV while your man is busy with his endless meeting in his office room.

Looking over at the clock, 5.42 p.m.

You recall earlier that Tom said he'll be done by 7 and by then you two will head out for a dinner outside. So you push the red button on the remote to turn off the TV. You push yourself to stand on your feet and move from the big cloudy-like couch to your shared bedroom.

You hop for a quick shower just to freshen up then you do your simple makeup routine and you blow dry your hair so it falls straight naturally. Going to your shared walk-in closet, you think to yourself which look will you wear for tonight's little date out?

"Let's go a little casual shall we?" You talk to yourself.

You then decided to go with a simple look. Just a silk champagne-colored tank top with a pair of jeans and Louboutin's stiletto. You also wear some jewelry, the diamond solitaire necklace that Tom got you last valentine's day.

Taking your black coat and your purse you're ready to head out. Looking at the watch around your wrist, it's 6.52 p.m. Seems like there's no sight of Tom leaving his office room yet.

Well, he still has 8 more minutes before you'll barge into his office and drag him out yourself.

Now you sit back on the big cloudy-like grey couch and you keep looking toward that corridor waiting for Tom to come out any moment by now.

You keep checking on your watch, 6.55, 6.58. Minutes feels like forever now.

When the clock turns exactly at 7.00 pm you gasp slightly.

"Ok maybe wait till 7.01" you said to yourself.

Let's give him another minute. Maybe he finishes exactly on 7.

You try to be patient by shifting your mind to your phone screen. You scroll down your social media, instagram and twitter, looking at the edits and tweets from your fans, they always manage to bring a smile to your face and make you feel better.

Looking at the corner left of your phone. Your eyes widen when the time tells it's 7.15 already.

"What?! Oh, you've got to be kidding me, Tom," you sigh.

You throw your phone down and steps toward his office room.

Knocking on the door but you don't bother to wait for his answer, you just push it open. Tom still sits on his chair eyes focused on the iMac screen in front of him. The familiar voice of Christopher McQuarrie fills the room.

Geez, he's still in a damn meeting huh.

You're standing still by the door, leaning on the door frame, and have not to step inside his room. His eyes shifted from the screen to your figure. Tom quickly put his hand on the mouse and click on something which I'm guessing he was turning off the microphone or the camera.

"Gosh, really, Tom?" You cut him and pouted.

Tom silently curse to himself. He lost track of time and accidentally forgot that he promised you earlier to take you out for dinner.

"Honey... I'm so sorry, 10 more minutes," he said with a guilty look on his face.

"I'm starving!"

Nope. You're not really hungry yet, you just want him to get out of this room you hate so much and just be with you for the entire night.

"We're nearly done, I promise you, 10 more minutes, and you look beautiful sweetheart," Tom smiles.

You roll your eyes, "Fine," you sigh and walk inside of his office room.

"10 more minutes or I'll drag you out of this room myself" You sit on the sofa in front of him. Tom grins at you, he always finds amusement when you're annoyed, he told you that you look adorable when you're upset.

You sit there silently, crossing your legs and hand holding your face. Your eyes are glued on your husband while his went back to the screen already.

McQ already asking back for his opinion over some input for a stunt. Tom then shares his opinion and his ideas for another daring-impossible stunt that he will do for the next movie. Yeah, yeah, when Tom and McQ are put together, everything comes sensational. The creativity and dedication these boys give in to make a movie and to entertain the audience are out of this world. And that, you always adore that about your husband. Although sometimes it annoys you when he got very busy and has little time to spend with you.

Your eyes then went down. Tom's wearing that blue jeans button down, which he kept the first few buttons undone revealing his beautiful tanned skin. His hair is slightly longer than usual, cause he'll be filming as Ethan Hunt. And my oh my, you like it longer like that. The way he's so focused on the meeting and how he explains the ideas from his head is appearing to be sexier than how you should've found it.

Maybe it's because you're missing him. Maybe it's because you're needy now of him.

Or maybe it's just the way he is. Everything about this man always makes you crazy for him.

Tom glances at you shortly and a slight smile appears on his face when he founds your eyes didn't even shift a centimeter away from his figure.

You look over at your watch. It's 7.26 and yet he's still rambling to describe how he wants the stunt to be exactly like how he pictures it in his head.

You stood up in front of his table and just point at your watch around your wrist. Tom doesn't even bother to look at you back and just lifts his hand in the air telling you to wait again.

You click your tongue and tilt your head to the side. He's really testing your patient here huh.

He ignores you again and just gives you that same hand gesture telling you to wait again.

But you had enough.

Looking around his table, suddenly a brilliant idea popped on your head. You take one rubber band from the little bowl he has on top of his desk and you tie your hair up in a ponytail.

Tom took a glance at you which you only repay with a playful bratty smirk. Someone then ask again for his input and his eyes went back to the screen.

You drop to your knees and crawl carefully under his desk.

"Yes, I'll have it confirmed to the studio soon. Uh---"

Once he found you under the table and in between his legs, Tom's eyes widen at you in shock.

"What are you doing?!" He mouths at you silently. But you didn't answer him and only grins at him.

You run your hands on his thighs. Even though they're covered with his jeans but you can feel his bulky muscular thighs underneath. Tom shifted in his seat but he try to remain calm in front of the camera. Your hand starts to slip underneath the button-down to find the button and the zipper of his jeans. Tom tries to stop you but you push away his hands from you and you stare back at him sharply then you continue to unbutton and unzip his jeans.

"Uh... Don't we have a meeting, Chris, with uh... paramount next Thursday?" He continues. You could hear a clicking sound from his mouse.

"What are you doing?!" He quickly asks as he holds both sides of your arms.

"You made me wait! You can't keep your focus on me so i have no choice but to fish for your attention, baby- McQ's asking for you. Answer him." You told him.

His eyes went back up to the screen and he unmute the mic again to answer McQ.

"Uh.. yes, sorry what was that McQ?"

"Are....you okay?" McQ concerningly asks.

You nearly chuckle there but you hold it in. You continue to unzip his jeans and take out his shaft through the fly hole. Tom hisses when you have your fingers around his cock.

"Yeah, yeah, sorry, I thought I see mice down here." He cleverly lies. "What was that Chrissss" he hiss again and slightly jolted when you put his member inside your mouth. His eyes widen and his hands are firm on a fist.

"Um... i was saying, we'll have it confirmed to paramount at that meeting, right?"

"Mhmm" Tom mumbles and try his best to not groan in front of the camera while you are down on your knees in between his legs and have his hardening member inside of your mouth.

You pull out his cock from your mouth and you pump his cock while you lick and sucks his balls. Tom takes a deep sharp breath and grips your arm firmly. His blood starts to surfacing, making him look flushed.

Tom quickly turns off the camera.

"Shitt!" He exclaimed. "S-sorry guys i think something is wrong with my camera," he lies.

Tom pushes his chair back till it hits the wall behind him and he also pulls you with him. He's giving you more room for you to work on, so you don't stay in the small room under his desk.

You put your index finger in front of your lips telling him to stay silent before you take his cock again and put it inside of your mouth. Tom bucks his head back at the contact of his cock inside your warm mouth. He pulls back his head again to meet your eyes.

"Are we done, McQ?" He asks.

Huh, now you're asking to have it done.

You just keep on doing your job there in between his legs. Sucking on his member, bucking your head up and down, and stroking the remaining length of him that you couldn't take to your mouth. Tom runs his finger through your hair. Holding the back of your head while you keep bobbing your head at his length, taking him as far back to the back of your throat.

"One more Tom, about Norway--"

Tom quickly mouths "Fuck" as he rolls his head.

He wants to have the meeting ended instantly. He wants to be able to groan and moans loudly now. More than that, he wants to have you. He wants to rail you now on top of his desk.

"I have asks Michelle to have it booked for mid-March, is it okay?" McQ continues to asks.

".....M-Mid march?" Tom thinks. "Isn't Oscar's in mid March?"

"Um... yeah, March 12th i think-- wait you're going to the oscar?" McQ asks back.

Hid member starts to pulsating inside of your mouth. You could feel that he's close. Tom put his fist to his mouth, trying his best to hold back not to come right now.

"Tom?" McQ calls again.

"Yesss! Yes, still here." Tom answers

"Are you sure you're okay? You sounds like you're out of breath..." McQ asks confused to himself.

"I'm okay, I'm.... really. Okay." Tom sigh and his grips on your hair tightens.

"About oscar... We'll-- Mmm... we'll see! We'll see later about it." He tries to answer the question as normal sounds as possible.

His jaws fall agape and his eyebrows pinched together. Tom buck his head back again and close his eyes shut. He's so close.

"Okay, then i guess that's all for this meeting. Any thing more you want to add, Tom?" McQ asks before closing it.

"N-no!! Thank you guys!" Tom's practically trembling.

"Thank you, I'll end the zoom, see ya" McQ said before the iconic system sound when a zoom meeting ended played out.

Tom quickly opens his eyes again, looking at the iMac screen to confirm it himself that the meeting is ended.

"Ohh-- you little slut!" He finally could verbally react to your sinful actions.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.... keep sucking me like that, you fucking minx!"

Tom's hand on your head, helping you to guide your movement down at his length. He also starts to buck his hips upwards, fucking your mouth.

"Oohh, honey, I'm coming!" He breathlessly said.

A few more swipes of your fury tongue on his sensitive head and he burst his seeds to the back of your throat. His muscles flex. And he grips onto you hard, hard enough to maybe let a bruise afterward. But you love every time he left a love mark on you.

You slowly pull your head back and his cock falls out from your mouth. You swallow his seeds and clean the remaining mess of his around your lips and on your fingers. You suck one by one of your fingers which are glazed by his precum mixing with your spit.

Still with a panting breath, Tom chuckles at you.

"You..." he shook his head.

"Now I got your focus on me," you said with such a sultry tone.

"Oh darling, you know you always do have 'em"

You clicked your tongue and roll your eyes but then you both laugh at it. Tom pulls you for a kiss then. It was a long warm and deep kind of kiss. One that always makes you certain that you are the number one priority in his life. And that he loves you, more than anything in this world.

Tom then breaks away from the kiss and rubs your cheek softly. He stares at you deeply with such adoration in his eyes.

"Wow darling," he whispers.

"You sure gonna wish you'll never have meetings at home from now on," he said with a devilish smirk on his face.

You're sure you start a new challenge for him. But at least, now he knows not to make you wait again.

#tom cruise #tom cruise x reader #tom cruise fanfiction #tom cruise x female reader #tom cruise smut

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digiscariot · 8 months

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Intro post woooooo

You can call me Jam or Digi :3

I don’t have any pronoun preferences (I do refer to myself as a lesbian, so take that how you will)

Been using this godawful webbed site for years, but I wanted a new blog to post cringe even more effectively

My interests are constantly shifting, so I’m not making a comprehensive list, but my most consistent ones are:

Marine life and science

Bugs, gastropods, and all other manner of invertebrates

Writing (and worldbuilding, but I’m pretty casual about it)

Movies of all genres, but mainly horror

Clowns :)

One Piece, Chainsaw Man, Fire Punch, Gurren Lagann

Digimon (obviously), Don’t Starve, Stardew Valley, Peggle, tons of other games that I can’t remember right now

Solitaire (I probably won’t post about it, but I think about it all the time, so I would be remiss not to mention it)

And so on and so forth and et cetera

I don’t really have a DNI! Just be normal in my asks/tags and we’re aces :)

I am an adult, so I may occasionally be Horny on Main, and (unless it’s fandom stuff), I may not tag it :P Major triggers will be tagged “tw [triggering content]”! Be vigilant and curate your own online experience!!!

(This is my favorite picture I have saved. You will look at it.)

#i’ll come back and add some tags later once my blog actually exists

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donutloverxo · 3 years

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Anniversary

This is written for my dear friend @just-one-ordinary-fangirl's 1000 followers challenge. Congrats on such a huge milestone! I used the prompt "Oh, honey, what on Earth were you thinking"

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

Summary - You try to cook for your future husband and fail miserably. But there are other ways you can make it up to him 👀

Warnings - 18+ only please. Explicit sexual content, daddy kink, deep throat.

Pairing - Andy Barber x reader

Word count - 1.4k

You huffed out a breath, some flour that was stuck on your upper lip along with it, pushing the strand on your forehead behind your ear with the back of your hand, although you were pretty sure they were already completely covered in flour and what not.

You sniffled as you looked at the state of your kitchen, fighting back tears because you literally had one job and you couldn’t even get that right.

“I’m so useless...” you mumbled.

Usually Andy was the one to do the cooking and you’d just ‘help' by hugging him from behind--because it was really nice to feel his hard back and butt pressed up against you--or by snacking on whatever he was cooking or tasting his food and giving him pointers. Either that or you both would just order in.

But now you were engaged.

You had a brand new solitaire on your hand and you had to work on being a good wife. How had to gone almost thirty years without knowing how to do something so basic and essential?

Maybe you shouldn’t have picked a meal as tough as a chicken pot pie but that was Andy’s favorite and you wanted to do something special for your anniversary. Pasta or spaghetti doesn’t exactly scream effort or I love you. It’s not like you’d be very good at that either. You didn’t even know how to properly boil an egg.

Because you were too busy wallowing in your self pity, you didn’t even hear Andy come in and yell out his customary “Honey, I’m home.”

You snapped your head up at him when you heard him call out your name. Placing his bag on your marble counter he examined the mess you had made and then you.

“Oh, honey, what on earth were you thinking?” he cooed. Not angry in the slightest but rather sympathetic. Especially when he saw how watery your eyes were and how dejected you looked.

He pulled you into his chest, rubbing your arm after placing a tender kiss to your forehead. He never let you even touch the stove and for a very good reason. “Why is my princess so upset?” he asked. Although he had an idea why.

He pulled away, taking your hands in his to check for any injuries and make sure that you were okay.

“I wanted to do something special for you,” you mumbled, playing with a button on his shirt, “But it all went wrong and so fast. Even though I followed the darn instructions!” you whined, resisting the urge to stomp your feet.

He sighed, pecking your lips, “You take such good care of me, sweetheart.”

“No, I don’t,” you puffed your cheeks like a little chipmunk, “I’ve never cooked for you and I don’t know how to make you feel special.”

“You make me feel special and loved just by being with me,” he smiled, kissing your knuckles. “Now, how about you and me go out for dinner? Would that be an okay way to spend our anniversary?”

“Um, did you get me anything?” you asked. If he hadn’t that maybe you wouldn’t feel terribly guilty about ruining your gift to him.

“I sure did, honey. I would never forget,” he said with a stupidly handsome grin, so proud of himself. You would usually throw a fit if he hadn't but right now he was being annoying.

“Andy,” you frowned. “I put all my eggs in one basket. I didn’t get you anything! I’m such a bad girlfriend.”

“Fiancé,” he corrected. He didn’t like it when you forgot even if it was just a mistake. “This,” he said, tracing the ring on your finger, “means that you belong to me, Mrs Barber. And don’t you forget it.”

You gulped at the dominance in his voice, “Yes daddy.”

“Good girl,” he praised, cupping your cheek as you leaned into his touch. “You being mine is more than enough for me. But if you really want to make it up to me.... you know what to do,” he hummed, pushing his thumb inside your mouth.

“What?” you blinked, feigning innocence and pretending that you didn’t notice his hard length pressing into your hip.

“You can try to take my dick down your throat,” he told you, now pushing two of his fingers in your mouth to prep you.

“I’ll try,” you said but it came out a bit incoherent since your mouth was full.

It also earned you a slap to your ass, making you jump and yelp around his fingers. “You’ll have to do better than that sweetheart. You’re getting spoiled. Maybe I’ll return the present I got for you.”

“No no,” you frantically shook your head, “I’ll do it, daddy, promise,” you swore, holding out your pinky.

He was nice enough to bring you to the living room and giving you a pillow to kneel on while he sat back against the couch.

“It’s not gonna suck itself, sweetheart,” he said as you mumbled out an apology and started working in unbuckling his belt and unzipping him with shaky hands.

You had let him use your mouth plenty of times, but he was just so big. Bigger than any man you had ever been with. You could barely get half his length in your mouth. And while he encouraged you to take as much of him as you could he was understanding when you couldn’t. And mostly desperate to get his own mouth on you.

You licked your lips when you pulled out his pulsating manhood, “So big,” you wondered out loud, scared of what it’ll do to your poor throat.

“It’s okay, honey. You can take it in your pussy, so you can take it in your mouth too if you try hard enough.” His patience running thin as he pushed you towards it.

You could barely take it in your pussy. Andy would literally have to prepare you and use lube. As good as it was, it left you with a delicious ache and sometimes wobbly for days.

You sucked on his tip, moaning at the sweet and salty taste of pre ejaculate leaking out as your hands fondled his balls.

“It’s yummy,” you looking up at him, licking your lips of the cummies smeared on them.

“If you make daddy happy you’ll get even more of it,” he promised, pushing your head down his length, “Open wide,” he instructed.

And you followed like the good girl that you were, taking as much of him as you could till he hit the back of your throat, making you gag and cough around him when he tried to push you even further.

He traced a thumb over the imprint of his dick on your throat, “Try to relax your throat a bit, sweetheart. Can you do that for daddy?” He asked, wiping away a stray tear from your cheek.

You nodded as he pushed you even further down, and despite your coughing and sputtering you took all of him till your nose touched the soft curls at the base of his cock.

You swallowed around him, moaning which he pinched your nipple through your shirt.

“I love it when you do that,” he groaned. Almost coming then and there when you swallowed around him. “Hang on, sweetheart,” he said as he held onto the back of your head. Lifting his hips off the couch he slowly fucked up into your warm mouth, his balls tightening when he saw you drooling around him.

You made sure to swallow every last bit of daddy’s cum, heaving and taking in some much needed oxygen when he finally let you go.

“Show me, honey,” he ordered. You opened your mouth to show him that you swallowed all of it.

You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. “Where’s my gift?” you asked eagerly.

“Such a greedy little thing, aren’t you?” he teased, pinching your nose.

He showed you the box of designer heels he had got for you. You had been asking him for them for weeks and he was hesitant because they were so expensive and you had more than enough shoes.

You squealed loud enough for the whole block to hear, hugging him tightly and smiling so fondly at him when he put them on your feet. As if you were Cinderella.

“You like ‘em?” he looked up at you.

“I love them. Thank you, daddy.”

Tags will be in the reblog! Click the link in the bio to be join the taglist or shoot me an ask/dm. Comments and reblogs are really appreciated! ❤❤

Please note that my work is not to be reposted or published anywhere other than my Tumblr or AO3 account without my permission. Reblogs are most welcome though!

#joof500challenge #andy barber #chris evans x reader #andy barber x oc #andy barber x you #andy barber x y/n #andy barber x reader #defending jacob fic #defending jacob fanfic #steve rogers x reader #steve x reader

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doctorstethoscope · 3 years

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The Right Chapter 21 || Aaron Hotchner x Fem Reader

Helloooooo my friends!!! You are going to love this one. I am so excited to hear what you think about it. Hold on to the fluff my loves.

Read previous chapters of this fic here!

warnings: food mention, alcohol consumption, discussion of pregnancy (not reader), mild sexual content

wordcount: 1.9k

“Okay, be honest. How many nights have you actually spent here since you moved in?” Emily asked, perched on the couch in your apartment, a glass of wine in her hand, a few empty bottles scattered between you, her, JJ and Garcia throughout your living room.

“That’s not fair! We spend way more nights out on cases than I do at Aaron’s place,” you laughed from across the living room in a lounge chair.

“You know that’s not what she meant, peach.” Garcia chastises you, and JJ lets out a snort.

“It doesn’t matter. Her non-answer is answer enough,” she points out, and you all laugh together.

“It’s a good thing,” Garcia reminds you.

“Oh, absolutely,” Emily concurs. “We’re all glad you finally figured it out. I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to stand you making googly-eyes at him during active hostage situations.”

“I did not!” You defended yourself with a smile, hiding your grin behind your fourth-- or was it your fifth?--- glass of wine.

“You weren’t that bad. That’s not to say you were good at hiding it, because you weren’t,” JJ assures you. “But you held it together in the field.”

“See, guys? And JJ’s sober.” You reminded the group.

“Are you sure you don’t want a glass?” Garcia offered her.

“No, I’m alright,” JJ denied. “Actually, I offered to drive because…. Will and I are expecting!” She announces, and your faces all light up in unison.

“Jayje!” Emily squeals, practically diving across the couch to wrap her friend in a hug. Penelope is right behind her, and you all take a moment to fuss over her and feel her non-existent bump before settling back into your own seats.

“Oh, that means you and Hotch are next!” Garcia asserts drunkenly, and you tense, although you doubt any of the ladies noticed.

“You think you’d want that? Kids, I mean?” Emily asks you, reclining back in her chair.

“I don’t really know what Aaron wants,” you shrug the question off, averting your gaze to your wine glass.

“That’s not what we asked,” JJ redirects you, apparently unwilling to accept a non-answer this time around. “What do you want?”

“With Aaron? More kids, definitely more.” You confess. “But Aaron’s older than I am. I don’t know if he feels like he’s done with that part of his life, you know?”

“There’s no way. He loves Jack more than anything.” Emily concludes. “He seems like the type of guy who’d love to keep you barefoot and pregnant, even if it’s only because he’d get to pull you out of the field and keep you safe at home.”

You let out a real laugh at Emily’s assertion. “Well, if he ever asks me about it, I’ll be sure to include that in my supporting arguments.”

“Trust me-- they never feel done with being a dad. How do you think Will and I ended up with baby number two?” JJ reminds you with a wink.

“Oh, you guys would just have the cutest babies. That dark Hotchner hair and your pretty eyes!” Garcia gushes, her lower lip starting to quiver.

“Okay, and that’s my cue to get her home,” JJ chuckles, rising from her place on the couch. “Drink some water before you go to bed, okay? And maybe eat something, and take some advil?”

“Okay, mom,” you rolled your eyes, standing up and giving your friends hugs goodbye as you said goodnight.

“Hey, someday you’ll understand,” JJ tells you. “It will be sooner than you think, I’d bet.” She winks, and you roll your eyes at her again, smiling as you walked the three of them to the door.

----------------

“We’re going on a date tonight,” Aaron tells you as the two of you leave the office a few nights later. “Jess agreed to take Jack.”

Your brow furrowed in confusion. “Am I forgetting something?”

“Only that I love you, and as your boyfriend I reserve the right to take you out whenever I please,” He smirks, placing a hand on your back as he opens the door and helps you into the car.

You roll your eyes, but you’re not quick enough to come up with some smart-ass comment, so you let him have the win as he drives you both home.

“Should I wear something specific?” You ask as the two of you walk into the house together.

“We’re gonna walk downtown a little, so something comfortable,” he advises. “Do you need to do anything other than change, or are you basically ready to go?”

“I could use ten minutes to freshen up,” you tell him, and he nods with a smile.

“Take your time, we’re not in any rush,” he says, kissing your temple and moving into the bedroom to change into something more comfortable as you step into the bathroom, adjusting your hair and makeup just a tad. When you come back into the bedroom, Aaron’s switched into jeans, so you do the same. You go to fish your wallet out of your work bag, and Aaron slaps at your wrist lightly.

“Stop it. You don’t need that,” he tells you, and you roll your eyes with a playful smile.

“You’re a neanderthal,” You tease him, letting him guide you out of the house and back towards the car.

“No, I was raised right,” Aaron corrects you.

“What if I want a drink and I get carded?” You smirked as you buckled your seatbelt. You were younger than Aaron, yes, but not by that much.

“If you get denied because you don’t have an ID on you, I’ll stop at the gas station on our way home and buy you a six pack of bud light.” He assures you as he backs out of the parking lot.

“So romantic,” you cooed overdramatically, tossing your head back with a laugh. Aaron takes advantage of the opportunity to lean over the console and press a quick kiss to your jawline.

A few moments later, Aaron parks the car in front of a greasy spoon downtown that you’d never been to before, and you give him an inquisitive look. It’s not that you minded at all-- any time you spent with Aaron was perfect in every way. But his dates were usually a lot higher-key.

“I’ve got to keep you on your toes,” he shrugged with a boyish grin as he took your hand in his on the sidewalk and walked you into the restaurant. He let go reluctantly as the two of you slid into opposite sides of a booth.

“So, it’s safe to assume that there’s more to tonight’s date than burgers and milkshakes?” You ask Aaron after the two of you have placed your orders.

“Oh, absolutely,” Aaron nods, smiling smugly.

“And are you going to tell me what that might be?” You asked hopefully.

“Absolutely not,” Aaron confirmed what you had already suspected.

“Not even a hint?” You asked.

“You’ll find out in due time. Be patient, princess,” he encourages you.

“I’m willing to beg,” you informed him. You were sure that whatever he had planned would be romantic and wonderful, but god did you want to know.

“Darling, I’d really prefer if you saved that for our bedroom,” Aaron deadpanned, and you choked on your water.

“Agent Hotchner!” You chastised, catching your breath.

“Come on, now you’re just teasing me,” he winked, and you felt butterflies in your stomach.

“Well, is it working?” You asked, wondering if you could flirt your way into some intel.

“Not a chance,” he admonished you playfully as the waitress sat your meals down in front of you.

After dinner, Aaron took your hand back in his and led you out of the restaurant. You started to head off towards the car, but he stopped you.

“You did want to see what else I had planned, didn’t you?” He asks, facetiously.

“Yes please,” you smiled shyly.

“Take a walk with me,” Aaron says, tugging you back into him so he can wrap his arm around you. It takes a couple of paces for him to find his metaphorical footing, but after a moment, he speaks up again. “I haven’t been clear with you about what my intentions are, and I wanted to apologize for that.”

“Aaron, you don’t have to--” you start, but he cuts you off.

“Let me, first, please?” Aaron asks of you, looking you in the eyes, and you nod, giving him permission to continue. “I haven’t explained to you exactly how I feel, and because I didn’t do that, you’re having to worry about silly things, like whether or not you have the same amount of experience I do, or whether or not I’m going to run off with Jack’s teacher or one of his friends moms.”

“Well, I’m less worried about Rhonda now that I’ve met her wife. But Ms. Meadows is still on my watch list.” You tell him, and he chuckles, taking your hand in his and kissing the back of it as he takes you down a side street.

“Darling, you’ve got nothing to worry about. That’s what I needed to tell you. I’m all in, sweetheart. You, me, Jack, and anyone else we might add to our family-- that’s all I want. That’s my priority.” He tells you, and your breath catches. “So, I got you a little something, just to show you how serious I am,” He says, leading you into a jewelry store. You stop in the doorway.

“Aaron Hotchner, please tell me you’re not proposing at the jewelers.” You whisper out, not wanting to cause a scene. You would have said yes, regardless, but you were struck by a little bit of shock.

He chuckles and shakes his head. “No, dear. Come on in, and I’ll show you,” He takes your hand again, and you step into the jewelry store with trepidation. The man behind the counter seems to recognize Aaron, as he produces a bag from the back counter once they make eye contact. Aaron passes the bag to you, and you push through the pink tissue paper to uncover a box, in which you find a single diamond solitaire pendant.

“Aaron,” you start breathlessly, but he’s already taking the necklace out of your hands and maneuvering the clasp around your neck.

“This is just a placeholder, until you’re ready for the real thing,” Aaron whispers, pressing a kiss behind your ear once the necklace is secure. “But since we’re here, would you want to try a few on? So I know what you like? You’re not allowed to take the real one off, once it’s on. So I want you to be happy with it.”

You’re sure that you’re dreaming your way through the rest of the evening. You try on what feels like every ring in the store, including the ones you insist are too expensive, but Aaron refuses to listen. You’re practically floating on air during the walk back to the car, and you let out a sigh as you settle into the passenger seat.

“I know I said you weren’t allowed to take the ring off, and I meant it,” Aaron tells you. “But if you’re not ready to start thinking that way, I understand. This is at your pace. You just let me know, and I’ll pump the breaks.”

You practically launch yourself across the center console, taking his face in your hands and kissing him. “Does this thing go any faster, actually?” You ask, and he laughs as he kisses you again.

tagging: @romanogersendgame @wanniiieeee @zheezs14 @greeneyedblondie44 @angelic-kisses13 @baumarvel @ssamorganhotchner @ijustwannaread2k19 @rexit-mo @shmaptainhotchnersmain @qtip-blog @averyhotchner @the-modernmary @itsmytimetoodream @choppa-style @hotforhotchner11 @infinite-tides @isthatme-thatsme @g-l-pierce @bakugouswh0r3 @ssahotchie @sleepyreaderreads

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner x reader #hotch x reader #aaron hotchner x you #hotch x you #hotch x y/n #aaron hotchner x y/n #aaron hotchner fic #criminal minds #criminal minds fic

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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 2 years

Text

tuesday again 2/8/22

lots of short things this week. snacks, perhaps. bite-sized. little nibbles of content, even. no recipe edition, trying out a thing where i talk more about how i stumbled across a thing

listening i have never had a listening party or a youtube watch party go well or be even halfway enjoyable, but my housemates’ and my music taste overlap in such weird ways that sitting around adding things to a queueueueueueue and shouting about how girls are hot was super fun. shout out to The cover of all time, rina sawayama’s enter sandman. this breaks my cover rule, in that i don’t normally like a cover unless it’s radically different from the original, but i like this very crisp and clean version way more than metallica’s version

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youtube

reading fallow week. i do want to shout out this specific sentence that made me laugh like a hyena. came across this chefs kiss of a sentence bc i like gita jackson’s work and make a point to read all her stuff

Former New York Times commentator Bari Weiss, currently running a Substack newsletter that is the single thing standing between the United States and the dark tyranny described in Warhammer 40k,

watching yes i saw the two hour nft video bc of who am i am what i do for a living, no i do not want to talk about it on my free time.

love secret base, hate sports, simple as. got here through the 17776-> john bois twitter -> secret base pipeline, bc he does fucked up sports video game stuff for them like this. apparently professional players are either very good baseball pitchers or very good baseball hitters and there’s very little overlap? why is this?? are the biomechanics that wildly different???

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youtube

playing shoutout to Flick Solitaire, whose devs have been getting a lot of shitty reviews and flack in the app store reviews for commissioning a card set with Black hairstyles called My Hair Is My Crown. this is a two-man dev team who have built a perfectly serviceable little app. i don’t know that i like the feel of flicking cards as opposed to tapping them, but the app supports both and it’s much prettier and more colorful than my previous solitaire app, bc the game of solitaire itself is just engaging enough to keep my attention wandering when i’m tryign to listen to podcasts. how did you find this one kay? well, a new professional contact on linkedin posted a little cheer-up comment in one of the devs’ linkedin posts asking for advice about what to do about this barrage of bad reviews. game discovery! it happens everywhere!

also, Globle. wordle but for countries? monday’s was a tiny caribbean island nation that took me 24 tries. i think if a version of this existed that was JUST overseas territories of various countries i would be much more interested, bc there’s surprising shit all over the place and right now it’s very easy to quickly narrow down the general area of the daily country. think this one was in a kotaku article, which i do not have on my rss feed but check a couple times a week for like. temperature checking?

making added a loveseat and a coffee table to the evil lair and im a little cranky i did not do this earlier, but this house is BARREN okay we are putting together basically everything together from scratch. NOW we have a comfy place to have afternoon tea bc my housemate got real fucking hype about it, i did not have the heart to say “i don’t want to do this” and then it ended up being a ton of fun anyway and i found a bunch of new music to mull over.

this is the exact loveseat i had in college, but mine used to be sort of a denim? a joveseat, or a juton, if you will. this is bc i forgot that this company is not very good at accurately representing colors, bc i thought i was getting a light tan loveseat and instead got a pale grey. it doesn’t make a ton of difference in the room but it was momentarily startling as i ripped the packaging asunder

the blanket, as you may recall, was one of a number of pieces looted from an estate sale last summer. likewise with the round chair, which is very pretty but very uncomfortable.

the coffee table is off craigslist, bc i thought to myself “i want a glass coffee table so the openness of this gigantic room is preserved a little bit” and this was the one in the sweet spot of available, interesting, and cheap. it weighs about as much as the loveseat.

the secret to an eclectic house style is using every wood tone at once, i think, bc there’s a wall of birch veneer bookcases just out of frame and a dark knotty pine TV stand.

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem #Youtube

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thisisgonnafuxkinkillme · 3 years

Text

Don’t Call Me That Anymore

Toshinori Yagi x Reader

Warnings:

Angst, body insecurity, big sad

Alcohol

SPOILER UNDER THE CUT!

(Post Retirement All might)

You walked alongside your boyfriend, your hand being loosley connected to his via your pinky. You dragged him to your favorite thrift shop, where you often liked to try on fancy abandoned ball gowns and take photos. Or, on days where you felt a little more casual, you’d search for some interesting clothes to wear.

Everything was fine, the little outing going along as usual. He’d generally stay by your side, his eyes wandering from the dull clothes you often would pick through.

It was when you heard a small gasp that you knew something was wrong. You glanced at the direction of his gaze, seeing an abandoned All Might figure laying on the floor, the price tag displaying proudly that it was 75% off.

“Even to be on sale at a thrift store, eh?” he mumbled to himself. His hand clutched his chest, trying to physically push the pain down and out of his frail body. You tried to pretend like you didn’t notice, and guided him to another aisle. Silently, you planned to leave as soon as possible.

---------------------------------------days later---------------------------------

You scrolled through your phone mindlessly, not really caring about the outside world this very moment. All that mattered right now was your loving boyfriend, who was sitting on the other side of the couch. He was mindlessly scrolling through the tv channels.

Suddenly, he paused. You didn’t notice it, that subtle shift in his attitude, the slight tension that grew within him, and the tiny hitched breath.

He clicked on it, and on screen was...him.

“So, All Might, what’s an average day like for you?” some well dressed reporter asked him. He flashed that crowd pleasing grin as he thought.

He had just finished fighting a villian, and had a small droplet of blood dripping down his forehead, threatening to drop into his intense yet amiable eyes.

“Well, I guess it’s like anyone else’s,” he said thoughtfully, “I just get up, drink some coffee, and-” the man on screen dissapeared, being replaced by a woman showing us the weekly weather. Again, Toshi said nothing, but his eyes were dark and his jaw was clenched. You grasped for his hand as he stood up. His knees popped and his back cracked, only reminding further that he was getting older and weaker. He clenched his fist and dissapeared into the bathroom.

You didnt know what to say or do, knowing that the wrong thing will only make things worse. Your heart ached deeply for him, but how could you help? Could you help?

That night, Toshi came home with something he usually never played with: alcohol. By this time, you had already forgotten about the incidents earlier.

“What’re you gonna do with that?” you teased. He smiled back weakly. Internally, his heart dropped. He’d been caught.

“You want some?” he offered nonchalantly. You nodded, taking a small shot. You never drank either, unlike other people your age, so when the alcohol passed your lips and slid down your throat, you couldn’t help yourself from sputtering and coughing. He patted your back gently.

“You alright there?”

You nod, smiling a little. If you’re honest, things like that were always so embarrasing. You hated him see you act your age.

He took a shot, too, smooth and quick. He noticed you stare, and grinned.

“I used to...a little, when I was younger.”

After the last two words, his eyes grew dark again.

when I was younger.

He poured himself another shot, swigging it down like nothing. You still felt the burning warmth of the shot you’d taken. You couldn’t stop yourself from worrying about how he’d probably be feeling right about now.

“Hey, uh, Toshi... don’t drink too much too fast or you’re gonna get sick,” you gently suggested.

“I will be fine...don’t you worry about me,” he reassured. You nodded, but didn’t really believe him. Is he fine anyway?

You relaxed on the couch, playing a video game on the switch as Toshi occupied himself with the tv and a deck of cards. He loved to play solitaire, even after being mocked by the students at UA when he’d bust out his worn deck during breaks.

Time passed, swiftly yet gently, but the silence got the better of you.

“Hey, Toshi, lemme get another shot of that stuff”

He didn’t respond. You looked up from the game to see that his cards were all mixed up, reds being on reds and the kings on top of the queens. He had his head gently resting on the cold, wooden table, eyes only staring at the tv blankly.

It’d been quite a few hours since he’d had his first shot, and it definately has worn in. Not too far from his card playing set up was a glass, 1/4 full of what you just assumed was orange juice. You now were suspicious, quietly taking it and giving it a sniff.

It certainly was orange juice, but there was something mixed with it. The alcohol smell burned your nose.

Your heart dropped, knowing that that orange juice was to the brim when he brought it in.

“Toshi...”

He flinched at his name, but still didn’t say anything. His eyes, though glazed over and pitiful, were focused on something. You glanced up at the screen, where an All Might documentary played.

You bent down to Toshi’s level, where he was sitting on the floor in front of the table, combing your fingers through his hair.

“Toshi, look at me.”

His eyes lazily found your face. He brought up his hand to your cheek.

“I-I’m ffine, dea-darlin..g..” he stumbled out, his speech slurred and laborious.

“Let’s get to bed, honey. I can help walk you there,” you offered. He protested futilely, as you pulled his arm over your shoulder and supported his weight with yours. He was mostly deadwight, making his 160 pounds feel more like thousands. You guided him down the hall, slowly but steadily, each step taking exponentially longer than a sober one would. He kept one hand on the wall.

His fingers grazed the frame of a photo. He looked at it.

It was All Might, proudly standing with a group of kids.

Toshi couldn’t hold it in anymore. He stood up, shakily but on his own, and pulled his fist back, swinging at it. Glass landed everywhere, and a small hole in the wall stared back at him.

He spit at the now broken photo at his feet.

“yo-you’re not e-ven real...n-no-not any...not anymore...I hate you...” he mumbled drunkenly. His hand fell limp to his side, scarlet blood shining against his pale, white skin. And dripping onto the floor.

You tried your best to hide your shock and you directed him into the bathroom, where the first aid kit was. He laid on the floor, pressing his face into the comforting coolness of the linoleom. You wanted to scream at him to knock it out, and to just get up, but you knew that even if he desperately wanted to, he wouldn’t be sober until the next morning.

You looked down at his small, skinny form, that lay breathing on the bathroom tile. You'd never seen Toshi, in any form, look as weak as he did now. Your heart ached. This wasn’t him.

Suddenly, he shot up and lurched towards the toilet, emptying the contents of his stomach. You rushed over to his side, moving his forelocks away from his face. He was pale, white as a sheet. The bags under his eyes were deeper and darker, and his usually bright blue eyes were dulled down to a muted navy. Tears pooled down his sunken cheekbones.

"n-no...go- get awa...y"

You said nothing, but ran cold water through a washrag, soaking it throughly. He remained hovering over the toilet, violently retching.

The alcohol was attacking his skinnied, sick body more than he thought it would. As you approached him with the rag in hand, he returned to the chilled floor.

You placed the rag on his sweaty forehead gently, rubbing his arm. He pushed you away as best as he could, still crying silently.

"p..ple-please, y/n...d-don't look at me...n-not like...not like this..." He choked out in-between sobs.

"I'm not going anywhere, babyboy. I'm sorry." You apologize, getting out some first aid supplies for his knuckles.

"...please...jus-just..."

You hushed him, gently taking his bloodied hand. He tried pulling away weakly, but to no avail.

"...let me...let me jus...take care of it...I can..." He mumbled. You paid him no mind as you quickly but effectively wrapped him up.

As soon as you were finished, he was back in front of the toilet again. Not much more was coming up, but the sickening retches and sobs still shook within his frail chest.

You bent down next to him, rubbing his back, whispering small words of praise and encouragement. He began to calm down a little as he sat against the wall of the bathroom. He started off into the distance.

"I...why can't I be like...like him anymore?" He muttered,

For a split second, you were confused.

“Like who, baby?”

His eyes stared into you, harsh enough to scald you. Realization hit.

“All Might?” You quietly asked, your hand moving towards his. He slapped it away half heartedly.

“n-no... that’s-he’s not- I-I’m not-“

He began to rip at his hair, his sobs getting louder and more violent. Fear grew inside of you, not knowing how to contain this small man that was so engulfed in despair and grief that he couldn’t see how wonderful he is as a person, not just as a hero.

Toshi got his worth from what he could do for others. He doesn’t feel like he deserves love, especially if he’s not giving it to someone else in just the right way. If he’s not helping anyone, what good is he? And in his smaller form, how could he help anyone?

You grabbed his wrists, making sure he couldn’t hurt himself anymore than he already has.

“Toshinori, please listen to me!” You begged. He went limp. He couldn’t catch his breath, and he was definitely hyperventilating.

“Take some nice, deep breaths for me, okay, sweetie?” You firmly yet sweetly ordered. You set the pace and he followed, his breaths shaky and labored. He calmed down quite a bit, and you loosened your grip on his wrists.

“Do you really love me?” He whimpered quietly.

“Oh, honey... of course I love you. I’ve always loved you, even before I knew who you were. Who you are.”

“You...you were right the first time. Were.”

“No, baby. When you go out in public, people still know you’re All Might, and-“

“Don’t... don’t call me... that name... please, not anymore.”

You didn’t even know how to respond to that. Your heart ached at his pitiful tone.

“Y/n... you don’t know what people... what they say about me now. They laugh and say that I’m just a toothpick. They... they whisper about how I don’t look so good, and about...” he began to cry again. This time, quietly, privately. He curled up into himself, tucking himself away from you and the rest of the world.

“Well, of course people will say things like that,” you began, “did you ever consider that there were some people who criticized All Might, too?”

“...what?”

“Listen, honeybee, people are always going to be saying bullshit like that. No matter who you are. But guess what? There’s always, always going to be more people who are excited to see you, who will always accept you, and who will always see every beautiful gift you have to offer to this world. I know how hard it’s been for you, but you need to know that you’re still so loved, so wanted, so needed in so many people’s lives.”

“Like who? Who could possibly...who could need someone like me?”

“Me. Toshi, I need you here. I love you. We met when you were in this form, in this very body. Don’t you remember?”

He nodded. You wiped away a tear gently.

“I loved you for who you are, not who you were or what you’ve done. For you.”

Shakily, he whispered, “I... I love you, too.”

For the first time that night, he clutched you closer to him. You pulled his head into your chest, as he nestled into you. You couldn’t help but spare a few tears, but he never knew that.

“Are you ready to go to bed?”

He nodded, his grip tightening around your shirt. You helped stand him up on his shakey, baby deer like legs. You led him down the hall, and he paused at the broken photo.

He gestured towards it, mumbling something.

“No, baby, don’t worry about that. I’m going to clean it all up.”

Finally, you arrived at the bed. You pulled back the duvet, readying it for him.

He laid into the soft mattress, sighing in relief.

You tucked him in, standing up. He reached his hand out, begging, “please...don’t leave...me...”

“I’m coming right back, honeydew. I just need to clean up the picture and turn everything off. Okay? Do you need a glass of water or anything?”

He shook his head. “Let... let me clean it up tomorrow, please.”

You ignored all of his pleas for you to leave him be earlier, but something told you that despite his drunken stupor, he really meant this one. You washed your face and tidied up the bathroom, quickly turning off the tv and getting his cards put up, and finally dumping the orange juice cocktail down the sink, along with the rest of the alcohol. Your heart panged, noting the tiny amount remaining in the crystal clear bottle.

Despite him denying his need for water, you brought him a tall glass of ice water along with a smaller glass of ginger ale, as well as a new chilled washcloth.

He was nearly asleep when you got back, but perked up at the sound of your footsteps.

You urged him to drink just a tiny bit of the water, and he obliged. You praised him heavily, placing a kiss on his cheek, before climbing into bed. He turned to face you, pulling you close to him. He kissed you on your forehead before drifting off into a deep, restful sleep.

The next morning, you woke up to an empty bed. You scrambled to get up and rushed into the kitchen, where you found Toshi sipping a modest cup of coffee, the photo of All Might placed in a brand new frame, proudly displayed on the kitchen table.

“Oh, Toshi! You scared me when you weren’t in the bed.”

He looked out the window, sighing deeply. He smiled at you, saying,

“Don’t worry... I am here.”

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24-guy · 3 years

Text

Coming back to this after watching Wilbur's DSMP videos and oh my god the parallels.

Let's talk about it, shall we?

The similarities and differences between Wilbur and Revived!Wilbur.

Because I think they're not all that different at all.

(Usual disclaimer, this is all characters. This doesn't reflect how I feel about the content creator, if anything this makes me praise him more because this is excellent writing.

My memory is also awful, so if I get some details wrong, I apologise.)

This all sprung from one of my friends mentioning that people thought that Ghostbur and Revivedbur were all separate parts of what once was Wilbur's brain. That, in death, it split. Leaving his ghost form with all of the good, posotive things that Wilbur was, and Revivedbur had everything else.

I argued that, no, they weren't. Because Ghostbur wasn't Wilbur. Ghostbur was so far disconnected from Wilbur that Phil couldn't love him the way he loved Wil when he was alive.

And Revivedbur is everything about Wilbur. And this is gonna be what we're going to focus on. Because it's so interesting.

Let's start from the beginning, then.

Wilbur joins the server, recruits Tommy on his big plan. He's going to make a drug van. And they do, for the time going on. They make some walls, recruit more people. And then a greater power comes and they start arguing. Seeing who's "dick is bigger" as the phrase goes, Wilbur doesn't want fighting. He refuses armour. Only puting it on when it's needed to go against the greater dream smp.

Then you go to pogtopia. And he tells half truths a lot. This is the first case of Wilbur being manipulative. And it's a really smart way of doing it because we, as the audience, are put onto it to. We watch as Wilbur tells half truths and causes chaos, and uses those around him and commands. They're no longer on an active battlefield, and he commands them anyway.

He dismisses Tommy a lot. Even before pogtopia. He treats Tommy giving away his discs as something he should have done.

Now let's look at Revivedbur.

He came back to live, he recruits Tommy to join him. Starts a feud with a bigger power. Has a literal (and figurative) dick measuring contest, seeing who could get taller, him or Quackity. He blatantly lies, too. He does know things about TNT still, but he says he doesn't. We didn't get to see that for nothing. He recruits Ranboo. Makes a Van. All the while refusing armour to be worn.

He's following the same steps, in a different order.

I think it's because of Limbo.

I've spoken about this a little before, but I'll go over it again for your viewing needs.

In limbo, wilbur spoke about playing competitive solitaire.

Which, can't really be done unless you have two people and two decks of cards.

Solitaire is a single player game. You try to complete each suit in the shortest time. Sometimes, you can't. There is no solution.

I think Revivedbur is treating life like solitaire. He's laying each of his cards down, red over black, black over red, to try and get his happy ending. Because that's all you can do. You have the same sets of cards, the moves are going to be the same. Put the six of hearts over the seven of clubs and you have your turn taken. You can do that move an unmeasurable amount of times before you win.

It's so interesting because he's playing against nobody but himself. Revivedbur is playing against his former self by seeing the moves he's taken, and putting the best ones first.

These would be recruiting tommy, making a van, and apparently going against a bigger power.

And I think the reason he wants to go against this large force is because it ended well the first time. L'manberg got their independence. Thanks to Tommy.

Which is something I think Wilbur knows, as well. Wilbur, this time around, doesn't want independence. At least not that we know about. Wilbur has his ligitimate burger van, with his teenage employee who's having a relationship crisis behind the scenes.

Wilbur doesn't lie about the van this time around.

It ended badly when it did, last time, remember? They got raided.

Wilbur is not a stupid man, he learns from his mistakes. And he uses that learning to make his plans stronger.

And he has had 13 years of isolation to learn from his mistakes.

#dsmp #dream smp #dsmp theory #dsmp analysis #dream smp theory #dream smp analysis #wilbur soot #dsmp wilbur #revivedbur #revived wilbur #long post

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lucienballard · 3 years

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The Velvet Underground’s 30 greatest songs – ranked!

30. Ride Into the Sun (1969)The Velvets recorded two versions of Ride Into the Sun: a fabulous 1969 instrumental laden with fuzz guitar and a hushed 1970 vocal take backed by organ. Somewhere between the two lies one of their great lost songs; Lou Reed’s disappointingly flat 1972 solo version doesn’t do it justice at all.

29. Run Run Run (1967)For all the shock engendered by the lyrics of Heroin and I’m Waiting for My Man, the most malevolent-sounding track on the debut album might be Run Run Run, a powerful R&B groove lent a gripping darkness by Reed’s noisy guitar playing and the screw-you-I-take-drugs sneer of his vocals.

28. Beginning to See the Light (1969)The title suggests awakening, the melody is bright, but the lyrics are dark and bitter. They may have been directed at John Cale, who played on an initial version of the song, which was subsequently re-recorded after Reed sacked him, against the wishes of his bandmates. A ferocious 1969 live version amps up the tension.

27. Foggy Notion (1969)Reed was a lifelong doo-wop fan. His passion usually found its expression when the Velvet Underground recorded backing vocals for their ballads – as on Candy Says – but the tough, rocking Foggy Notion went a stage further, gleefully stealing a chunk of the Solitaires’ 1955 single Later for You Baby.

26. The Gift (1968)In which the band set a two-chord grind that may, or may not, have been based on their instrumental Booker T in one channel and a blackly comic Reed short story read by Cale in the other. “If you’re a mad fiend like we are, you’ll listen to them both together,” offered the producer, Tom Wilson.

25. Guess I’m Falling in Love (1967)Recorded at the White Light/White Heat sessions, but never completed, the April 1967 live recording of Guess I’m Falling in Love – taped at the Gymnasium in New York – will more than suffice. It boasts three chords, a distinct rhythm and blues influence, Reed in streetwise, so-what punk mode and explosive guitar solos somehow potentiated by the rough sound quality.

24. Temptation Inside Your Heart (1968)“It was not Mein Kampf – my struggle,” the guitarist Sterling Morrison once reflected of the Velvet Underground’s career. “It was fun.” A delightful late Cale-era outtake that inadvertently captured Morrison, Cale and Reed’s giggly backchat as they recorded the backing vocals, Temptation Inside Your Heart bears that assessment out.

23. New Age (1970)New Age comes in two varieties. Take your pick from the world-weary, small-hours rumination found on 1969: The Velvet Underground Live, or the more epic studio version that the Velvets biographer Victor Bockris suggested was “an attempt to present some encouraging statements to a confused audience as the 70s began”. Both are superb.

22. After Hours (1969)The Velvets’ eponymous 1969 album ends, improbably, with the drummer, Moe Tucker, singing a song that could have dated from the pre-rock era. The twist is that her childlike voice and the cute melody conceals an almost unbearably sad song, ostensibly a celebration of small-hours boozing, but filled with longing and regret.

21. I Can’t Stand It (1969)Amid the Velvets’ songs about drugs and drag queens lurked the plaintive sound of Reed pining for his college sweetheart, Shelley Albin, the subject of Pale Blue Eyes, I Found a Reason and I Can’t Stand It. The latter’s cocky strut is disrupted by a desperate lyrical plea: “If Shelley would just come back, it’d be all right.”

20. The Black Angel’s Death Song (1967)There is something folky and vaguely Dylan-esque at the heart of The Black Angel’s Death Song, but by the time Cale had finished with it – alternately strafing it with screeching, insistent viola and hissing into the microphone in lieu of a chorus – it sounded, and still sounds, unique.

19. I Found a Reason (1970)It is one of the ironies of the Velvet Underground that the most forward-thinking, groundbreaking band of their era could occasionally sound like old-fashioned rock’n’roll revivalists. Buried on side two of Loaded was one of the loveliest of Lou Reed’s loving homages to doo-wop, complete with spoken-word section.

18. Some Kinda Love (1969)Musically straightforward, sensual in tone, Some Kinda Love is a complex business, part seduction soundtrack, part refusal to be hemmed in by standard categories of sexuality – “no kinds of love are better than others … the possibilities are endless / and for me to miss one / would seem to be groundless”. Killer line: “Between thought and expression lies a lifetime.”

17. European Son (1967)European Son isn’t a song so much as an eruption. It sounds like a band overturning the established order of rock’n’roll, almost literally: after two brief verses, it bursts into thrilling frantic chaos with a verbatim crash, like the contents of an upended table hitting the floor.

16. Rock & Roll (1970)It is hard to see Loaded’s driving, joyous hymn to music’s redemptive power – “her life was saved by rock and roll” – as anything other than disguised autobiography on the part of Reed. The suggestion that music will endure “despite all the amputations”, meanwhile, seems to look forward to his departure from the Velvet Underground.

15. Candy Says (1969)No one else in 1969 was writing songs remotely like Candy Says, a stunning, tender pen portrait of the transgender Warhol superstar Candy Darling set to a gentle doo-wop inspired backing. Its melancholy seems to presage the note Darling wrote on her deathbed in 1974: “I had no desire for life left … I am just so bored by everything.”

14. Sunday Morning (1967)Sunday Morning was written at the behest of Wilson. He wanted a single that might conceivably get on the radio; he got a haunting, melancholy sigh of a song, its battered wistfulness and undercurrent of paranoia – “watch out, the world’s behind you” – the perfect encapsulation of morning-after regret.

13. What Goes On (1969)Morrison maintained that the studio incarnation of What Goes On wasn’t a patch on the live versions the band performed with Cale on organ. Maybe, but the studio incarnation featuring Cale’s replacement, Doug Yule, is great. It prickles with nervous energy, Reed’s guitar playing is amazing, its churning coda takes up half the song and it still feels too short.

12. Femme Fatale (1967)Apparently provoked by the damaged, doomed Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick – with whom Cale had a brief affair – Femme Fatale is as beautiful and fragile as its inspiration. The story of a wary, ruined former suitor warning others off the titular anti-heroine is lent a chilly edge by Nico’s delivery.

11. I Heard Her Call My Name (1968)In the Velvets’ early days, Reed purported to be “the fastest guitarist alive”. A berserk claim, but his Ornette Coleman-inspired solos on I Heard Her Call My Name are some of the most extraordinary and viscerally exciting in rock history, frequently atonal, spiked with ear-splitting feedback and pregnant pauses.

10. Ocean (1969)The Velvet Underground recorded Ocean several times – one version is supposed to feature the return of Cale on organ – but never released it in their lifetime, which seems extraordinary. It is among the greatest of their later songs, its atmosphere beautiful, the epic ebb and flow of its sound completely immersive.

9. I’m Waiting for the Man (1967)An unvarnished lyrical depiction of scoring drugs tied to music on which Reed’s rock’n’roll smarts and Cale’s background in minimalist classical music – the pounding, one-chord piano part – meld in a kind of relentless perfection. Amusingly, there is now a pharmacy at the song’s fabled location of Lexington 125.

8. I’ll Be Your Mirror (1967)A song about Reed’s affair with Nico that could just as easily be about Andy Warhol’s approach to art, I’ll Be Your Mirror is one of those Velvet Underground tracks that makes their initial commercial failure seem baffling. How could a pop song as wonderful as this fail to attract attention? Nico and Morrison on stage at the New York Society for Clinical Psychiatry annual dinner in 1966.

7. White Light/White Heat (1968)A delirious paean to amphetamine, its subject reflected in the lyrics – “I surely do love to watch that stuff tip itself in” – and the turbulent, distorted rush of its sound. The band appear to be barely in control as it careers along; the chaotic finale, where Cale finally loses his grip on the bass line, is just fantastic.

6. Heroin (1967)Heroin was the deal-breaker at early Velvets gigs, provoking a “howl of bewilderment and outrage”. The shock of its subject matter has dulled with time, but its surges from folky lament to sonic riot still sound breathtaking. Oddly sweet moment: Reed’s chuckle as Tucker loses her place amid the maelstrom and suddenly stops playing.

5. Pale Blue Eyes (1969)“High energy does not necessarily mean fast,” Reed once argued. “High energy has to do with heart.” Hushed, limpidly beautiful and almost unbearably sad, Pale Blue Eyes’ depiction of a strained, adulterous relationship proves his point. In its own vulnerable way, it is as powerful as anything the Velvet Underground recorded.

4. Sweet Jane (1970)Sweet Jane started life as a ballad – see the versions recorded live at the Matrix in San Francisco in 1969 – but, sped and toughened up, it became as succinct and perfect a rock’n’roll song as has ever been written, based around one of the greatest riffs of all time.

3. Venus in Furs (1967)For a band who inspired so much other music, the Velvet Underground’s catalogue is remarkably rich with songs that still sound like nothing else; they were as inimitable as they were influential. Venus in Furs is a case in point: umpteen artists were galvanised by its dark, austere atmosphere; none succeeded in replicating it.

2. Sister Ray (1968)A monumental journey into hitherto-uncharted musical territory, where a primitive garage-rock riff meets Hubert Selby-inspired lyrics and improvisation that sounds like a psychological drama playing out between Reed and Cale, all at skull-splitting volume. Fifty-three years later, it is without peer for white-knuckle intensity.

1. All Tomorrow’s Parties (1967)Ninety per cent of the Velvet Underground’s oeuvre consists of no-further-questions classics. The astonishingly high standard of almost everything they did makes picking their “best” song a matter of personal preference, rather than qualitative judgment. So let’s go for Warhol’s favourite, on which the sour and sweet aspects of their debut album entwine faultlessly. The melody is exquisite; the music monolithic and unrelenting, powered by Cale’s hammering piano and Tucker’s stately drums; Nico’s performance perfectly inhabits the lyrics, which turn a depiction of a woman choosing what dress to wear into a meditation on emptiness and regret. It is original and utterly masterly: the Velvet Underground in a nutshell.

source

#the velvet underground

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slippinmickeys · 3 years

Text

The Annapolis Grant, part 3/?

Despite being in first class and further away from the engine noise at the wings, the throttle up when the engines went to full on the runway never failed to wig her out. She gripped the armrests and closed her eyes, willing her pulse to go down. She repeated safety statistics silently in an attempt to remind herself that flying was still the safest way to travel, but it did little to assuage what she fully admitted was an irrational fear.

“Are you a nervous flyer?” Mulder’s voice rumbled at her shoulder. She opened her eyes to look at him, and he was leaning toward her, a look of concern in his eyes. She wanted to ease her grip on the armrests and give him a reassuring smile, but found she couldn’t. She nodded at him, pulling her lips into her mouth on a breath.

“Would it help to hold my hand?” he asked, rather sweetly holding out the palm of his hand toward her. She was about to refuse when the plane tilted sharply left. They’d opted to fly out of National rather than Dulles, which meant the aircraft had to bank more steeply at takeoff to avoid the no-fly airspace of the Capitol. Before it had even leveled out, Scully found she was gripping Mulder’s hand tightly, which he squeezed and pulled to rest gently on his knee.

His hand was warm, dry and soft, and he twisted it to interlace their fingers, his own long and elegant. Piano-playing fingers, her mother would call them.

“I’m not sure how much of a touchy-feely person you are,” he said after a couple of minutes, “but this is probably good.” He nodded toward their interlaced fingers. “How much public affection are you comfortable with?”

“Honestly?” Scully said, “Not much. But… I think I need to get over that for the purposes of this week. If we’re going to pull this off, we need to be convincing.” Mulder nodded and squeezed her fingers. “I’m not saying we need to lay it on thick,” she went on, “but, you should feel free to put your arm around me or hold my hand, or…” her voice trailed off as her thoughts spun.

“I’ll follow your lead,” he said, then lifted her hand and placed a soft kiss on it.

She felt her stomach dip. What was going on with her?

“Why don’t you tell me about yourself,” he said, “and I’ll do the same.”

“Good idea,” she said, and leaned back in the plush comfort of the first class seat, telling him everything she could think of about herself, starting at the beginning of her life and going onward. He was attentive, occasionally asking questions, and several times made comments that made her outright laugh. “And that’s… me.” She finished, “I work long hours, I practically live in my lab-”

“-and you recently acquired a devoted and loving fiance,” he finished for her.

She chuckled. “Yes,” she said, “and that.”

She looked down at their laced fingers, realizing that somewhere along the way, she’d forgotten to be scared of flying.

“So what about you?” she asked him. “What should I know about you for this week? What will we tell McKay?”

“I’m going to pivot a bit here,” he said, “go with it?”

“Okay...” she was curious.

“Do you have a ring?” he asked her. “An engagement ring?”

“You know, I’d thought about that,” she said. She remembered the first thing McKay had done when she’d mentioned a fiancé, was glance at her ring finger. “I told McKay that the engagement was new and that we were having the ring sized. I went to a couple pawn shops and an antique store this weekend, but I couldn’t find anything that would really work.”

“I may be able to help with that,” he said, letting go of her hand so that he could reach into his pocket, pulling out a small velvet pouch. He set it on the tray table in front of her.

She reached forward and pulled open the drawstring, shaking out its contents onto her palm. She gasped quietly. The ring was gold with an aged patina, a large diamond solitaire sat in the middle, flanked by two emerald cut sapphires.

“Mulder…” she said, looking up at him.

“It was my grandmother’s,” he said. “I find in these… situations, that sticking as closely to the truth as possible can help, well… sell the story. I’ll obviously need the ring back at the end of our arrangement, but little details might help this McKay to…”

“Believe the lie?” Scully offered.

“If you like,” Mulder said kindly.

Scully slipped the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly.

“Good fit,” he said.

She smiled at him and met his eye. “So stick as closely to the truth as possible?”

“Whenever you can,” he said, tucking the empty pouch back into the inner pocket of his linen suit. “So. I’m going to tell you about myself -- things you should be comfortable sharing with McKay -- that way we won’t talk ourselves into any corners.”

“That sounds sensible,” she said, “one thing though.” He raised his eyebrows inquiringly. “What should we tell him you… do. For a living.”

He shrugged. “The truth.�� It was her turn to raise eyebrows. “I’m pursuing my PhD,” he clarified. Her eyebrows went up even higher. “I was midway through my degree when my parents were killed in an accident. My sister was badly injured. She was in the hospital for months. I had to sell my parents house, move back… It cost a lot of money to get her where she is today. I do this job to finance my degree and to take care of her.”

Scully’s heart went out to him. Whatever she’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that.

“Is she okay, your sister?” she asked him.

“Samantha,” he said. “She has good days and bad. We’re getting through it.”

For the first time he seemed to clam up and his openness closed off a bit. She wouldn’t pry.

“What degree are you pursuing?” she asked him.

“Psychology,” he answered.

“Where?”

“Oxford, until the accident,” he said, “now Georgetown.”

Scully looked at him. He was absolutely full of surprises. She looked down at the ring on her finger. It was exactly the kind of thing she would have picked out for herself.

“I’m… I was not expecting…” she started to say before she was aware she’d even opened her mouth, she stopped herself before she insulted him, “this level of service,” she finished lamely.

Mulder stared at her baldly. “We’re a full-service boutique, Dr. Scully,” he said.

Scully felt her face flush.

The flight attendant came by then with hot towels, and Mulder turned from her to politely thank the attendant.

“Mind the prongs on the sapphires,” he said as Scully shook a little heat out of her own before using it, “they have a tendency to catch on sweaters and towels.” She looked over at him and he gave her a quiet smile.

They were the first off the plane, out of the jetway and snaking into the masses -- LAX was absolutely packed, filled with travelers either coming or going for the Independence Day holiday. As they passed a gate that was about to board, a man wearing a huge backpack turned around, not paying attention to the added bulk strapped to his shoulders and bumped roughly into Scully, who stumbled. Mulder smoothly grabbed her elbow, righting her. From that point on, he led her gently through the busy terminal, one hand resting on the small of her back and the other held out to keep people out of her space.

He collected their luggage as it came off of the carousel, taking her suitcase and his own garment bag and slinging it over his shoulder. He then nodded toward an area near the exit doors.

“Come on,” he said, taking her hand, “I think that’s our driver.” There was an impeccably liveried older gentleman standing with a sign reading “SCULLY.” When she looked up at him, his eyes were bright and focused on her.

It was odd. She'd dated men who'd been sweet and conscientious. She'd had boyfriends that made her feel safe and taken care of. She'd met men (and a few women) who made her feel wanted -- who looked at her with a hunger that made her skin feel tight around her bones. But she'd never experienced all of those things at once, all from the same person. An odd feeling that crept up her spine, but she shook it off, following the driver McKay had sent to their waiting limousine.

XxX

She had forgotten about the traffic in LA. Despite the fact that the airport was very near where McKay’s yacht was docked in Marina del Rey, it still took forty five minutes to get to the marina, enough time for Scully to have second thoughts. And third. And fourth. By the time the limo crawled to a stop in a narrow parking lot adjacent to the docks, Scully was as tense as a tightrope, ready to snap.

The driver opened the door nearest Mulder, who rose confidently onto the hot asphalt and held out a hand to help her out.

“This way, please,” the driver said, turning on his heel to lead them toward the docks. Scully turned back to the car to inquire about their luggage, but there were already two -- what Scully assumed to be dockhands or porters, pulling their baggage out of the trunk -- they were dressed alike, each in navy shorts with a walkie talkie clipped to their waist, and a crisp white polo shirt with the name “Dominus” embroidered on the front.

When the driver led them to the plank leading to the boat, she heard Mulder’s small intake of breath. She was bowled over, herself. She’d expected it to be big, but the Dominus was massive. She could see various crew members darting about on the various decks, and there, standing at the top of the teak and chrome boarding plank was Alexander McKay himself. She took a deep, steadying breath.

A man and woman dressed in the crew uniform met them at the bottom of the plank.

“Hello,” the man said, extending a hand. “I’m Greg, I’m the head steward for the Dominus. This is Krista,” he gestured to the woman, who smiled at them warmly, “she’ll be your personal steward. Anything at all you need, find one of us. We’ll be sure your baggage gets to your stateroom. Welcome aboard.” He gestured them toward the ship.

Mulder and Scully both gave them their thanks and then turned to… well, to walk the plank, thought Scully. Into the depths we go.

Just as she was about to take a step, Mulder put a hand on her shoulder and leaned down to place a kiss into her hairline. She looked up to see McKay watching, a smile she couldn’t read playing about his lips.

With Mulder close behind her, she stepped aboard.

#fanfic #msr #my fic #the x-files #au #prompts #don’t get used to daily updates #😅

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ragingpancake · 3 years

Text

Menace 2 Society

Set during any time period when Rodney and the gang are on Earth. Possible The Return era. John's away and Rodney finds out a life of crime really isn't for him even though he's really good at it. ~1600 words. Crack.

Author's Note: a repost from my old livejournal, written for @popkin16 allllllll the way back in 2011.

The alcohol stopped burning several shots ago. Now, it slides down as easily as a glass of water (hold the lemon) so he downs the cheap whiskey and motions for another. He thinks the bartender is smirking as he slides the glass across the counter, so Rodney salutes him sloppily with two fingers. "To," he hiccups and burps. Half the liquid sloshes out of the tiny glass as he raises it in thanks. "T'you. For keepin' the good stuff comin'," he says. Or at least that's what he tries to say but it's possible he's speaking Ancient. He swallows and drops the glass back to the smooth bar top and leans over, pressing his face against the cool wood. It feels good and he wants to close his eyes and just sleep. It's not like anyone would miss him anyway.

He sighs and rubs his cheek against it and then he sighs some more. This has turned out to be a spectacularly shitty day. "Ca'I get one more?" Rodney asks. He wiggles a single finger in the bartender's direction, but he will not be swayed. "Sorry buddy. I think you've had enough." It sounds familiar and Rodney remembers even though he came here to forget. "Says who?" He asks, drawing himself up to full height. It's most likely ineffective because he can feel himself swaying on his bar stool. He'll be lucky if he doesn't topple right over into the floor like Humpty Dumpty and that's enough to set him off in a fit of manly giggles. He mumbles the nursery rhyme under his breath--at least, he means to--as he stumbles to his feet and wrestles his wallet out of his back pocket. His fingers, normally so deft and skilled, feel fat and totally useless as he opens the flap and wrestles a wad of money out. It isn't easy but eventually he's successful. He tosses a couple tens down on the counter. "S'been real, m'man!" He calls to the bartender and sweeps his jacket gracefully off the back of the stool. Well, he thinks he sweeps it gracefully off the back of the stool except he's not graceful even under the best of circumstances and drunk out of his mind doesn't really count. He almost falls, but he compensates and manages to keep himself upright. He's the fucking man. "Smooth, McKay," he congratulates himself and saunters--stumbles--towards the exit. Rodney has one hand on the doorknob when the sound of raised voices catches his attention. He whirls around, but when he stops, the room keeps going and it takes a minute until it stops spinning until for him to see the cause of the argument. A guy who reminds him vaguely of Ronon save for the awesome hair, growling a woman who's smaller than Keller. Normally, he would back out quickly before the giant spots him because this is more John's forte than his, but fortified by several shots of cheap whiskey, Rodney puffs up his chest and opens his mouth before his brain catches up. "Hey!" The woman shrinks back, seemingly trying to disappear under the table as the guy turns, narrowing his eyes at Rodney. "The fuck is your problem?" The guy slurs. Rodney hasn't thought this far ahead but he tries for a defiant slouch and glares. "You're m'problem! Maybe you should jus'... jus' shut up and yell at someone your own size." Had John, Ronon, Teyla or even Zelenka been around, they would have reminded Rodney to take his own advice because how many times had he yelled at poor old Miko over the years? The guy laughs and rounds the table, but Rodney doesn't falter. If anything, he stands--tries to--a little straighter and rounds his broad shoulders. There's a very teeny tiny part of his brain, the part that's going to be pissed at him for potentially damaging valuable brain cells when he's not so drunk, that screams at him to run, but he just holds his ground. "You wanna say that to my face?" The guy asks, so close that Rodney can smell what he had for dinner. It's almost enough to make him throw up. "I said you should jus' shut up." The guy reaches out and shoves Rodney. The extra force is enough to knock him off his balance and he tumbles backwards into the coat rack. He's vaguely aware of the bartender yelling over to them, but he's annoyed now in a way that has nothing to do with idiot lab technicians. It's a struggle to get to his feet but he manages and this time when the guy swings, Rodney has enough foresight to duck. He'll thank Ronon later for teaching him to dodge the obvious blows and he'll thank Teyla for teaching him how to strike. His fist connects with the guy's nose and Rodney can feel the satisfying crunch under his fingers. "I did it!" He says, mildly surprised at actually landing a hit. The excitement doesn't last long though because he's only served to piss the guy off even more and this time when he swings, he doesn't miss. Rodney takes a couple of punches, but they're nothing compared to the beating he would have received before Atlantis, before Ronon

and Teyla, before John. They've taught him to use his bulk, his broad shoulders and big hands, to his advantage and while he doesn't escape completely unscathed, he's pleased to see that the other guy is no better off. Of course, he has exactly three point five seconds to celebrate before his arms are shoved behind his back roughly and held in place by the cool metal of handcuffs. A bar fight and an arrest all in one night? John would be so proud. And it's with that thought that Rodney doubles over and empties the contents of his stomach on the floor. --- There's nothing remotely exciting about being arrested, Rodney thinks mournfully as he shifts in the cracked plastic chair. He doesn't even get to go to real jail. Instead, he's being held in the processing room at the local police department, staring dumbly at the back of the officer's head. He's slouched down in a computer chair, playing Solitaire. Rodney wonders what it means about local law enforcement when they can't even win at that. He wisely keeps this thought to himself. "Don' I get a phone call?" He asks. His head is starting to ache and while he's sure he's already thrown up everything he's eaten in the last year and a half, he still feels like he's going to be sick. He really just wants Carter or hell, even Daniel Jackson to come get him so he can go home and sleep for a month. Or at least until John comes back. "Nope," the officer drawls and that's the end of that. Well okay then. He slumps miserably in his seat, handcuffs clinking the metal rail he's attached to. He really just wants to go home. Not home home but Atlantis home where everything was good and John wasn't being stupid and gallivanting off to another planet in the Milky Way with his brand new team. Without Rodney. Apparently, alcohol was counterproductive because while it was supposed to make him forget, it's all he can think about. He's pulled from his thoughts by the sound of a quiet click and when the door opens up, Rodney can hardly believe his eyes. "Hey buddy," John greets, smiling lazily like Rodney isn't handcuffed for a reason that doesn't involve kinky sex. "What are you doin' here?" "Bailing you out," John says easily. "And really? A bar fight? What were you thinking?" "I was amazing," Rodney says, smiling despite himself. He goes to stand and then remembers he can't exactly go anywhere, so he flops down into the chair and sighs loudly. "John?" "Yeah buddy?" "Can we go home now?" John just grins. --- By the time they make it to Rodney's apartment, Rodney's ready to seriously pass out. He's exhausted and his face is hurting from where that Neanderthal's fist connected with it, but mostly, he's just so happy John is back that he wants nothing more than to get upstairs, get naked and sleep for a month. This time with John. It's a chore to get out of the car and up the stairs, but when John finally shoves the apartment door open, Rodney stumbles in gratefully. "You left me," he accuses halfheartedly as he pulls his shirt over his head with clumsy hands, throwing it onto the back of the couch. "Big jerk. S'your fault, y'know." "It's my fault you got arrested?" "Yes," Rodney sighs. John doesn't argue; he grabs the shirt from the couch and then steers Rodney into the bedroom and Rodney is positive that he's stifling a laugh when he face plants onto the bed. "Turned me into a hardened crim'nal. S'all your fault," he mutters, muffled by the mattress. "A hardened criminal, huh?" "You make me crazy." "I feel the same way about you," John says fondly. The bed dips under John's weight and a second later, Rodney finds himself cuddled up against John's side. He presses his face against John's neck and breathes in his scent. "Don't go 'way anymore, 'kay?" "I'm not going anywhere," John promises. "Especially after this. Who knew a few hours apart would send you spiraling downward into a life of crime?" Rodney just nods solemnly and snuffles quietly against John's neck. "'M such a menace to society," Rodney mutters. John laughs his horrible donkey-laugh and

Rodney feels fond lips against the top of his head. "You're a menace alright. Get some sleep, McKay. I have a feeling you're gonna have one hell of a hangover in the morning." Rodney's already fast asleep.

#sga fic #fandom: sga #mcshep #ship: mcshep #john sheppard #rodney mckay #crack fic #this one always cracked me up

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renjuseyo · 3 years

Note

Can I request a Lucas x male reader where Lucas is trying to ask reader to prom but reader always gets distracted by friends or is too busy with school activities. Then when Lucas gets the chance to reader says no. But reader surprised Lucas with a date at the place Lucas asked him to be his boyfriend. P.S. They are already together for 2 years. P.P.S. I love your writings stay healthy and make sure to take care of yourself

-🧍🏽‍♂️

prom ; lucas

group: nct / wayv / superm

pairing: wong yukhei / reader (male)

synopsis: yukhei only has one goal in mind: to ask you out to prom in the most perfect way possible.

genre: fluff

i had a bit of writer’s block with this one, but i hope this is what you wanted anon! ^^ as always, feedback is greatly appreciated~~

“my plan is absolutely foolproof. there’s no possible way it could fail.”

“that’s what fools say.”

yukhei climbs to a seated position on his bed, folding his arms in a huff. “why would you say that, dude? way to encourage a guy.”

yangyang doesn’t even bat an eye, adding details to a sheep he’s doodling on his economics assignment. “well, when you put it like that, it’s going to spite the universe and make your plan fall apart on its head.”

dejun nods in agreement, tapping on his phone. he’s probably texting that guy he’s been eyeing from his history class, or playing solitaire like the old man he is at heart. “the universe loves playing tricks on happy, unsuspecting people.” he sets his phone down to look straight at yukhei. “happy, unsuspecting people like you. i love your confidence, but i’m just saying. don’t get all mopey if something does happen.”

he crosses his legs, pouting. “i get what you’re saying, but come on, how can a simple promposal go wrong?” dejun and yangyang give him a knowing look, one that screams there are several things that could go wrong, actually. “if it were a big, extravagant one, maybe, but come on. i’m taking (name) out to sushi and bringing him a bouquet of flowers. what’s the worst that could happen?”

“well, he could get food poisoning from the sushi.”

“or he pricks himself from the flowers.”

“or he-”

“i didn’t literally ask you guys!” yukhei interrupts, exasperated. dejun and yangyang give him a mischievous smirk. “you two are horrible.”

yangyang blows him an air kiss. “just here to give you a reality check, my love.”

the two had originally gone over to yukhei’s house for a study party, but seeing how dejun was on his bedroom floor playing solitaire, and yangyang was doodling sheep all over his assignment, they were doing anything but. somewhere along their “study session”, someone had brought up the topic of prom, which was to happen in four weeks. while the two of them had no big plans for promposals (because dejun is waiting for the guy from his history class to make the first move, and yangyang is perfectly content being single), yukhei had constructed a plan to ask his boyfriend of two years to prom.

yangyang sets his pencil down and spins around from his seat. “what happened to your love for big, extravagant promposals? i remember you gushing about that kind of stuff all the time,” he comments.

“(name) doesn’t like being in the spotlight. i think i’ll just make him uncomfortable if i pull one of those stunts with people nearby,” yukhei explains. he would be lying if he said he’s never thought of creating the most memorable promposal for him. hey, it’s not his fault he just wants to flaunt his cute boyfriend for the world to see.

dejun and yangyang nod in understanding, except they don’t, because they relish in the spotlight. “well, prom is in four weeks. will you even have the time to ask him?” dejun asks. “your boyfriend practically drowns himself in homework. plus, he’s on the student council.”

“we both may be busy with school and clubs, but mark my words when i say i’ll get to him!”

“well, as taken as you and your boyfriend are, i hope you realize that there are still people who’ll be lining up to ask you two,” yangyang points out.

yukhei pats his chest, a confident smile making it way back to his lips. “i’m not worried that someone else will woo him. he has me, after all!”

yangyang gags. “gross. i feel sorry for him.”

dejun nods in agreement, cringing. “me too... yangyang, come on, let’s actually be studious and do our homework, unlike that one there,” he sneers, pulling out a pen from his pencil pouch.

yukhei looks at them, exasperated. “oh now you two choose to do your homework?! where was this attitude when i told you two to work on it earlier?!” he exclaims.

dejun shrugs. “i have no idea what you’re talking about. as far as i’m concerned, yangyang and i are students who actually focus on our work.” he gestures at himself and said boy, but the way he’s hunched over his economics assignment doodling more sheep completely contradicts his words. “seriously yangyang? work with me here!” he shrieks, smacking his back.

the younger hisses in pain, glaring at him. “leave me alone! let me draw in peace!”

the older snorts, swiping his pencil away from him. yangyang makes a noise of protest, lunging at dejun to retrieve his pencil, and soon the two are engaged in a fight, limbs tangled together. yukhei can only watch in disappointment. sure, he’s chaotic, but his energy is no match for them. their energy seems to multiply when the two of them are together.

yukhei turns his attention back to the calculus textbook on his lap, ignoring the fight ensuing before him. though his mind is mainly focused on the problems on the pages, a part of him recalls dejun’s words. there isn’t many reasons for him to be worried about his plans backfiring, but then again, the universe has always loved to meddle with people’s affairs. he just hopes it will treat him kindly this time around.

though it’s your final year of high school, you and yukhei only share one class together, to his dismay. even in the hour he gets to spend with you, you’re too busy focusing on the lesson at hand. there’s always lunchtime, too, but both of you have your own respective friend groups, so even if you two are dating, you two spend more time eating with your friends than with each other. he doesn’t really mind, but now that he plans on enacting his plan, not seeing you often will make things harder.

after the bell rings, signalling the beginning of lunch, he makes a beeline out of the door and dashes towards the cafeteria. thanks to a secret source (which is really just shotaro and really isn’t a secret), he learns that you usually eat lunch on the roof of the school.

when he pushes open the door to the roof, he’s relieved to see you with your friends. at the sound of a newcomer, you all turn to look at the door. “yukhei?” you ask, surprised.

his smile widens upon seeing you. “hey (name)!” he chirps.

your friend sungchan raises a brow. “not often we see you here, lucas. do you need something?” he asks.

“yeah, i actually need to talk to you, (name).”

you stand up, slinging your backpack over his shoulder. “sorry, can it wait? we kind of have plans,” you tell him.

yukhei gives them a quizzical look, which doesn’t go unnoticed by you or your friends. “it’s jisung’s birthday today,” jaemin explains. “we’re treating him to food later.”

he recognizes the name; jisung is a first year student who has become increasingly popular thanks to his position on the dance team. he’s also one of your friends and someone you tutor. now that he thinks about it, he recalls yangyang mentioning something about his birthday this morning, but he didn’t pay much attention. maybe he should have. “oh, okay. well, are you free later today?” he asks, sending you a hopeful look.

judging from your apologetic smile, he already can guess the answer is no. “sorry, we’re holding a surprise party for him later. i think i’m probably going to stay over at his house, too.”

renjun, who’s standing beside you, gags. “you two are so sweet, it’s kind of sickening.”

you turn to glare at him, who snickers at your look. “how? and you’re one to talk, mr. i-miss-jeno-even-though-i-saw-him-twenty-minutes-ago,” you spit. his expression is quick to contort to one of embarrassment, spluttering at the name of his boyfriend. yukhei feels like you don’t even realize his presence anymore.

to regain your attention, he clears his throat. “can you spare just a minute? i promise it’ll be quick.”

you turn to face him, but not before sticking your tongue out at a glowering renjun. “oh, s-” you’re cut off when your phone dings, and you glance at the screen to read the notification. a few seconds later, you look back up at him. “on second thought, i don’t think i can, sorry. chenle just texted me saying he and jisung just left mr. jung’s classroom. we should get going now.”

your friends nod and begin packing their belongings. once they’re all set, they walk towards the doorway leading back into the building, where he’s standing. they all pour into the small doorway, leaving you and yukhei alone. “sorry, how about next time?”

yukhei nods. it’s not like he can stop you from celebrating your friend’s birthday, unless he wants to be perceived as a jerk. “no worries, go celebrate jisung’s birthday. make his day a memorable one,” he reassures, smiling.

making sure your friends are far enough, you lean forward and peck him on the lips, catching him off guard. once you lean back, you smirk upon seeing his flustered expression. “catch you another time~”

and with that, you jog back inside to catch up to your friends, leaving a blushing yukhei behind. sure, his first attempt didn’t quite go the way he expected, but he’s not particularly disappointed, considering how he got a kiss from you. plus, there are plenty of other times to ask you again.

perhaps asking you to prom might be harder than yukhei had anticipated.

after jisung’s birthday, he had waited to catch you again when you were free, but you were occupied with homework, as well as duties of being on the student council. apparently jisung’s birthday was the only day you were free. as much as he sympathizes with you, he would be lying if he said he wasn’t disappointed. he hasn’t even been able to talk to you, let alone treat you to a proper meal.

after several weeks of not talking to you, he decides it’s time to take matters into his own hands. if he can’t take you out on a proper date, then he’ll just bring it to you! after inquiring his friends yerim and mark for your schedule, he learns that fridays are normally your free days. he recalls the previous fridays where you were too busy to hang out with him, catching up on projects and avoiding deadlines, so he hopes that this friday you’ll be free.

after school one afternoon, yukhei catches you by your locker, talking to two people he recognizes from the student council. as soon as you see him, you wave the two farewell, and they go their separate ways. he leans against your locker door, smiling down at you. “hello my sweet~” he greets.

though you smile back at him, he can tell you’re drained, judging from the way your eyes flutter close and the yawn that rips out of your throat. “hi,” you greet. “sorry, it’s been a long week.”

he watches as you sluggishly shut the door. “tired?” he asks, draping an arm over your shoulder.

he hums in delight as you lean into his arm, warm and snug. “that’s an understatement,” you tiredly sigh. “i thought being the secretary was easier than the president, but i’m exhausted. all this filing and meetings can really kick a guy’s ass. i finally finished my biology report, but i still have to study for the history test that’s on tuesday. i don’t know how mark does it, being the president and captain of the basketball team. he doesn’t even have bad grades, either.”

yukhei laughs upon hearing you rant, leaning down to press a chaste kiss on the crown of your head. “i’m sure it must be hard. do you think your tired self is up for sushi, though?”

at the mention of food, you instantly perk up. “you know i can never say no to food.”

once you two walk out of the building, pushing through the swarms of students gathered by the entrance, you both head towards the bus stop. five minutes later, you both board the bus and are lucky enough to snag seats. in the ten minutes it takes to get to the sushi restaurant you two often frequent, he’s surprised to see you fast asleep on his shoulder. you really must be tired, because you don’t normally fall asleep so quickly.

ten minutes later, he nudges you awake (he has to refrain from pinching your cheeks at your dazed state), and you both step off the vehicle. five minutes of walking later, you approach the restaurant. for a friday evening, he supposes he’s lucky to have gotten there without it being packed.

you both greet the waitress by the entrance, who leads you both to a booth near the back. after serving you both your beverages and menus, she slinks away, presumably to attend to other patrons. as you browse through the menu, wondering what to order, yukhei glances at you, who seems too concentrated on the menu before you to notice him. he mentally reviews his plan for what seems to be the twentieth time today: order food, eat, pretend to go to the restroom and head to the flower shop next door, and woo you into going to prom with him. what could possibly go wrong?

(upon saying this statement, he learns that’s the worst possible thing you could say. at least, if you want the universe to mess with your plans.)

after discussing what you two will order, he waves down the waitress from earlier, who gets both of your orders. you two spend around five minutes catching up on your lives, talking about upcoming events and games at school. soon your food arrives, and you both dig in. he doesn’t realize how much he’s missed you until he sees the way your eyes twinkle as you happily recall the time the vending machine malfunctioned and gave you two bags of skittles instead of one. it’s endearing, seeing you get excited over the little things.

as you pluck some calamari out of a small bowl, he realizes it’s time to put his plan in action. “hey (name), i’m going to the bathroom. feel free to order some more food if you want, it’s all on me~”

“when you put it that way, it’s like you’re begging to go broke,” you joke, though you nod nonetheless. yukhei gets up and makes a beeline to the restroom. he stands in front of the entrance, peeking behind the wall to make sure you don’t see him. a few seconds later, he quietly sneaks back towards the entrance. luckily, you’re too occupied with the food to notice him.

he steps out of the store and heads straight for the flower shop next door. when he steps inside, the bell above the door jingles, signalling a newcomer. “welcome to yong’s flowers~!” a florist chirps.

“hey hyung,” he greets. the florist turns away from a pot of tulips, revealing a bright smile and even brighter hair. “i came here for the flowers i was telling you about.”

the florist nods, heading towards the back. when he returns, he brandishes a bouquet of red roses to him. “here you go!”

when yukhei moves his hand to his pocket, the florist waves a dismissive hand. “don’t worry about it, it’s on the house. i hope things go well with you and (name)~” he hums, giving him a cheeky smirk.

normally he would decline the kind offer, but he needs to get back to the restaurant soon, otherwise you’ll get suspicious. “thanks, taeyong-hyung. i’ll pay you back next time! wish me luck!” with that, he waves him farewell and exits the store.

he runs straight back to the restaurant, bouquet in hand. the waitress from earlier seems to notice the new addition, sending him a knowing smile. he pays no mind to it though, simply heading straight to you. he notices three new plates on the table, but hey, he isn’t complaining. you haven’t had the chance to properly eat the past week, if you count salads as a proper meal. when you look up from your salmon belly, your eyes widen at the roses in his hands.

it’s now or never, he supposes. he sits on his seat, bashfully sliding the bouquet to you. “i’ve been wanting to do this for the past week, but you’ve been pretty busy, so i haven’t been able to catch you alone. but (name) (last name), would you do me the honor of being my prom date?” he asks, sending you a hopeful look and a bright smile to top off the look.

silence envelops the room, save for chefs yelling and the stove roaring back in the kitchen. from the corner of his eyes, yukhei realizes that the lack of patrons means extravagant movements like his are bound to be noticed by everyone. plus, he wasn’t exactly quiet when he popped the question. he usually doesn’t care, anyways, thriving in the attention. even now, he has nothing to be worried about. besides, he knows what your answer will be.

apparently not.

eyes still wide, you slowly remove the wooden chopsticks from your lips, placing it on your empty plate. he assumes your eyes are still wide out of shock, but when the silence gets too loud for his liking, his smile falters. “(name)...?”

you rapidly blink back to reality. “oh, right, sorry. um...” you take in your surroundings, and he suddenly wonders if this was too flashy for your liking. he watches you with bated breath; you look like you’re doing some mental calculations, eyebrows furrowed like they are when you encounter a particularly difficult question on a test. after you ponder the several options laid out in your head, you take a deep breath, giving him your most sincere look. “i’m sorry, i don’t think i can accept this.”

those nine words and thirty-one letters are enough to crush yukhei’s spirit, evident by the way he visibly deflates. he quickly regains his composure, hoping the smile he has is enough to assure you he’s fine. but from the way you grimace, he can tell he’s doing a poor job at it. “it’s not your fault yukhei, i promise! it’s just...” your voice falters, and the same, contemplative look from earlier returns. “i have something important i have to do that day. i’m sorry.”

no one seems to have seen this rejection coming, and he mentally reprimands himself for thinking of every scenario except the one where you reject him. apparently he looks so devastated that the curious eyes from earlier immediately turn their attention elsewhere, probably not wanting to put him in the spotlight any further. sure, he feels embarrassed, but most importantly, he’s curious. what could you possibly have to do on prom? it’s a friday night, meaning you should be free... maybe you’re occupied with student council duties? but if that’s the case, you would just tell him that. there’s no reason to hide it.

maybe you just don’t want to go with him.

the thought leaves a sour taste in his mouth, but he tries to shake it off. “oh, okay. don’t worry about it,” he says, tone flat. you try to change the topic and compliment the roses and thank him for the food, but no matter what you say, the ugly feeling of disappointment still settles itself in his stomach.

the rest of your dinner is relatively uneventful. yukhei doesn’t want to make you feel more guilty than you already feel, so he tries his best to engage himself in your conversations. after you two eat your fill, he pays for you both (and is surprised to see that the waitress from earlier docks off the price of a few plates. does he really look that pitiful?) and leaves the restaurant. the sun has set, and it won’t be long before the sky darkens.

he approaches the bus stop, waiting for your bus to take you home. “well, i guess we part ways now. see you next week?” he asks.

you nod, clutching the bouquet of roses in your hands. though you had rejected his promposal, he still pushed you to take the roses, claiming he wouldn’t have anywhere to place them at home when in reality, he just didn’t want to be reminded of his failure. “yeah.” you send him another apologetic smile. “again, i’m really sorry. i promise you it isn’t because of you, it’s just...” your voice trails off again. “i have plans.”

he makes the mistake of wondering if these plans mean you’ve accepted someone else’s offer. no, that can’t be it... we’ve been dating for two years. he wouldn’t just accept someone else’s offer. (name) isn’t like that, he attempts to reason. pushing these thoughts away before he says something he’ll regret, he nods. “don’t worry about it, it’s okay.” as if on cue, the bus begins to roll up in front of you two before coming to a halt. “well, your bus is here. get home safe.”

you smile, letting a few people off before boarding the bus. “you too. thanks for the meal and the flowers,” you thank.

he waves, making sure you’re safely aboard before beginning his journey back home. as he does, his phone goes off a few times, and when he checks them, he sees messages from taeyong, dejun, and yangyang. he assumes they’re texting to see how things turned out with you and him.

yukhei pockets his phone and continues walking.

after that failed promposal, yukhei distances himself from you for a few days. seeing you will only bring unwarranted frustration, and the last thing he wants is to blame you for something that isn’t your fault. he decides to distract himself by hanging out with his friends. while his friends prove to be a useful distraction, he would be lying if he said he didn’t miss you.

no one knows why you’ve turned down his promposal. everyone who knew about his not-so-secret plan had fully expected you to accept with open arms. even your friends were genuinely shocked. as they chattered among themselves, wondering what could have prompted the rejection (because what secretive plans could you possibly have during prom?), he noticed that only renjun and sungchan remained silent. looking back, perhaps they knew more than they let on, but at the moment, he was too focused on getting answers from your friends to notice.

it’s been two weeks since that incident, and there are only two more weeks until prom. dejun and yangyang had came over for a sleepover, and right now he’s lying upside-down on his bed, listening to dejun rant about how history boy (who he later learns goes by hendery) finally asked him out to prom. yangyang’s sitting beneath him, scrolling through tiktok, unamused.

“it wasn’t anything extravagant. he asked me for a pencil like usual, and who am i to say no?” dejun begins.

yangyang shoots him an incredulous look. “anyone who asks you for a pencil everyday without making an effort to bring their own are just pathetic. didn’t you say he forgot to give you back your nice mechanical pencils for a week?”

he rolls his eyes. “yeah, but he paid me back by buying me a pack of twelve. and they were the nice papermate ones, too! anyways, as i was saying,” he continues, “i gave it to him like normal, and class went by as usual. but when he was returning it to me after class, there was a note attached to it asking me to prom-”

“and you’re swooning over that? i took you for someone who cried over love confessions in the rain, not promposals written on lined paper during history,” yangyang interrupts again. now that yukhei thinks about it, it does sound a little funny. like him, dejun has always liked romantic gestures. he never would’ve thought a written note would be the thing to sweep him off his feet.

he huffs in embarrassment, glaring at the younger. “be quiet. when you have someone to actually swoon over, you’ll understand what i mean.”

yangyang rolls his eyes. “good thing i’ll be single forever.”

now that they’re on the subject of promposals, he makes the mistake of thinking back to two weeks ago. “i’m glad to hear that you’re happy. i hope you’ll have fun with hendery,” he comments.

at this, dejun and yangyang quickly turn to face him. they seem to have remembered the incident, too, evident from the guilty look in their eyes. “i’m sorry, i forgot...” dejun’s voice trails off, and yukhei suddenly wants to erase the pitying look in his eyes.

instead, he waves a dismissive hand. “it’s all good. if it comes down to it, i’ll just take yangyang with me, right?”

yangyang shrugs. “or we can just stay at my place and binge video-games and order pizza.” he pauses to ponder his suggestion before shrugging. now that he doesn’t plan on taking you, there’s no reason to go and spend the night dancing in a stuffy suit.

just then, his phone buzzes. when he glances to read the new notification, he expects everything except a message from you. since that event, you both hadn’t talked to each other very often. while it was probably because you were swamped with school and student council duties, he can’t help but wonder if you were avoiding him like he was with you.

(name) <3: hey! are you busy right now? [06:59 PM]

“who is it?” yangyang asks, sitting up to peek over his shoulder. yukhei doesn’t move his phone away fast enough, because then the younger frowns. “(name) finally texted you after what, weeks of not talking to you?”

he frowns. “in his defense, i was doing the same, too.”

“yeah, but you had a reason to. because you were upset,” dejun corrected. “did he seriously not once question why you suddenly stopped talking to him?”

he rolls his eyes. “you two make it sound more serious than it actually is. plus, he’s been busy with school. it’s not like his world revolves around me.” he pointedly decides to not add the part where it’s the opposite for him.

you: what do you need? :) [07:00 PM]

yangyang snorts. “with a smiley? dude, you’re whipped.”

“shut up.”

(name) <3: i was wondering if you could meet me at the gym at school in an hour? i’m pretty sure i left something by the bleachers, and i don’t really want to go alone;;; [07:04 PM]

yukhei raises a questioning eyebrow. did you seriously not notice how he had been avoiding you? you’ve always been sharp, so this was surprising. dejun, who’s now seated on his opposite side, seems to notice this, too. “wow, he’s really acting like nothing happened. if he knew you were upset with him, he wouldn’t have contacted you in the first place.”

“if he left something in the gym, it’s not a surprise he’d ask me. i have a spare key to the gym, after all.”

“why do you have it? shouldn’t that be mark?”

he shrugs. “he always loses his things, so he told me to hold on to it.”

yangyang nudges his shoulder. “well? what are you going to tell him?”

of course yukhei’s going to go. it’s almost dark, so it’s not safe for anyone to be out by themselves. plus, as disappointed as he is with his botched attempt of a promposal, it’s you. he can never get mad at people for long, much less if it’s you.

you: sure~ do you need a ride there? [07:06 PM]

(name) <3: no, but thanks for the offer ^^ see you then! [07:08 PM]

he turns off his phone and looks up at his friends, who are looking at him with an expectant look. “don’t give me that look. it’ll be quick, i promise.”

yangyang rolls his eyes. “that’s what you said last time, and then you ended up sleeping over at (name)’s house. do you know how awkward it was, telling your mom that you practically ditched us?”

an hour later, yukhei waves farewell to dejun and yangyang, who decided to play video-games in his room to pass time. as he gets into his car and drives back to their school, he wonders what you could’ve possibly forgotten that was so important.

ten minutes later, he parks to a stop and gets out of his car. after locking it, he walks towards the gym, though he sees no signs of you.

you: hey, i just got here. are you here yet? :0 [08:20 PM]

not long after, you reply back.

(name) <3: hey!! sorry, i’ll be right there [08:20 PM]

unsure of what to do to pass time, yukhei leans against the gym doors. out of curiosity, he decides to rattle the handle to see if it’s actually locked. to his shock, the door swings open upon being pushed, leading him to a pitch black room. the alarms installed in his head, the ones from being tricked into a haunted house by his friends, go off in his head, but unsurprisingly, curiosity trumps his fear. thus, mustering all of the courage in him, he shakily turns on the flashlight on his phone and timidly steps into the gymnasium.

it’s dark and empty, like it should be. so why were the doors unlocked, he wonders? the janitor at school is quite meticulous, so he couldn’t have looked over unlocked doors. maybe...

no, this is not a horror movie, he stubbornly thinks to himself. don’t scare yourself like that! as if on cue, a loud thud echoes throughout the gym, and he stills, unable to move a single limb. this is it. oh my god, am i going to die?

from what yukhei can tell, there seems to be two - maybe three - guys, distinctly whispering among themselves by the corner. the alarms from earlier are urging him to bolt out of the gym and tell you he couldn’t make it, but fear takes over, and he’s frozen.

“...sungchan, you idiot! you’re going to give up our position!” a familiar voice hisses.

“it’s not my fault it’s too dark! you know long limbs and the dark don’t mix well together!” another whispers.

wait. now that he can hear them, the voices sound a lot like renjun’s and sungchan’s.

“renjun? sungchan?” yukhei nervously calls out. because as familiar as those voices are, they could very well be impostors that plan on killing him in the middle of the night. “is that you two?”

he can practically hear them freeze; if the lights were on, they’d probably be comically staring at each other with wide eyes. suddenly, a third voice can be heard. “i knew i should’ve asked jeno or jaemin instead,” he quietly grumbles.

he knows that voice all too well.

before he can say another word, the lights suddenly switch on, blinding him. a few seconds after he’s adjusted to the light, he blinks, and sees you standing underneath the basketball hoop, head buried behind a poster board and a bouquet of red tulips with rose petals scattered by your feet. renjun and sungchan are standing by the light switch, awkwardly waving at him. when he turns his attention back to you, his eyes widen at the poster. there are doodles of hearts and basketballs on its borders, but it’s the words in the middle that catches his attention.

will you go to prom with me?

“what... what is all of this?” yukhei asks, dumbfounded.

seeing how you’re flushed with embarrassment, refusing to remove your head from the poster, renjun steps up. “it’s a promposal. what else could this be?”

his eyes wander back to your shrunken frame, and he can see you timidly peeking behind the poster board. “um... surprise?”

still stunned, he slowly walks to you, shoes brushing against the rose petals. “i can tell... but, i thought...?”

knowing what’s to come, you sheepishly smile. “i spent a long time trying to come up with something that you’d like, since i know you like big, romantic gestures. i turned you down because i wanted to be the one who asked you,” you explain, fiddling with the bouquet.

“wait, wait. when you said you had plans that day...?”

“i was lying,” you laugh. “i didn’t expect you to ask me, so i just came up with a lame excuse on the whim. i’m really sorry for upsetting you, but i didn’t want to ruin the surprise.”

now yukhei knows why renjun and sungchan were so quiet the day he asked your friends about your alleged plans on prom. there are still a few questions he has, but he’s relieved to see everything led to this surprise. at least now he doesn’t need to fret about his insecurities.

“how’d you get in here?” he asks, intertwining his fingers with yours.

you hum, relishing this newfound warmth. “i begged the janitor to leave the doors unlocked. i told him you had keys, and he knows that i’m more reliable compared to others,” you answer.

“so all of the times when you said you were busy...”

you laugh, throwing your head back. “that was the one thing i wasn’t lying about. school and the student council really was kicking my ass.” you point your chin towards renjun and sungchan, who wave. “they helped me with some of the preparations, like ordering the flowers and making the poster.”

yukhei nods. “everything makes so much more sense now... but i just have one more question.” you look at him with curious eyes. “why the gym of all places?”

you shoot him an incredulous look. “did you seriously forget?” judging by the confused look he gives you, you can tell he really did. “you remember the game against the jyp team two years ago, before basketball season ended?” he nods. “right before you guys played them, you pointed straight at me and asked me to be your boyfriend if you guys won.”

he flushes at the memory; in a stand jam-packed with spectators, he remembers only having eyes on you, the cute boy from algebra. prior to that game, you two were already acquainted, even going on a few dates here and there. there was an obvious attraction between you two, but no one had officially initiated anything until that day. he remembers you spluttering in embarrassment, having nearly everyone bore their eyes into you, as well as coming scarily close to losing against the opposing team. but alas, he and his team had triumphed, and while they celebrated, you bashfully accepted his offer and spent way too long making out in the back of his car.

he can’t believe he forgot that he had asked you to be his in this exact place two years ago.

he’s pulled out of his head when you clear your throat, brandishing the bouquet of tulips before him. “you never answered my question,” you whisper.

yukhei doesn’t even need to think about his answer. “of course it’s a yes,” he exclaims, leaning down to press a kiss against your lips. you giggle against them, wrapping your arms around his neck. there’s cheering from across the room, but he only sees you. right now, you’re standing before him, suddenly brighter than ever, and he wouldn’t trade this sight for the world, even if it meant having to go through two weeks of unnecessary frustration to get here.

it’s only prom, not a marriage proposal. there isn’t a reason why they should be acting like newlyweds, yet here they are. but even if they’re only third year students in high school, he knows, without a shred of doubt that he’s in love with you. even if they don’t truly grasp the idea of what love really is, the sheer fullness he feels when he’s with you couldn’t possibly be from anything else.

“you know,” he begins, “i asked you on a simple sushi date because i knew you didn’t like big, flashy things. but here you are, pulling this stunt because you know i like them. we’re just a perfect match, aren’t we?” you roll at your eyes at his cockiness, as well as his suggestive eyebrows, but the smile on your face tells him you agree.

yukhei’s peppering your face with kisses, and all you can do is giggle as you take them. “they act like they’re getting married,” he hears sungchan comment from afar.

“they might as well be. god, couples are so gross.”

“you’re one to talk. you and jeno-hyung act like that all of the time.”

“what! sungchan, come on, don’t joke around like that. we don’t.”

“yeah right.”

“but we don’t, right? ...RIGHT?”

#nct #nct u #wayv #superm #kpop #cpop #nct x reader #nct x male reader #wayv x reader #wayv x male reader #superm x reader #superm x male reader #lucas #wong yukhei #lucas x reader #lucas x male reader #renjuseyo : nct #renjuseyo : fics

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briarlovesclara · 3 years

Text

Wilbur: the ultimate unreliable narrator

A stream of consciousness analysis of Wilbur’s character on the Dream SMP and the stuff I’m afraid people are going to try to gloss over.

Spoilers from Wilbur’s May 5th lore stream, though I hopped in partway through so I haven’t seen the very beginning.

This is stuff that I genuinely believe people need to pay attention to if they want to at all understand Revivebur-- I was very disconcerted about him until today’s stream and I connected some dots.

/rp!

We shouldn’t be surprised.

Wilbur Soot, as in content creator and real person, confirmed a long time ago that the dream smp was full of unreliable narrators, including and starting with his own character. We knew that. His character crumbled before our eyes, but we focused on it wrong-- and we were supposed to. We did what we were molded to do.

Now, I came in late with a lot of things on the Dream SMP. I resisted joining the fandom despite my TikTok FYP until I got trapped by an audio pertaining to Tommy and Vilbur (it was a “let’s be the bad guys” audio). I arrived post November 16th, maybe two weeks later, in that lull period where Ranboo, Philza, and many others were getting onto their feet, Wilbur was dead, and Ghostbur was a full cast member.

And I fell in LOVE with Ghostbur, immediately.

He got me into the DSMP. His character was so rich, and complex, and simple at the same time to the point of fascination. I was able to watch him and understand him, then click off clips of him and figure out who the hell Wilbur was. I filled in the gaps. I watched the story of L’manberg unfold in front of me, its rise and its fall.

And I loved it! I really, really loved it. Wilbur’s character arc sang to me, as a deeply angsty spiral full of power and the need for control to the point of lacking any of it.

But when, a couple days ago, Wilbur got revived, it felt wrong.

I didn’t know why I was so hesitant. I love Ghostbur, and preferred him over Alivebur, sure, but I had liked Wilbur. What had changed? Why did I feel so deeply and viscerally uncomfortable?

The answer, of course, was Quackity. Or more specifically, his lore.

Up until the flashback to the L’manberg era, Wilbur fans had seen the ‘unreliable narrator’ tag as one similar to the way everyone else played it-- the character doesn’t know that they are being unreliable, because everyone experiences things subjectively and we’re shaped by that. That Wilbur’s narration was solely influenced by his deteriorating state of mind.

But then Quackity was shown talking to President Wilbur, what many thought of as the Golden Age, our Wilbur… and it was all wrong.

Not only did this Wilbur not talk like the Wilbur we knew then, he didn’t talk like any Wilbur we had ever seen. Revolutionary Wilbur stood for peaceful discooperation, for bloodlessly removing himself from the SMP and only striking when struck (similar to Ranboo in that sense).

Vilbur was insane, we had all agreed, and he was violent to a point, but never this bluntly. He was wrapped up in himself so much that he was self-destructive more than outwardly hurting anyone else.

But here was Wilbur, canonically, advising Quackity to take the fight to the power. To hurt and to maim, and that the strategies that got Wilbur into power didn’t work.

And it made me uncomfortable, because that wasn’t Wilbur.

But it turns out we were looking at Wilbur all wrong.

When cc!Wilbur told us that there were unreliable narrators, he meant that even the ‘flawed story’ that we were getting was wrong.

The Wilbur we saw wanted a peaceful place to live. He wanted to raise his son and live with his found family by a lake.

Today, we were told that that dream was simply a farce-- but he didn’t want power, simply to take it away.

L’manberg was a tool, a vessel. It was a way of “sticking it to the man” (Dream), a way of rebellion against someone who was unjust. He couldn’t care less about its actual contents, only what it meant. When we wept at the walls falling under Schlatt, under the hand of his own son, he didn’t care. And if he DID care, it was about the fact that Fundy had joined ‘the man’ (Schlatt).

But I think that Wilbur realized that he was the new ‘man’ after all. He was kicked out of L’manberg, sure, but it was by his rules and because of the power he had created. He had, to be a cliche, become everything he sought to destroy, minus the inherent oppression that he felt Dream held.

When I thought of Revivebur, I was so uncomfortable because I was looking at a character that, quite frankly, didn’t add up. I was looking at Alivebur and the person who talked to Quackity and I couldn’t understand how they could be the same person, but that’s the point. They aren’t. The Wilbur we saw, the one we watched fight and scream and die for a chunk of land, never existed.

We were played like we were supposed to be.

Wilbur was never the big, valiant hero he acted like. It was always Tommy. He just wanted something and was getting really into, essentially, the bit. Like a person playing DnD who gets legitimately attached to the storyline. But at the end of the day, he didn’t need it.

Can you imagine playing Dungeons and Dragons, but the NPCs were sentient? Can you imagine putting your heart and soul into a character, so much like you, and falling in love with the people that surround you? But in your heart you know that it is just play, and that they cannot know. And then you leave. Wilbur, essentially, left his fully sentient DnD game running without him.

We were fed a cohesive, in-depth character. Wilbur, our Wilbur. The kid who grew up with mixed feelings and was the storybook hero turned villain against those he once thought with. But all this time, we were just seeing what he wanted us to see. And maybe he started to believe it, because just because it wasn’t true doesn’t mean that he was trying to hurt everyone. He cared, truly, about the people he was with, but not the same way we thought. Every concrete emotion we experienced was a detailed lie that we filled in for ourselves.

After all, Wilbur plays solitaire.

A/N: this didn’t fit into the rant above, but Wilbur’s character isn’t stagnant, he just always needs power and it always creates the same dynamic! It can feel weird seeing the server kinda pull back full circle energy wise to L’manberg with developed characters, but his power rise and fall is just a requirement of his existence. It’s his rhythm.

#dream smp #SPOILERS AFTER THIS TAG #revivebur #wilbur soot #ghostbur #dsmp #beth talks about the dream smp #dream smp unreliable narrators #unreliable narrator #lore stream #wilbur soot character analysis #dream smp may 5th #dream smp may 5 #unsympathetic wilbur soot #beth writes about the dream smp

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batarella · 4 years

Text

I Don’t Hate You - Part 3 (Jason Todd x Reader)

OKAY LEMME TELL YOU ALL I’VE NEVER POSTED ANYTHING THIS LONG. AND I’VE NEVER SMILED SO MUCH WHILE WRITING A SINGLE FIC IN MY LIFE. IT’S 2K WORDS LONGER THAN THE COMMANDER FINALE. TALK ABOUT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.

REMEMBER WHY JADE WEST WAS SO ICONIC IN VICTORIOUS? READ ON!

WORDS: A WHOPPING 7404 WORDS FOR A SINGLE PART OF A SERIES WARNINGS: NEVER HAD THIS MUCH FLUFF IN MY LIFE

Masterlist

I DON’T HATE YOU - MASTERLIST

-----

Hands flat on Ms. Peterson’s desk, you flashed the brightest fake smile you could. She looked up from her computer, probably the fifth round of solitaire for the day, and cocked up an eyebrow. She did not at all look amused at you storming in.

But you’ve been in the library for twenty minutes and this woman has not given you anything to do to keep you in here.

“Listen, Ms. Peterson. As much as we just love hanging out in this outdated hellhole, I’d rather we go home than just sit here and do nothing for the next hour and a half.”

Her shaky hands didn’t flinch. And she turned her attention back at her screen.

“I’m told to keep you in here for another eight weeks. I’ve had this job for fifty years and I’m not about to lose it to two whiny brats.”

“She’s the only whiny brat here, Ms. P.” Jason rested his elbows on the desk and leaned over beside you. “If you let us out, it’ll be our little secret. C’mon.”

Obviously, that sort of trick works for Jason more times than it would for any ordinary person. But Ms. Peterson was not the one to charm with. And she had the same, dead look in her eye when she turned her head at the young man.

“Sit. Down.”

“What the hell are we supposed to do?”

“I don’t care. Just get your asses on those chairs and sit. Oh look! A person in need of service. There’s your job. Go do it.”

Only one guy was standing behind you. You snarled at him, eyes narrowed. You were almost growling beneath your breath which made him visibly stand back. Jason looked at him over his shoulder with less fear factor but with the same annoyance.

The sight of you both made him almost piss his pants.

“Uhm,” he gulped. “Can you please show me where sci fi books are at?”

You cocked up an eyebrow, glancing at your nails before nudging Jason with your shoulder. He grunted at you, giving you that same ‘I really fucking hate you’ look on his face he’s practically embedded onto his own skin by now. You shrugged, looking back at your nails. Then Jason stood straight and held the guy by the shoulder.

“Go through that aisle. Third shelf from the right.”

“He asked you to go with him, Todd.”

His glare on you was really starting to show. “He can find it himself.”

The poor guy gulped and viciously nodded to agree with Jason. He walked away, making sure not to catch your eye. You lifted your elbows from the librarian’s desk and spared the old lady another snarky look, to which she didn’t even bother to notice. Both of you sitting back on the empty table, Jason placed his arm crossed over the other on the surface and leaned his head over to at least try having a nap. His hair was all sprawled out. You, on the other hand, leaned back, head hanging on your neck, and closing your eyes hoping time would fly by faster that way.

It didn’t.

Two weeks. It had been two fucking weeks. And yet, you were far from being halfway through this macabre series of events. Why couldn’t you have just punched that Maxwell kid in the face? Or threatened to murder him in his sleep? Anything else would have been better. Anything that would’ve landed you in an entirely different situation than to be stuck here with an old woman stricter than a Belle Reeves prison guard.

You could either look at the windows out the library, find a book and actually read one of them (though if they had any more of Poe’s you’d likely get your hands on them).

Or just stare at the eye candy in front of you.

Your smirk was less obvious when you glanced over the veins on his large, muscled arms, folded on top of the other with his skin stretched. His thick, black hair that was long enough to cover most of his forehead, now sticking onto his arm. His neck that was long and thick, his thin shirt and how even more lean muscles would pop out when he’d unintentionally flex. You often caught sight of his stomach when he’d reach over a shelf that was at the top most level, and the ‘V’ shape on his skin was more than eminent enough for you to picture. He wasn’t absolutely huge, especially since he was just 17. But he was definitely fit.

You wouldn’t mind looking at that for a while. Not until he starts talking, anyway. For long minutes, that was what you did, then you got bored.

The tip of your boots kicked his shin under the table. He jumped up, startled, almost growling at you with dark bags under his eyes.

“The fuck do you want now?”

“Someone’s a bit angsty today,” your evil little smirk ticked off another of his nerves. You could tell. He let out a large sigh, started leaning back against the back of his chair, then spread out his arms behind his head to stretch.

Ooooooh shit. There is was. The veins.

“I didn’t sleep last night.” Jason finished stretching and went back to lean against the table. “You done gawking?”

“Cute.” You scrunched up your face to mock him. “I’m bored.”

“And what am I supposed to do with that?”

“Help me sneak out of here.”

“Two weeks here. You think I haven’t tried sneaking out once or twice? That woman’s got the eye of a fucking hawk.”

“Is there any other way out of here?”

“I doubt it.”

Your groan was indefinitely long, stretching the back of your neck when you opted to reach for your phone.

“I’m at three percent.”

Jason took out his own phone. “Mine’s at five.”

“That blackout from last night reach your monster mansion, too?”

He snarled at you and rolled his eyes. “Bruce has generators to power up the whole place when we need it.”

“Then why are you at five percent?”

“Because I’ve been tinkering on this sorry little fucker the last thirty minutes.” He held it up with just his fingers. It had a cracked screen. It looked too old to even be used. “Battery drains faster than my patience.”

“Can’t your new rich dad buy you another one?”

“He did. I don’t wanna use it. Just doesn’t feel like mine.”

“Ah. You're one of those guys. ‘My parents are rich, not me’ kind of dudes. You’re all the same kinds of annoying.”

“I don’t act all high and mighty, for your information.”

“I’m just saying,” you raised your arms up. “If I were you’d I’d at least enjoy his wealth. It’s stupid if you don’t take advantage of things you clearly already have.””

He silently shook his head and looked to the side like you wouldn’t understand even if you tried. Scoffing, you turned away, and you caught the eye of Maxwell, who had a sling on his arm still.

“Holy fuck,” you reached for your bag. “I can't believe I fucking forgot.”

“What?”

Pouring out the contents, you mumbled. “Help me with this thing and I swear I owe you a huge favor.”

“I think watching you wallow in your pain would be more worth my time.”

“That sounds more like my line. You’re taking after me. Good. And I’d say likewise if I wasn’t so desperate, Todd.” You started pouring out pieces of paper, a bottle of glue, and a pair of the largest scissors Jason’s ever seen.

“Is that-“

“The scissors that sent that guy to therapy?” You pointed at Maxwell. “Yes. Yes they are.”

“Jesus.” He took it from your hands. “No fucking wonder.”

“Stop ogling and help me.”

“What the fuck are you supposed to do?”

“Remember the project that kid spilled his coffee on? This is it. I finished it that day and now I have to do it all over again. They gave me another two weeks to do it and I completely forgot about it until now. I’m supposed to make a stained-glass kind of picture. But with cutting pieces of colored paper.”

Jason took the paper you had on the table.

“These are all white, black, gray, and one sheet that’s dark red.”

You shrugged. “I like working with those colors. Now help me. I wanna do this.” You pulled out your phone and showed him a saved photo of one you’d like to copy. He almost jumped out of his seat when you suddenly showed him a picture of a deranged clown with a big red nose, a smile much larger than half his face, and eyes dark and dwelling enough to give him nightmares.

“I wanna know what type of dark shit you’re on.”

“It’s just a clown.”

“I am not helping you on your little art project.”

“Please.” Your hands were down, your eyes widened but not the threatening kind. And your voice, it was definitely the softest he’s ever heard it. Twitching an eyebrow like he was watching your every move, Jason didn’t flinch.

He looked at the clock. Then back at you with his eyeballs rolled all the way around.

“You’re lucky I literally have nothing better to do.”

You propped your shoulders up and gave him a black piece of paper and a pair of scissors. “Great. Cut these into the shapes I drew here.”

A disgruntled groan and a sharp snatch from your hands, Jason looked just as cranky as you usually were. It was amusing. He glared at you and you just smiled back. “Thanks, Jay.”

“Shut up and get to work.”

Your eyes lingered a bit longer on him, even when he’d started to fiddle with your too-large scissors, and you rolled your eyes with a bit of a smile.

“What’s making you so grumpy today?”

He didn’t bother looking up at you. His brows were all scrunched up as he cut the black piece of paper.

“I told you. I didn’t get to sleep last night. I was… out. Why are you grumpy all the time?”

You squinted your eyes at him then went to work. Carefully, he went through the first paper and gave you the shapes you wanted. You set aside your own batch and you took out the larger, white paper on which you’d glue it all on.

“Okay. Give me the shapes.”

You took out the glue and started pouring it on the paper.

“You’re doing it all wrong.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“You clearly don’t.” He snatched it from you and started wiping the glue off with his finger, spreading it around. “I can't believe I’m fucking doing this.”

“And what are you doing exactly?” you snarled.

“Pouring the glue in will make it all sticky. You should’ve traced over the outer lines so it wouldn’t crumple.”

“I know that.” You took the glue away from him again, then placed the shape onto the paper. “One down.”

“Fucking kill me now.”

“Keep cutting. I’ll handle the glue.”

“Do it right, then.”

You stuck your tongue out at him. He started again with your scissors and went back to snipping off the pieces of paper. Gluing the shapes one by one, you started taking out a red marker and traced the outlines to mimic the flow of blood.

Jason stared at it, then at you, eyes wide with disbelief, then went back to his scissors.

“Excuse me,” a girl went up to you. A freshman, you could tell. “That lady told me you could show me to the young adult section?”

“No. Go away.”

You kept with your glue, not even looking at the girl who just stared at you awkwardly. Jason pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a deep, long sigh. “Go down that aisle. Fifth shelf. Down the very end.”

“Uh. Thanks.” She walked over to where Jason was pointing at. You still didn’t look up from your work. And instead, watched on as Jason continued with cutting the shapes. “You need to chill.”

“Finish those up. That’s the last one.”

Jason rolled his eyes even more, angrily cutting through the pieces of red paper the size of the clown’s big red nose. He dropped the scissors onto the table and just continued to watch you gluing the pieces together with way too much glue.

He gave you no warning before grabbing the glue bottle from you and the shapes, stretching his arm out so you can't reach them.

“TODD.”

“YOU’RE RUINING THE WHOLE THING.”

“NO, I’M NOT.” You cursed with his name and stood up from your chair, reaching out with your arms all the way to him while he desperately wiped off the excess glue for your sake. “GIVE THAT BACK.”

“SIT DOWN.” He cried back at you.

You heard the shrillest shush Ms. Peterson has ever made, before you went back to fumbling with Jason. Your table was at the far end, and she was no longer at your line of sight. He held your wrist, wiping off the rest of the glue, then finally handed the bottle back to you. Putting the shapes onto the paper, you groaned when you slumped back on the chair.

“It looks horrible,” he tried to stifle a laugh.

“Fuck you.”

“At least you’re almost done, right?”

“You put the glue on the shapes then, genius. I’ll paste them on.”

Grumbling with his deep voice, he took the glue bottle and swiped the shapes back over to him. Using thin, barely visible lines, he was so stingy with the glue you wanted to tear your hair out.

“That won't even stick to a fly trap.”

“You want your work to look all crumpled? Go ahead.”

“Just put a bit more.”

“I have the fucking glue bottle,” his eyebrows were raised. “You sit there and wait for me, then you stick them yourself. Start with this.”

He slammed a shape onto the table and you took it, careful not to hit your fingers with the glue. Biting into your gums, you wondered how you’ll be able to handle yet another eight weeks with his kid.

Your bickering didn’t even stop there. It went on, and Jason had to cut even more shapes to make up for some that were far too small. He was practically yelling at this point, and you weren’t about to get yelled at and not respond.

“YOU’RE THE ONE WHO CUT THEM, DINGUS.”

“HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THE RIGHT FUCKING SIZE.”

“I GAVE YOU THE PATTERN. YOU ONLY HAD TO FOLLOW IT.”

“WELL I WOULD HAVE IF YOUR SCISSORS WEREN’T SO DAMN BIG.”

“THEY’RE THE BEST PAIR IN EXISTENCE. YOU JUST CAN'T HANDLE IT.”

“I THINK I CAN HANDLE A PAIR OF SCISSORS.”

“THEN WHY CAN'T YOU CUT BETTER THAN A FUCKING SEVEN-YEAR-OLD.”

“’CUZ THEY DON’T HAVE A FUCKING PARROT SCREAMING AT THEM EVERY FIVE GODDAMN MINUTES.”

The silent yelling didn’t stop. At the end, your voices were too loud that Ms. Peterson would’ve eventually shushed you for the last time and probably throw her slipper at you. Thankfully, she’d gone out to the bathroom and you were left alone.

Everyone else had left. It was almost 5 pm, and you refused to go if your project still wasn’t finished.

“This. Is. The worst day. Of my entire life. And I used to live in the streets.”

“You're not going anywhere. Stay.”

A deep, agonizingly painful groan. He slumped onto the table and buried his face into his arms. “Why can't you just kill me?”

Another set of long minutes, with your attention directly at the glue and scraping off the excess to make it look presentable. It didn’t actually look that bad. The second set of cut shapes were just the right size. Jason didn’t bother looking up. He might have even fallen asleep with you being silent for the longest time since you got there.

No one was left in the library, and it was just starting to get dark.

“Aaaaand THERE.” You placed the finished project onto the table and clapped your hands together in a grinning happiness. Jason, on the other hand, looked as good as dead.

“You may go.”

“You owe me fucking big time, kid.”

You smirked at him when he violently pushed his chair back, grabbed his backpack and went out for the door. You took your time, especially since going home late didn’t seem like such a drag anymore when Dad moved back in. You carefully slipped your collage into your folder and slung your bag over your shoulder.

Jason was still standing in front of the door, hand frozen on the handle you pushed him away and turned it, only for your hand to come at an abrupt stop and the sound of gears halting its turn.

“Where the fuck is Mother Goose?”

“The bathroom-“

But she wasn’t at the bathroom. Unless Ms. Peterson took her large purse and computer along with her to the toilet, she probably wasn’t in there.

“Are we-“

“There has to be a key here.” Jason rummaged through the librarian’s desk. Every drawer he could forcefully pull out, he did.

You pulled out your phone, which was a dead 0%, the image of a drained-out battery staring back at you, and that’s when you started to feel the panic slowly rise. You rushed to the library’s telephone, but you couldn’t even hear a dial tone. The phone was off. Jason’s phone was probably just as dead.

You rushed to the lights to turn them on, but nothing happened.

Fuck. Another blackout. FUCK.

“No key,” he rested his hands on the table. “Shit. FUCK.”

You only stared at each other, feeling that panic start to settle in when you realized you were out of options.

“M-Maybe. Your dad will come pick us up?”

Jason shook his head. “The last time I ran away for the night, he said he wasn’t gonna go around Gotham to pick me up anymore.” He looked at you. “Your parents?”

“Said the exact same thing.”

Your back hit the wall, and you slid down with your head up in the ceiling. Both silent. None of you even said it out loud.

Jason looked like he wanted to scream.

-----

You laid on your back, flat against the table, with just your arm over your eyes to shield it from the light posts outside the window on the driveway. You tried to drown out Jason’s fiddling with his lock pick and the door handle. Two hours had passed, and you’d barely gone by the evening.

“That’s not gonna work.”

“You have a better option, Lydia Deetz?”

You clenched your jaw and sneered. “You’ve been at it for an hour.”

“I’m almost through this.” He kept with his pick, a hairpin he found on the ground which he spent another hour looking for. “Juuuust- THERE!”

You shot up from the table, feet landing enthusiastically onto the floor and you sprinted to Jason’s back. “Here’s to freedom.”

Too eagerly, he turned the handle and pulled the door with a victorious grin.

Only for his hand to jolt at another abrupt stop. The door wouldn’t budge, only peering open through an inch. The grin on his face was immediately lost, and he almost feel out of his feet when you violently pushed him away, pulling on the door yourself and failing.

You could see the deadbolt, but something outside was holding the double doors from opening, no matter which one you pulled on.

“That batshit crazy old witch,” you growled. “Fucking chain locked the door.”

A loud, frustrated groan from Jason as he threw the hairpin to the ground like he would’ve a knife. “WHO CHAIN LOCKS A LIBRARY?”’

You walked away from the door, going back to the tables so you could bend over and stuff your face into your hands. Jason was even more of a mess.

Your dad started his first big fight with mom since he moved back in last night, just when you thought they’d finalized the divorce, he squirms back in. And your room was never far enough to drown out their screams.

That night you wished you were somewhere else. And you ended up somewhere even worse.

Jason was sitting on the floor, back flat against the wall, and his eyes were shut close while you laid back down on top of the table.

“I’m hungry.”

“The fuck you want me to do about that?” Jason kept his eyes shut.

“You got any food?”

“No.”

“Don’t you have something in your bag?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“You think you can stab me with those scissors? ‘Cuz I feel like choking on my own blood right now.”

You rolled over so you were laying on your stomach. Craning your head up to look at Jason, your chin resting on your fingers, you grinned. “I’d rather not spend the night being stuck with your rotting flesh. I’ll kill you in the morning.”

Jason screamed into his hands. “We are not gonna be stuck here until fucking morning.”

“Either you die tonight still in denial or we actually try to survive. Now do you have anything in your bag or what?”

He didn’t give in to picking out his bag without leaving you a dark glare. The sky was completely dark by now. And the only light source you had were three lamp posts outside the window. The power was still off, which meant it was going to be this dark the whole fucking night.

“Would you look at that?” He took out a small protein bar from his smaller pocket. “Forgot that was there.”

You jumped off the table again. “Great. I’m starving.”

You walked too fast to Jason, who immediately stood up and hold you by the shoulder, raising his hand away from your reach. “Ey. Mine. From my bag, remember?”

“I don’t have anything in mine!” you reached and tried to push him, but had no luck against his strength. “Come on!”

“I have way more body mass than you. I need this.”

You pursed your lips, glowering at him even when you knew he still wouldn’t budge. He kept pushing your shoulder from him until you backed away reluctantly.

“WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO EAT?”

You whined and grunted with your back hitting the wall. Jason stepped away facing you and opened the protein bar, took a large bite that left it with almost a third of the whole thing left.

“You know. That thing with the scissors stuck into your neck doesn’t seem like a bad idea anymore.” You grumbled.

Chewing profusely at the bar, he folded his one arm over his chest and smirked while watching you silently grovel in annoyance. You leaned on your side and made sure he wouldn’t hear your stomach starting to growl.

“Fine,” he groaned. “Here.”

A little over a quarter of the protein bar left. Jason handed it over to you and you gritted your teeth.

“There’s barely anything left, you bile-headed twat.”

“You want me to finish it?”

Snatching the bar away from him, you cursed under your breath right before you gobbled up what was left of the snack. It did little to nothing to make you feel less hungry, but at least you weren’t going to die.

“You're welcome.”

You threw the wrapper onto the floor and went back to sitting on the table. “Got anymore bright ideas?”

“Maybe if you’d help, I’d actually be able to tolerate you.”

Jason walked over to the classics shelf, pulled out a book and did the same as you. He swung his legs over on top of the table across you, bringing his knees up so he could rest his elbows on them. He then opened his book.

“You're reading,” you bit your gums. “You’re actually reading at a time like this.”

“What else are we supposed to do in a fucking library?”

Your hands met the surface of the table behind you and you threw your head back. “We have at least until the power comes back on. GOD, this place in insufferable.”

“Never mind the helping. You shutting up would be enough not to drive me insane.”

“And you're less of an ass when you're not a grouch, dickhead.”

“I’m ignoring you now.”

The vein on your forehead started to throb. You weren’t tired yet, and you wouldn’t be able to sleep at this hour even if you tried. You rolled around the table, desperate for any position that wouldn’t drive your limbs numb.

You jolted when you heard Jason curse.

“This fucking lamp post’s too dim. Can't even see shit.”

He set the book aside, laid down on his back and watched the ceiling with you.

“How did we even get locked up?”

“Maybe if you didn’t keep me captive with that stupid clown project for three hours we wouldn’t be in the mess.”

“So it’s my fault now? You're the one who fell asleep!”

“How could you have possibly missed the time? You know the library closes at five!”

“I didn’t fucking know that! I leave before that old witch does every time!”

“Just-.” Jason shut his eyes. “Can we stop screaming for ONE SECOND? Especially since we’re gonna stuck here the whole night?!”

The mocking noise you made was almost inhuman. Jason didn’t bother snarling back.

You saw a car pass by, the headlights shining through the window for the shortest moment. You kneeled on the table and waved your arms around.

“HEY. GET US OUT OF HERE!”

The car kept moving, and the headlights passed through the whole of the window until it left. You slumped back to lay down and groaned. “Fuck everything.”

You grabbed your bag, rummaging through everything inside just to find anything to do or anything that could possibly help you. Nothing. Not even a fan to cool you off when you started to feel the temperature rise.

“Did you call the number I gave you?”

You licked your teeth. “I used the piece of paper you gave me as a bookmark.”

Jason lifted his arm off his head. “No shame in asking for help.”

“I told you, I’m not being fucking abused.” You started picking on the leather of your boots, tracing along the creases of where your toes folded. “I don’t know what the hell made you think I was.”

“It doesn’t have to be actual physical abuse,” he sat up on his elbows.

“You really wanna make us feel uncomfortable? Why do you come to school with bruises all the time?”

“It’s not what you think.”

“Then what is it?”

He cleared his throat. “I’m not gonna fucking tell you, Y/LN.”

“Fine. Then let’s not talk about this.”

You had that usual condescending tone, but you didn’t sound like you were on the verge of lashing out. You sounded like you were pleading, even. Jason bit his lower lip. “Okay. What do you wanna talk about? It’s too early to sleep.”

You brought your knees up to sit cross legged and you leaned in on your elbows.

“Wanna play a game?”

Jason drummed his fingers on the table and sighed. “What?”

You scooched closer to him and swung your legs over the edge of the table. He did the same and faced you. “Give me your hand.”

“What?”

“Just give me your hand, Todd. Don’t be a pussy.”

“Don’t fucking call me that.”

“Then give me your hand.”

Jason snorted, leaning his elbow over his lap and giving his other hand over to you. You took it, smiling at him, then gripping firmly onto his wrist. “Make a fist.”

He fisted his hand and you could see a few veins pop out on his arm. You started rubbing the outside of his fingers. His eyes scrunched up, watching you. “Open your hand.”

He opened it, then you lightly slapped it with your own palm. “Fist,” you said again. He breathed and pulled it again to a fist. You repeated your first action with a growing smirk. “If I come out of this with one hand left-“

“Shut up. Open again.”

He opened his palm. And with a single finger, you tapped onto the center of his hand, then released your grip on his wrist.

Jason widened his eyes, amused. “It tingles.”

“I know right.” You folded your arms.

“Where’d you learn to do that?”

“That’s a secret.”

He then reached out his other hand to you. “Do it again.”

You laughed and snorted before grabbing his wrist, rubbed his fingers the same way you did the first time. Jason leaned over closer to look at your movements, and his nose was all scrunched up like it would when he was focused on a book. The corner of your mouth lifted, then you tapped his hand with your finger and let go.

“What sorcery is this?”

You shrugged, leaning back and folding your arms. “You have any tricks of your own?”

“Yes I do,” he said, swinging his legs over the edge of the table. “Hold out your hand.”

You did so without hesitation. Jason held your fist, then looked straight at you. “Pick a finger and don’t tell me what it is.”

“Okay?” Your ring finger. Easy enough.

“Look straight into my eyes. Don’t look down.”

You rolled your eyes slightly to the side, licking the inside of your teeth, then did as told.

He was looking straight at you, not even trying to blink. A smirk formed on his lips, and his eyes had that same flick of a glare, but there was a little shine on them from the dim lamp post. You shook your head while still maintaining eye contact and felt his other hand start toying with your fingers.

“It’s your ring finger.”

“Huh,” you shuffled closer to him. “Do it again. I wanna watch your hands.”

“No. You have to look straight at my eyes.”

“Fine. Just do it again. I’ll pay more attention.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled, and you both tried your best to hold back emerging bursts of laughter while he continued to toy with your fingers and trying not to blink.

“You're not choosing a finger.” He said.

“Not true. You just suck.”

It was true. You forgot to choose a finger. The middle finger this time. You shifted your focus, but the way he’d try to hold back a laugh made you choke. “Stop laughing.”

“I’m not.” He so was. You felt him touch your fingers, moving around them one by one. “You’re trying to look for movements.”

“Nope. It’s the middle finger.” He kept at it. Over and over, with you refusing to admit he read your mind.

His hands started feeling warmer each time. You didn’t know you noticed.

-----

A bustling, screeching noise of a cart being hauled around the room for the past ten minutes. You’ve been here for five hours. You were tired, starving, and sweating. You covered most of your face and ears with your hands, but the cart’s noises just kept going.

You shot up from the table. “DUDE. STOP.”

You normally had more insults to scream at him, but at that point of the night, you were all out.

Jason kept going and ignored you. Starting from one end of the library, he pushed the handles of the empty cart, accelerating it with his feet. When he gained the momentum, he placed his feet on the metal and rode it across the room. “Real mature.”

“Don’t be an old hag.”

He accelerated again from the opposite end, then climbed on. Jason went faster this time and just narrowly missed a shelf.

“There’s another cart right there if you have the balls to join me.”

You placed your weight on your arm, watching Jason sprint from one end of the room to the next. With a loud grunt, knowing you wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway, you jumped off the table.

You emptied the cart from the remaining books and pushed it to Jason’s side, who waited for you just by the shelves. “Jump when it speeds up.”

“I know what to do.”

He laughed. “Race you to the other side.”

You gripped on the handle firmly, watching the end of the room, the one lined with heavy bookshelves, and readied yourself. “GO.”

You sprinted the two carts and grabbed on with your life as you sped down the large enough room, feeling the air slightly cooler when it was rushing past your skin and hair. You laughed playfully, stopping just before you hit the shelf. “I win.”

“Are you kidding me? I was waiting for you.”

“One more lap.”

“You’re on.”

Again, you sped past the room. You held onto one side of the handle too hard and accidentally hit Jason’s cart, both of you almost tumbling to the ground. “I call foul!”

“It was an accident!” you laughed, then took the cart again to finish the lap. He caught up with you and you no longer stopped in between, continuously sprinting and jumping onto the metal all across the room. You rode past the shelves, the narrow aisles, narrowly missing the books. You almost hit the tables with the carts and you definitely hit the wall too hard when you stopped too late. Jason was trailing right beside you, then he went about his own route.

That’s when he purposefully hit the front your cart with your own, throwing you off on the ground. “FUCK”

He laughed too hard. “Come on. I have another game.”

Holding his hand out to you, you grabbed on and he pulled you up to your feet. You stood close to him, both of you still laughing. And you were staring too long at his face being close to yours. You pulled away from his lingering grip, looking at the ground.

Setting his own cart aside, he pulled on yours, settling it between the aisle of the shelves. It went straight through the longest path down the room, and you’d have to be lucky to miss the shelves. “Hop on.”

“Todd, if you throw me out the window-“

“Come on. Don’t be a pussy.”

You felt the rush, and you liked how free you felt rushing through the air. You climbed into the cart, grabbing hold of the edges and focused on the end of the room.

Jason leaned in to your ear. “Don’t scream.”

“JASON.”

He was incredibly strong, pushing you in the cart like you weighed nothing and sped through the room faster than he previously had. The cart was growling and was so ready to break apart, but you never felt that kind of thrill since you last rode a coaster. You definitely screamed, a high-pitched shriek you know Jason must never mention to anyone, ever. But you were also laughing your stomach out when Jason turned you around, sped to the other end again. And this time, his feet jumping onto the cart.

You threw your head back, laughing, then you caught a glimpse of his face flashing the brightest smile you’ve ever seen on him.

Your laughter came to an abrupt stop when he stopped the cart too late and crashed against the shelf. You both stood still, watching it toppling like an unsteady jenga tower.

Holding your breath, you heard books fall to the floor, then the shaking mellowed down and you released your breaths when it finally stopped. Turning to Jason and falling into the cart laughing, you clutched at your stomach. “JESUS CHRIST.”

“Not funny!” he cried out, but even he was stifling a laugh. He walked over to the front and placed the books into the cart with you. Some fell on your lap, and you took the books from him and placed them to your side.

“At least we have something to do now.”

“Yeah. Especially since you put these books in the wrong shelf. These belong over there.” He pointed to a shelf nearby.

“Let’s fix it then,” you said, still not moving from the cart. He placed all the books from the floor onto you and moved the cart to the corner.

“You’re heavy.”

“Shut up. From now on, we shelf books this way.” You took a book from your lap and gave it to him, who placed the book in its right place.

“Top shelf,” you smirked.

“I know where to put them.” He took it from your hand and shoved it in place. You didn’t have many books to begin with, but even after that, he continued to push the cart, with you still hitching a ride, and you walked around the library to just look at all the books.

“Everything’s in the right section.”

“Because of me. You made a shit ton of mistakes.”

You threw your head back, looking at him. And from that angle you could see his glare turn into a smile. You leaned against the back of the cart, your head lightly touching his arm.

When you’ve managed to tour the whole library, you sat up.

“You're turn. Get in here.”

Jason wanted to laugh at that. “You’d never be able to lift me.”

“Watch me try.”

You hopped off the cart, pushing him aside from the handle. He shook his head, but eventually climbed on like you had. He was bigger than you, so he looked a lot more uncomfortable with his knees folded way up and his arms barely fitting inside the cart.

He was really heavy. But you managed. Pushing the cart slowly at first, Jason leaned in to the left side to steer you off. “Jason!”

“I see stray books. Go over there.”

You pushed the cart with whatever might you had. When you reached the desk, Jason took the books you previously set aside and placed them on his lap. “Braille,” he said. “These go all the way to the back.”

“I can handle this. I’m a big girl.”

You pushed the cart, eventually gaining speed, but it wasn’t nearly as fast as when he’d pushed you around. You reached the far back, with two sharp turns that nearly killed your back, then stopped with a loud breath.

“You're right. We should do this more often.”

You were panting by that time, and Jason handed you the books to place on the shelf. “Chop chop.”

-----

Two fucking am. The power was still out. Jason was definitely going to call the electricity company when you both get out of here. You were sat cross legged on one side of the long, narrow table, fiddling with your sleeves since you couldn’t sleep. He was laying on the same table but facing the opposite way, closing his eyes and feeling the beginnings of light slumber. His back was going to kill him eventually, but when the rush from that cart fiasco died down, he was so awfully tired.

Jason laid his head on his arm, closing his eyes as tightly as he could.

Then a warm, soothing melody started to buzz through his ears, a tune he’s never quite heard of before. His eyelids suddenly grew softer, feeling the humming song vibrate through him.

Where was it coming from?

He slowly opened his eyes, trying to find the source. Jason craned his head up to you, with your back turned to him, and realized you were the one humming.

You turned to him, and he went back to closing his eyes, pretending to sleep. “Jason?” you lightly asked, not enough to wake him if he was actually asleep. You turned your back around and crouched over to relax.

He wasn’t sleeping anymore, but he kept closing his eyes. A little while later, with you thinking he wasn’t conscious, he heard you actually start to sing.

You got a fast car

I want a ticket to anywhere

Maybe we make a deal

Maybe together we can get somewhere

Anyplace is better

Starting from zero got nothing to lose

Maybe we'll make something

Me, myself I got nothing to prove

Then you paused. Your voice was so soft and light, he never would’ve have heard it if there was anyone else in the room or if he wasn’t awake. You never would’ve sung if you knew he was, though.

You had the most beautiful voice he’s ever heard in his life.

You got a fast car

I got a plan to get us out of here

I been working at the convenience store

Managed to save just a little bit of money

Won't have to drive too far

Just 'cross the border and into the city

You and I can both get jobs

And finally see what it means to be living

Your voice was low, a beautiful, vibrating low. An alto. And there was that deep, breathy growl when you reached the lower notes with ease. A light vibrato at the end of the vowels, and there was that drowsy, slow feel to it that just made it seem like you didn’t make that much effort at all. At some points, you whispered the words, like your everyday screaming never affected your vocal chords at all.

There was a tug at his chest, his face started to burn up. He was wide awake by now, and there was that thudding within him that was too hard to ignore. And it worsened each time you breathed out the end of the verses.

You managed to finish the song, and by then, he was a mess.

You didn’t sing anything more, no matter how much he wished you would. He ended up fighting his tiredness, just in case he’d miss another song.

But right before he drifted to sleep, he realized he’d been smiling his cheeks off.

-----

Twelve hours.

You were stuck in the library.

For twelve fucking hours.

Both of you shot up from the table the moment you heard the chains outside the door clink to the ground. You and Jason raced out the door, and before the security guard could totally open it, you violently pushed it aside and raced out into the wide-open space of the driveway outside the gates. The poor guard looked puzzlingly at you. But since he was too old to care or even ask about what happened, he shrugged it off.

The cool air felt heavenly against your skin, and the bright sun, smiling back at you against your face. You spread your arms out and took in the breeze as much as you could. Jason was fanning himself with the collar of his shirt, raising his arms up the same way you were. “AHHHHH.” He screamed. And you did the same. The frustration went out the window as fast as you’d ran.

“FUCKING FINALLY.”

“THAT IS NEVER HAPPENING AGAIN.”

“NEVER.”

You faced the sky, still taking the deep, fresh intakes of air. Jason placed his hands on his hips and ruffled his sweat covered hair.

“Don’t tell anyone about this.”

“Agreed,” you said. “Not even Ms. Peterson.”

“Not a single soul.”

You both faced each other, raising your brows, no longer from a glare or out of annoyance. Your body felt light. Your chest felt lighter. You were smiling.

“I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Kudos to us for surviving.”

A high five. And you both laughed, still feeling that flush of relief flow throughout your limbs. No one was in school yet. It was Saturday, though. No one but a few of the faculty members were going to show up.

But the sky looked pink, mixed with a bright yellowish orange. The driveway never looked so clean, and the breeze was so wonderfully cold, with the autumn leaves still floating on the grass and the roads, you just felt happy. Your lingering gaze on Jason helped with that bright smile.

As if twelve hours in the library was nothing. As if it wasn’t torture at all.

As if it was, in fact, the most fun you’ve had in a single night in a long, long time.

“Walk safe.”

“Bye, Todd.”

Walking towards opposite ends of the sidewalk, hands on your sides and not in your pockets like you usually would. You couldn’t stop grinning.

Sparing one last glance behind you, seeing him get on his motorcycle, you turned to the corner of the street.

-----

I DON’T HATE YOU - MASTERLIST

-------

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH PLS TELL ME YOU ENJOYED THAT CUZ I CERTAINLY DID

THE SINGING SCENE IS REALLY INSPIRED BY LIZ GILLIES (REMEMBER THE READER IS BASED ON JADE WEST) SO THE FAST CAR SINGING SCENE WAS ACTUALLY INSPIRED BY THIS VIDEO

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glenncoco4 · 3 years

Text

You Can Count On Me

A/N: Chapter 8

••••

Marty Deeks has been patient his entire life, whether that be waiting until Christmas morning to open presents or until a new Donnie & Marie album was released, but when it comes to one Kensi Marie Blye becoming his fiancé, he’s anything but. So he’s not at all deterred when he steps into the small antique shop in search of a ring. Her ring, without getting a yes first.

No, she hasn’t said yes to his proposal yet, but she did confess that she wanted everything with him. So even if it’s not a yes right now, it will be eventually and he wants to be ready.

Now here he is at the fourth store today, considering how large Los Angeles is and the amount of people, he thought it’d be easier than this. As he examines the display of unique and elegant jewelry, he begins to lose hope once again, nothing catching his eye.

The shaggy blonde’s attention is suddenly pulled away from his perusal when he looks over to the man behind the counter and the older lady that’s holding out something to him. He’s only a few feet away but the delicate features of the solitaire diamond ring scream out to him.

The older black woman feels the shaggy blonde’s stare, she turns, studying his face as his focus continues to stay on the ring in her hand. There’s one thing she’s learned in her 70 years of life and that’s the look of a man in love, but not just any love, a love that’s all consuming.

He’s pulled out of his trance, realizing that the two have stopped their conversation completely and the woman’s gaze is now on him. “I don’t mean to stare its just...”

“No need to apologize, I recognize that look on your face. Reminds me of my Henry.”

He flashes her sad smile, knowing just by the reverence in her voice that she’s talking about him in the past tense. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. He was my first love...my only love. Some people don’t get that in life, we were lucky.”

“I know what you mean.”

Something in the way he drifts off for a minute with a dreamy gaze makes her consider her ring and the love she hopes it will be a part of again. “Tell me your story.”

Never missing the chance to talk about his girl, Deeks feels his lips pull into an automatic smile. “I met Kensi when I was 11 years old. My mom and I were in a bad situation at home and her family took us in. That first night we were there I had a flashback of sorts, as I was sitting there paralyzed in fear, she wrapped her arms around me and some part of me knew that I was finally home.” Shaking his head, he thinks about how easy it is for him to tell this woman with deep brown eyes full of understanding how much his best friend means to him. “I know its crazy, she was 8 years old, I was 11, but it made sense in my mind. Growing up we were inseparable, still are. We experienced so many life changing moments together and apart, but no matter what we were there for the other. She’s my person...the person I go to for everything, no matter how big or small it may be. I’ve always felt like I’m my most true and authentic self around her and she around me. We’re just synced. A few weeks ago we finally realized what everyone else around us saw from the start, we’re in love. It’s been 20 years and she still makes me feel like that safe little 11 year old boy. I didn’t see any point in waiting any longer, so I proposed to her a few days ago.”

The older woman takes a look around the store, expecting to see the young woman since he’s already proposed, she’d imagine they’d want to pick out the ring together. “Where is she?”

He feels the heat rise to his cheeks, a little embarrassed. “Well, she hasn’t said yes yet. My Kensi’s a thinker, she likes to look at a situation from all views.”

“But you’re still looking for a ring?”

“Yeah, because I know that she’ll be ready one day and when that day comes I want to give her something special with meaning behind it. I’ve been looking everywhere for the perfect ring and I was losing all hope until-“

“You saw mine.”

He smiles hopefully as she finishes his sentence. “Yes, ma’am.”

Without hesitation, she extends the delicate piece of jewelry towards him.

He hesitantly reaches for it, looking to her for confirmation. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. This ring deserves to continue being a representation of our kind of love. It represented mine and Henry’s for 50 years and now its for you and Kensi.”

“It’s so beautiful, I’m sure you could get so much more for it than what I have.”

“How much do you have, son?”

“Four thousand.”

It’s not about the money for her really and that’s when the idea strikes her. “I think we can make that work, but on one condition.”

It takes everything in him not to wrap the woman up in a bear hug. “Anything.”

“You let me meet this woman of yours.”

Nodding his head, he can’t agree fast enough. He thinks about his love and how sentimental she is, especially when it comes to their relationship. She’ll definitely want to meet that’s given them something so special. “I’d like that...we both would.”

••••

The next day at work its as if the universe is helping him out when the death of a marine who had suddenly come into a lot of money lands on their front door step. Of course its tragic but the shaggy blonde can’t help smile at the opportunity this case is bringing him.

Once the two pair of partners return from their respective assignments they gather in the bullpen, trying to figure out the different angels that could’ve resulted in the marine’s untimely demise.

“Maybe he was here to spend it.” Kensi speaks up, snowballing off of Callen’s statement about leaving behind a paper trail.

Sam’s eyebrows raise, nodding his head at the strong possibility that she may be right. “Corporal Peterson said he was thinking about getting married.”

“An engagement ring from Tiffany’s?” Deeks questions, knowing Corporal Porter had a serious girlfriend and it would be logical he’d be hunting for a spectacular ring now that money wasn’t really an issue.

The brunette locks eyes with her partner, flashing him a small grin. “You have no idea what that little blue box means to a girl.”

He smirks, thinking about the small delicate ring that’s in the black satin bag tucked in his wallet between a photo of them and Marg’s information. One of the main reasons he went in search at an antique shop is because he remembers the gaudy diamond ring Jack had proposed to her with and how it screamed the opposite of what his best friend was. That should’ve set off warning bells from the get go, because if there’s one thing Kensi Blye is not, its flashy. His girl isn’t one for bling and he knows the story behind the ring he bought will mean more to her than any content of a little blue box could. “Oh, but I do.”

••••

She’s been feeling him stare at her on and off all day...well more than usual. It’s when they’re walking towards the home goods store to question Porter’s girlfriend that she’s finally it. “Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

His brow furrows at her accusatory tone, shrugging his shoulders. “What, a guy can’t look at his fiancée?”

“I didn’t say yes.”

“Didn’t you?” He smirks, knowing good and well that they’re as good as engaged.

She shakes her head. He’s right, but there’s no reason for her to voice that, not that there’s really time to before they’re already at the front of the store.

As her partner goes off to distract Diane’s manager, Kensi’s able to question the blonde without interruption. It’s when the young woman talks about she and Porter picking out rings that she suddenly feels a strange kinship with her.

When Jack had proposed to her all those years ago she hadn’t really thought about how gaudy and so unlike her that the ring truly was. It wasn’t until he was off in Afghanistan that she would catch herself staring at the large diamond thinking that it didn’t belong there. Everything was different with him, she realizes that now that her rose colored glasses are off.

She’s been having these moments ever since Marty proposed, finding herself imagining what kind of ring he’d give her. He loves her like no other, he knows she’s not into blingy things. It makes her smile when she remembers all the times he’s seen women with large diamond rings and spouting off something about someone overcompensating. She’d laugh and that would make him laugh, and in turn they’d get stares from strangers making them laugh even harder. Never in her life has someone made her laugh the way Marty Deeks has.

Kensi’s focus goes back to the woman standing in front of her, against her own will the image of their roles reversed comes to the forefront of her mind. What if it was Marty that had been killed? The answer brings a gut wrenching ache over her.

••••

The jewelry store op had been a bust. As soon as the man behind the counter got a glimpse of Kensi’s bracelet the air shifted and they were immediately asked to leave. It may have not turned out like they planned but Deeks can’t help but love the fact he and his partner got to deceive their coworkers once again by “posing” as a couple. Kensi didn’t seem too keen on showing affection however, especially when Sam and Callen were just outside. He wasn’t the least bit surprised when the sharp point of her heel lands directly into the top of his foot.

So now here they sit in the bullpen, in silence, trying to figure out the team’s next move. He took over Callen’s chair so they could work more closely but neither have come up with any links to their victim in the myriad of old case files piled on each desk.

The shaggy blonde takes a look next to him, smiling at the pout that’s displayed on his girlfriend’s face. She hasn’t spoken a word in the past 30 minutes which is kind of worrisome. Afraid that he pushed to far by calling her his fiancée, he speaks up in hopes that she’ll respond. “Are you mad at me?”

“Dogs go mad. People...people get angry.”

The spark in her mismatched orbs makes him want to forget this nonsense and kiss her right then and there, but he quickly remembers the terms of their bet and knowing Callen isn’t anywhere around, he continues this little charade...for now. “Is this about the jewelry store? Listen, I was just trying to sell the fact that we were a couple.”

“Yeah, whatever. Like anybody would believe that we’re a couple.”

He has to hold back a laugh at her words because ever since middle school that’s all people thought they were. “You’re right. You are so not my type.”

••••

It takes longer than any of them anticipated but eventually Porter’s killer is caught. As Hetty congratulates them on a job well done, she hands Kensi a small ring box. The contents of said box are a delicate simple ring much like Diane had described.

She thinks back to the woman and her heart aches for the loss that she’ll never get over. The life that she’ll never get to experience with the man who she loved. She’s drawn out of her thoughts at the distinct laughter of her love filling the room. Looking across to Hetty’s office she watches as he exchanges some verbiage with Sam making Callen laugh and she could swear there’s a hint of a smile on the Operation Manager’s face. It’s then she realizes that she wants to accept Marty’s proposal. Who the hell cares that they’ve only been dating for a few weeks. They’ve known each other their whole lives and she doesn’t ever want to live without him. There’s just one thing she has to do first.

Taking out her phone, she presses call on the newly added number “Diane, hey, Special Agent Kensi Blye, NCIS. I was wondering if I could drop by. I have something that Tom left for you.”

••••

Deeks watched from the passenger seat of the SRX as his partner handed over the small box to Diane. As she pried it open, tears immediately sprang to the woman’s eyes and before either knew it her arms were wrapped around the junior agent in a giant bear hug. It suddenly made him think about what if he were the one that died, leaving Kensi all alone. The thought alone breaks his heart in two.

A few minutes later the pair bid their farewells and part ways. He’s surprised a little at the look in her eyes, its not one of sadness but there’s something else, something he’s not sure how to describe.

The shaggy blonde is so focused on his girlfriend that he doesn’t realize she misses the turn towards his apartment, instead she keeps going for a few minutes until she hits the Santa Monica exit. A few minutes later they’re back in the same spot at the overlook where they were just a week ago.

“What are we doing here?”

She turns towards him, that unrecognizable look still swirling in her mismatched eyes. “Well, I’ve been thinking.”

#Densi #Kensi Blye #Marty Deeks #Densi Fanfic #Kensi x Deeks #NCIS: LA #You Can Count On Me

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yellowocaballero · 3 years

Text

Hunt!Tim: Five Times He Murdered Someone And One Time He Loved them <3

Just kidding. This is a fic set in my Roleswap AU, acting as a character study over the course of the series into...whatever the fuck was going on with that guy. I spent so much time and energy actually figuring out his arc and character that when I finished Solitaire I hadn’t said everything I wanted to say, so that’s why this exists. It’s...not funny at all. Tim takes himself far too seriously. I’m very sorry, there are almost no jokes in this. It just doesn’t work.

Content warning for story typical issues; but more explicit depiction of suicidal ideation, kidnapping and physical assault, just in general a very fucked up little dude, and gendered violence that is more explicitly discussed as a possible precursor to further violence. Rest under the cut.

“I’m going to fucking kill them!”

“Well,” Sasha said, tapping away relentlessly on her phone as she sat primly on his couch. During work hours she was always doing something mysterious on her laptop, and after work it was on her phone. She had once alluded to being the moderator of an improbable number of forums. She liked the power. “We could probably make that happen. It’s the Magnus Institute, it’s suspicious if nobody's dying. But four people at once may not be prudent.”

“I don’t care!” Tim yelled. He paced his living room in tight lines, turning sharply on his heel at the end of the room. It felt like he was bursting with pent-up energy and rage, sending his heartbeat thumping in his ears like a war drum. “They’re obstructing justice, withholding evidence from an investigation, probably acting as an accomplice -”

“I’m going to fucking kill them!”

Sasha’s head snapped up, eyes glinting at him behind the big glasses that she always hid behind. “So you do think they were involved in Gertrude’s death?”

“Who cares. They did something, they’re obviously guilty of whatever. Every one of them have rap sheets.” Everyone but that blonde woman, which seemed a little counter-intuitive. “We just have to find something.”

Sasha hesitated, just momentarily, and she carefully put her phone down. “You’re angry, Tim. It’s affecting your judgement. Remember when we talked about that? Deep breaths. Come on, in one and out two. ”

Tim grimaced, but Sasha was right. He stopped pacing, and at Sasha’s encouraging look he resentfully took a few deep breaths. It did make him feel better. His heart wasn’t thumping in his ears anymore. She was so good at calming him down. She was just so wonderful in every way.

Thinking about how great Sasha was effective in clearing his head, but it just highlighted how terrible those women were in comparison. No respect. It was disgusting.

“Thanks,” Tim said gruffly, eliciting a beautiful smile. He collapsed on the couch next to her, disgusted and frustrated. “We’re never going to solve this Robinson case so long as those women are in the way. I won’t tolerate any obstacles in getting justice.”

“I know, and that’s what’s brave about you,” Sasha soothed, clasping his shoulder gently. Her thumb worked into his shoulder, gentle and soothing. “But we have to do it quietly. We don’t just need them out of the way, we need information. I’ll work on the technological side. You can dig up an entire life online, trust me. But if they know any of the secrets about the Institute and the Archives, we have to press them. That’s your strength, Tim. You can get anything out of anyone, because you never give up.”

Tim turned his head and smiled weakly at her. “And your strength is that you’re always there for me.” Her eyebrow ticked, but Tim hardly noticed. “I’ll keep pressing. They can’t stonewall me forever. I have their boss’ address, I’ll just show up there.”

“He’s going to ask for a warrant -”

“Oh, who gives a shit, nobody cares.” Tim snorted. “He’s a pussy if he’s hiding behind those women, anyway.” At Sasha’s carefully arched eyebrow, Tim quickly added, “Coward, I meant coward.”

“So you do remember our conversation about being PC,” Sasha said, making Tim snort. Please. Those sensitivity training the department was always forcing on them was a joke. Tim laughed with the other guys about it afterwards. He didn’t know why Sasha was complaining; she laughed just as mockingly as the rest of them. But she just readjusted her glasses now, a sign she was a little nervous. “Tim, about what you said just before we left -”

“What about it?” Tim said sharply.

Sasha was silent for a minute, before adjusting her glasses again. “Nothing. Just - be careful, okay? People who get too close to the Magnus Institute end up dead.”

If only they would. But Tim grinned at her, bright and sharp, and Sasha hesitantly smiled back too. Tim’s conviction, his bravery, always seemed to make her feel better. Sasha thought too much. She rarely second guessed herself - that was why Tim liked her - but sometimes she just thought herself into twists. She needed someone like him to cut that Gordian Knot. “Don’t worry, Sash. The good guys always prevail.”

Tim would kill them. All he needed was a reason.

ii.

Tim had nightmares, now.

Not full ones. Strange, fragmented dreams that were quickly forgotten after he woke up. Most of the time. But not always. And they were so strangely vivid - as if he was really living that moment over and over again.

It was of that construction site. And of Danny, watching those murders and the corpses with a sick, fascinated smile. And of Tim, defenseless and powerless and trembling and weak, watching it all happen.

Sometimes there would be a man. Just once or twice. The man, who would always be wearing really stupid pyjamas that contrasted wildly with how attractive he was, would frown at Tim.

‘Hey’, Sims said, ‘aren’t you that prick?’.

And Tim would wake up, heart beating fast, thumping in his ears, afraid in exactly that same poisonous metallic way that he hadn’t felt since he was a child.

Tim was going to kill that monster.

****

On a Monday afternoon, Tim sat in the driver’s seat of his car, checking his gun.

Gun, check. Rope, check. Shovel, check. Lighter and gasoline, check. Axe with belt, check, just in case things went really south. Gag, check. Tim had no idea how many secret powers that thing had, he wasn’t taking any chances.

Monday was the only night that they all went home alone. It took two frustrating weeks of stake-outs to realize that. Since he had cornered that bitch Melanie she even walked home with Daisy, who apparently lived close by. It was worth it, though. She was finally feeding him useful information, even though Tim knew that she thought she was giving irrelevant information about what they really wanted. He gave most of it straight to Sasha, who was salivating over all of the puzzle pieces Melanie was casually dumping on them as if they were meaningless. Whatever. That was Sasha’s job.

She had been worried about him lately. Probably. Tim hadn’t really noticed. He was focused on the case. Tim was a perfectionist like that.

Finally, at 5:20, Tim saw the monster - Jon, whatever, he wasn’t scared of him - round the corner. He was a little hard to distinguish in the darkness, but that was why Tim had left the headlights on.

His heart was thumping, roaring in his ears. Tim was giddy with excitement and anticipation and thirst. Catching them wasn’t the best part, but this would feel so good. He had been vividly imagining the look of fear on the thing’s face for the past month, ever since he assaulted Tim. He just couldn’t decide how he wanted to kill him - he brought his nightstick just in case he wanted to bash his face in, but fire was practical and incredibly painful.

Showtime, Tim thought, as he opened his car door and stepped out. After Tim took care of this, he and Sasha would be safe. That was the important thing. He was protecting Sasha from that thing. That was why he did it, all of it.

Jon startled a little when he saw him, but his face was backlit from the headlights and his features were probably obscured. It wasn’t until Tim stepped forward, easily and casually, that Jon began the slight speedwalk of a pedestrian encountering a persistent panhandler on the street.

“Stop right there.”

Jon froze. Not as stupid as he looks, then. Still pretty stupid.

Tim walked forward until he was standing at Jon’s back, already silently drawing out his handcuffs with one hand.

“Detective Stoker,” Jon said, and Tim almost respected the way his voice didn’t shake. “I wish this was more of a surprise.”

Normally Tim appreciated a good intimidating monologue, but he could be more efficient right now. Besides, there was time for that later. Jon turned his head backwards slightly, trying to see his face - perfect - and Tim waited until he could see his expression before he jammed the barrel of his gun on Jon’s throat.

There it was. The expression that few people besides Tim had ever seen, that secret face of man that each person felt so few times in their lives if they felt it at all. The face of a man who knew he was about to die.

It was Tim’s little secret.

“Why -”

Tim bashed it over the head with the barrel of the gun, and it dropped on the gun like a lanky puppet with its strings cut. No use letting it finish a question.

Handcuffs, rope, trunk. Carefully just under the speed limit, barrelling out of London into the cold and emotionless woods. Turning on the stereo - some mindless Amy Winehouse song. Tim found himself whistling along with it, fingers drumming on the steering wheel.

It wasn’t that Tim liked killing people, or even things that looked and begged and cried like people. But it was just something you had to do. Tim shouldered that burden, so innocent people wouldn’t have to. As a police officer, he had sworn to be the wolf that protects the sheep. That was Tim - that loyal and heroic wolf.

The thrill was overwhelming. That was why people had sex in public - that excited thrill over possibly getting caught. Not that he would, and even if he did Tim basically had carte blanche to handle his cases how he wanted, but he could. His skin was prickling, his heartbeat thumping in his ears. Saliva was pooling in his mouth, which he wiped off with one hand. Adrenaline did weird things. When he looked at the rear mirror inside the car to check on Jo - the monster, he saw the light of the headlights glinting strangely against his eyes, but in another second it was gone.

Tim didn’t have a ‘spot’ because that was fucking idiotic, but all of his dumping places had basically the same characteristics. You had to drive a while to get something really private. It took an hour, but they got to Chiltern hills eventually, and Tim was forced to squint at Google Maps to find the GPS coordinates he had planned out. It felt a little ridiculous to use Google Maps to find a burial spot for somebody but - well, life was weird.

When he stopped, he carefully took out the gag, the axe, the shovel, his own hunting knife, and dumped them in the spot he had picked out. He held the gag and holstered the hunting knife before carefully popping open the trunk.

Jo - the monster was awake. Which was fortunate; there was no fight when they were unconscious. He stared up at Tim with big brown eyes, all innocent and pleading, and Tim rolled his eyes before bending down to securely jam the gag in his mouth before grabbing him by his tied hands and dragging him out. The thing made a bunch of sad noises, and from the sounds of it he had wrenched a shoulder, but that wouldn’t be an issue in a few minutes.

The thing’s legs had clearly fallen asleep, and he stumbled onto the ground the minute Tim let go of him. He kept his eyes on Tim almost frantically, as if he could brainwash him by his eyes alone - could he? Could he? His eyes were fucking freaky.

Jesus. What if he could. Fuck, Tim barely knew anything about his freaky powers. But if he could brainwash via eye contact, couldn’t he -

No. Tim shook himself. That was the fear talking. Which shouldn’t exist. The fear should be gone. He had the thing bound and gagged at his feet, terrified out of its life, he couldn’t possibly still be scared of it. Fucking stupid. He was just cautious. That was caution. Tim was a cautious person.

Time for his favorite part, then.

Tim grinned lazily down at the thing, letting his white teeth flash in the lit headlights of the car. He hadn’t been able to sleep last night, writing all of this out in his mind. “Not so great on the other side, huh?”

The monster’s eyes widened.

Tim dragged him away from the car, not bothering to be gentle. He kicked and pushed on the ground, and although he was bony as hell the guy was tall and desperate, and Tim was forced to kick him down on the ground and draw his gun. He hadn’t wanted to draw the gun - they never fought and kicked and snarled and bit with the gun - but he wasn’t taking any chances here.

“I want you to know,” Tim said, friendly and warm, “that I’m doing this because I made a promise. On my badge and on my life, I protect the innocent from predators. I defend society from threats. There’s a corruption in the world, a sick and rotting infection, and it’s my job to tear it out. But I get no joy from this, okay?” He didn’t know why it was important that the monster knew that. It wasn’t like he was going to hold a grudge. The monster tried to sit up, but Tim kicked him again until he hit the ground again. Tim hated how he was shorter than him when they both were standing. He wanted to look down on him for once.

The monster was always looking down on him. With his little girl gang and his bestest buddies. With that - that moral superiority. He thought he was so smart and popular. Just because he could rip someone’s deepest secrets out of someone, he thought he was better. Just because he knew Tim’s worst fear, he thought that he had power over Tim.

Nobody did. Nobody had power over Tim. Not anymore.

“But you,” Tim hissed, “you, out of everyone I’ve ever killed - I’m going to enjoy you. You’ve crept into the lives of all those humans. You even got fucking Sasha telling me you’re not all bad. Is that what you do? Convince everybody around you that you’re a good person, when you’re a piece of shit inside?” His hand was trembling on his gun - that wasn’t in the script. Why was that happening? “Well, guess what. No matter how great you think you are, you will always be a monster.”

The handle of Tim’s gun was coated in sweat, making his trembling hand slide. Why? The gasoline and lighter were standing by his feet, ready to burn the body. His heart was thumping in his chest, not from anticipation and thrill - why? Why? Why?

“Tim, no!”

Tim, so focused on what he was doing, jerked so hard he almost fired the gun. He whipped around to the source of the voice, and found to his shock a familiar car and a familiar woman standing by it, face set in a fierce determination.

It was Sasha. Somehow, the sight of her was deeply wrong to Tim. She shouldn’t be here. Sasha should never see this. She knew, she had helped - always the finger pointing in the direction to unleash Tim - but she shouldn’t see it. He knew it wasn’t real to her, what he did.

“Sash,” Tim said weakly, hand drooping.

Jon screamed from behind his gag. He might have been calling for help.

“Put the gun down,” Sasha said coldly. She was just dressed in jeans and a messy t-shirt, as if she had come here in a great hurry. How had she kno - okay, Sasha knew everything, it was no surprise.

“Why? Sasha, what are you doing here?” Tim cried, in genuine confusion. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong is that Jon is innocent of everything!” Sasha yelled, and Tim almost flinched back. “He didn’t kill Gertrude, he doesn’t know anything about what’s going on! Trust me, Jon and his team have nothing to do with any of this!”

“He’s a fucking demon, Sash,” Tim said incredulously. How could she take his side? How? “Don’t you remember what he did to me? How can you forgive that?”

“You’re not a saint either!” Sasha screamed - the first time Tim had ever heard her scream at him. He couldn’t believe this was happening. How had he lost control of the situation so badly? “If you kill him you will break his team.”

As if a single coworker nobody dying will upset anybody. “And how long until he attacks or kills his team?” Tim asked furiously. “They’re the biggest bitches I’ve ever met, but they’re human. Monsters hurt humans, Sasha. It’s in their nature. How long until he hurts someone else? How long until he hurts you?”

“If you kill him,” Sasha said, quiet and strangled and hurt, “I will never forgive you.”

Nobody had power over him - nobody, perhaps, save Sasha. She held his heart in his hands, ready at a moment’s cue to crush it or rip it out of him. He couldn’t bear her disapproving face, her quiet disappointment. If she didn’t love him, if she took that away - he wouldn’t have anything. Nothing would be left. He had to protect that love, protect her.

“Sasha,” Tim said weakly, “out of everybody, I thought you would understand.”

“I do. I’m the only one who will ever understand. That’s why you have to trust me.”

Maye that was the problem. Tim did. She was the only person he had ever trusted.

Tim flicked the safety, and dropped the gun.

Just to make himself feel better, he bent his leg back to kick Jon, but - but, for some reason, he didn’t. It just seemed so tiresome. What was the point? What was the point of any of this?

The point had always been to protect humans from the monsters. To protect Sasha. But Sasha didn’t want his help. What did he have now?

“Take him back to his house,” Tim said dully. He glared fiercely at Jon, whose face was falling in relief. “If you tell the police about this, nobody will believe you and nobody will care. If you tell anybody else about this, I’ll find you again and beat you half to death. Got it?”

Jon nodded fervently.

After that, it was all a blur. Sasha helped him up, took him to her car, and he saw her cut through his restraints once he was safely inside. Tim just gathered up his materials and dumped them in the trunk of his car, sliding into the driver’s seat and gunning the engine.

He drove home in a depressed haze, feeling worthless, feeling powerless, feeling exactly like Jon always made him feel.

His hands clenched on the steering wheel. If Jon didn’t know shit about what was going on - and Tim believed that, guy was fucking stupid - then who did? If Jon hadn’t turned into a monster on purpose, then who had turned him into a monster?

Elias Bouchard always gave Tim a bad feeling.

He’d collect some evidence. Give it a few weeks, then confront him. Bouchard would bend and crack. Then Tim would be free. Free of the Magnus Institute, free of how it made him feel.

He roared towards home, unsatisfied and angry, still afraid.

iii.

“Can you pass the rice?”

Tim silently passed Mom the bowl, staring intently at his own plate and silently shovelling potatoes in his mouth. Dad was doing his usual thing and just kind of squinting at his plate and chewing like a cow with cud. Danny was, from the outside, eating food like a normal person. Tim knew that he was vibrating with anticipation.

“So,” Mom continued, faux-brightly, “it’s been a while since you boys came home. Too good for your old folks, huh?”

The passive aggressive route - deal with the criticism, but if you bit back then it was ‘just a joke’. Favored tactic of Ha-eun Stoker.

“Sorry, Mom,” Danny said, one arm thrown over the back of his chair, utterly unrepentant, “work’s been hell lately. Big case came in, and if I want to be promoted to junior partner…”

Sure enough, Mom brightened right up. “Really! Tell us all about your case, Danny!”

Then they were off. Tim zoned out, blankly spooning gamja jorim into his mouth as Danny endlessly rattled off about his accomplishments and Mom cooed and aah’d relentlessly. Dad just chewed, occasionally grunting in satisfaction and approval.

Wow, the coveted paternal approval. Way to make them all jump through hoops for it. Tim rolled his eyes.

Unfortunately, he was caught. Mom turned her piercing gaze on him, smiling pleasantly with perfect teeth. Of course they were perfect; she had work done. All of the other women in the neighborhood do it, Tim, we should fit in. Oh, this necklace is just so in style, I saw Ms. Wallace down the street wearing it. Fucking lemming.

“What about you, Tim?” Mom asked. “How’s work going? Normally you’d be telling us all about your big arrests.”

Ah. The reason why Tim had done everything possible to avoid family dinner. They had this once a month, the only time they could all be assed to talk to each other, and Tim had jumped through hoops to try and escape.

Danny didn’t let him. This was way too entertaining to him.

He knew. Tim didn’t know how, but that was irrelevant. Danny always knew. He couldn’t lie and make up some case. Tim took a careful sip of his dak gomtang, stalling.

Finally, he said, “I took a new job, actually.”

Dad looked up from his plate. Mom’s jaw dropped.

“But you loved your job,” Mom said, for all appearances broken-hearted. “What happened?”

Danny leaned back in his chair, hands folded behind his head, grinning. “Yeah, brother. You loved that job, you’d never quit. What happened?”

“My work partner was caught and forced to sign an employment contract by a middle management stoner, blackmailing me into working with her so I wouldn’t get arrested by the police for my dozen murders.”

Everybody stared at him. Tim sipped some water.

“That isn’t very funny, Timothy,” Mom said.

God, these people were so serious. In the stupidest second of his entire stupid life, he missed the Archive team just a little bit. At least they had a sense of humor. He’d never known those bitches to take anything seriously. But even when they were literally engaging in cult-level shunning of him and Sasha, they were always together. What was with homos and that gay found family shit?

“Kidding. I don’t know, Mom, I was just going stir-crazy. Being a copper just felt like such a dead-end job.”

“But you said you were on track for Lieutenant,” Mom gasped. “How could you throw that away?”

“I don’t know, Mom,” Danny said, shit-eating grin plastered on his face. “I don’t think Tim would quit his job voluntarily.”

Mom’s jaw dropped. “You were fired?”

Tim was too dead inside for this. “Sure. I’m a librarian now. It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t matter?” Mom positively screeched. “What am I supposed to tell Mrs. Walker now? That my son’s not on track to Lieutenant, that he was fired? I’ve never been so ashamed of you. You’re going to make me a laughingstock, Tim. In all my life, you’ve never once cared about how your actions affected me. Let me tell you right now that this is disgraceful. You’re a grown man, and you’re still acting like a child who blah blah blah. Tim’s a disappointment and we hate him blah blah. How could I have raised such a lazy yammer yammer yammer. I only pay attention to you when I’m yelling at you and I’m totally in the right because Rachel Granger said that yada yada -”

“Well, this was fun,” Tim said pleasantly, wiping his mouth with a napkin before balling it and tossing on the table. He put his chopsticks down and stood up, dusting off his hands. “Great to see all of you again, so much fun, but I have a cat to go iron.”

But Dad was staring at him, even when Mom was fuming in rage. In Korean, he said, “You’re disrespecting your mother, Ji-hoon.”

“For god’s sake, Richard, we speak English in this house. His name’s Timothy,” Mom snapped. Danny rolled his eyes.

“Why not?” Tim asked in Korean, just to piss off Mom. Basira would have sneered at her respectability politics. Melanie would have lost her temper an hour - no, thirty years ago. Why were they stronger than Tim? “You don’t respect her.”

Almost silently, Danny whistled.

“Timothy,” Mother started, scandalized, “listen to your -”

“Why? What can she say to me, besides the same shit I’ve been hearing my entire life? She’s not saying anything interesting.” Tim smiled brightly at his family, flashing all of his teeth. “You know what? In comparison with my life lately, you three are pretty fucking boring. Bye.”

That was when his mother burst into tears, and his father started yelling at him at the top of his voice and thumping the table until the dishes rattled, and when Danny started laughing. If they did anything else, if Dad was about to get out of his chair and smack him, if Mom was going to disown him, Tim didn’t wait around to see it. He grabbed his bomber jacket and stalked out the door, letting it fall behind him.

He breathed heavily on the pretty little sidewalk in front of their pretty little house. The pretty little roses in the pretty little garden bloomed perfectly, and their thorns were all cut off. Down the street pretty little houses made of ticky tacky loomed, and they were all within HOA compliance in their gated little community. Nobody in. Nobody out.

When he was fifteen, Tim hated it because his parents were always trying to impose normalacy on him and he had never fucking measured up. When he was a young adult, he had hated it because he had fancied himself a gritty, street-wise cop who grappled with the dregs of society and always came out victorious. The perfect little families here thought that their gates could protect them from the cold and hard outside world - but the monsters in the world lived and breeded in their backyards, and they were too busy trimming their lawns to notice.

He should go home. It was late, and he had his ridiculous, evil, gloriously imperfect job tomorrow. God, Melanie would hate this place. She would sneer at him for ever having lived here, chalking it up with his infinite list of sins. All you pigs are the same, she would nag, privileged and sheltered. Bitch. Why was she always right?

But Tim just couldn’t work up the energy to drive all the way home. His heart felt scooped out with a grapefruit spoon. Instead he stumbled into the little alley next to the house, where the garbage trucks and the alley cats roamed, and he collapsed into a little patch of scrubby grass. This had been his favorite place to sulk as a child. Or hide from Danny. Danny always found him, of course, but it was the principle of the matter -

“Man, I can’t believe I got that show for free. You should have charged, Ji-hoon.”

“Fuck off, Danny,” Tim said, tone dull with how rote the phrase was.

When he glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Danny was dappled in night. The only light was from the streetlights, and the lights of their porch. In the dim lighting, Danny was lit by a bright aura but his features were hidden in the dark. Like an angel, Danny shone, and like a devil, Tim hid in the shadows. Hidden in the corner, like a powerless child.

“It’s a compliment! Normally you’re the most boring, predictable bitch alive. Wind your key and watch you go. But not even I could have predicted the shit you pulled today. Fantastic.” Danny grinned, a slash of the mouth. “You’re dead disowned, buddy. You crossed a line. They’ll never forgive you.”

“Fuck off, Danny.”

“I’m looking forward to being an only child,” Danny mused. “Mom and Dad were always so obsessed with you, it’ll be nice to have them all to myself. When I make junior partner, do you think Dad will clap me on the back? Give me a hug?” He affected a sad look, pulling his face into a mockery of tragedy. “I’m really going to miss you. You always lowered the bar for me.”

“Fuck off, Danny.”

Apparently that was one ‘fuck off’ too many, because Danny kicked Tim in the ribs. He always knew exactly where to hit - right in an old scar in the ribs, a bullet wound that he had never told him about. Tim wheezed, but he didn’t move. No point.

In a brief, strange flash of memory, Tim remembered bending his knee back to kick Jon in the stomach. Jon hadn’t flinched. Had there been no point?

“I know you spent your entire sad little childhood thinking I ruined your life. That’s bullshit and you know it. You didn’t need anyone else to ruin your life, Timbo. You’ve always been good enough at that yourself.” He pulled a faux-surprised face. Every expression Danny ever had was fake. Everything was a mask, plastic and fake. “Even your relationships, right? How’s that Mexican bird you got following you around? She still refusing to fuck you? I should pick her up, I bet she’s real easy -”

Tim saw red.

It was easy, in the end. Maybe too easy. He leapt up, in one easy and smooth motion, and tackled Danny to the ground. Tim had always been bigger but Danny had always been stronger, no matter how long Tim spent at the gym, but that didn’t matter now. Tim was faintly aware he was snarling as Danny hit the ground hard, head bouncing on the grass.

There was no time for him to recover. Tim punched him in the face, keeping him down, before punching him again. He felt bone break under his fist. A nose.

He didn’t remember anything after that. Everything fuzzed out a little, trapped in the swirling of his rage and the thump of his heartbeat. It wasn’t Martin’s anger, it wasn’t Sasha’s cold chase. It was just hatred.

It wasn’t that - that thing inside Tim, the thing he had spent years denying. It was just Tim. Or maybe Tim was that thing, and that thing was Tim.

He was faintly aware that somebody was grabbing him by the elbows, pulling him off. There was screaming. Wailing. He couldn’t really tell. Tim was dizzy, hands wet and sticky. Someone was crying - the nauseatingly familiar sound of his mother sobbing.

Just boys roughhousing, Tim wanted to say. That was a good line, snappy and sarcastic. Just boys being boys, the same line he had heard time after time after time when Danny coated his entire torso in bruises. Monsters, acting like monsters. Men, doing what men always do.

Tim left the scene. He wouldn’t be back. Never return to the scene of the crime, ha ha ha. He wouldn’t be welcome back. It should have felt crushing, isolating, terrifying.

But instead, Tim just felt free. As if a crushing weight had fallen off his shoulders, and he no longer felt suffocated by endless picking and prodding and pushing. It...he didn’t feel scared.

Tim walked down the street, taking the long way home, whistling happily. He hated himself a little bit less than usual tonight. Things were looking up.

iv.

Tim stared at Melanie as she slept.

It wasn’t hard. They kept the lights on, although after a few days Melanie had started to use a sleeping mask. She had recovered from what happened fairly quickly. She still let him keep his arm on her.

It tingled, just a little, where it touched her. She was warm and soft, breathing softly in a gentle rise and fall of her chest. Her face was slack with sleep. No nightmares. Melanie only looked gentle when she was asleep: any other time, her face was screwed up in intent thought or a mean comment or an exaggerated face made behind someone’s back.

It was the first time Tim had slept in the same bed as a woman without sleeping with her. At Sasha’s, he always slept on the couch. It was a little weird. It was really weird. He kept on telling himself to pull away, to rebuild that bridge that had been so effortless with Sasha, to act normal and stop being desperate and needy.

But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Every time he let go of her, he was alone. No matter how many people surrounded them, no matter how big the room or busy the sprawling London streets, when she was out of the room it felt as if she would never come back.

He hated the way he felt. It was disgusting, crawling in his gut and heart like rot. He hated himself for feeling it, he hated the world for doing it to him, and he hated Melanie for making him feel this way.

He didn’t know love could be this painful.

***

Did he love her?

Tim was fairly sure he couldn’t love anybody. Whatever he felt for Sasha, it couldn’t be love. It could only be a selfish, disgusting poison. Or maybe he really did love her, and love really was poison - if it was the kind of love Tim felt for other people, if it was all he could give.

But Tim knew Sasha, down to her soul. He knew her dark secrets, every skeleton in her closet. He knew what she was running from, why she had landed in England and never left, why she felt just as passionately for Tim’s crusade for justice as he did.

Justice. What a joke.

But Melanie wasn’t like that. She was rough and bitchy and meddling and willfully idiotic, but if you scratched that surface she was perfect. Kind, understanding, forgiving, patient, supportive - the kind of girl Tim had always wanted. Not that Sasha hadn’t been - but Sasha was somebody he should probably stay away from, for her own good.

Melanie had saved him. Melanie was trying to fix him, and she wouldn’t stop until she did. She wouldn’t give up - she never gave up on anything or anyone. Even Tim. Maybe, if it was her, Tim could be fixed.

He squinted at her in the soft lights keeping away the dark lingering in the small windows. Did he want to kiss her? He should, right? Any emotion this strong, anything that made him feel so vulnerable and desperate and insane had to come with wanting to be with her. Not that she could ever like him that way back…

The idea was oddly nice. Men and women couldn’t be friends. But maybe Tim and Melanie could - Melanie, who would never love him in that way, freeing Tim of the obligation to reciprocate.

He settled a little bit more, tucking her a little bit closer under him until he could no longer see her face. The idea was heady - that she was letting him do that, that she could be open and vulnerable in front of him too. That Tim had never really protected anybody, that Melanie was the first person to ever protect him, and that maybe he could pay that back.

Maybe she could fix him. Give him love that was pure instead of corrupted; selfless instead of selfish. Tim needed her.

He tried not to hate it.

***

That night, Tim had a dream that he was fucking Melanie in his old bed in his old flat. Danny was there, somehow, constantly mocking Tim on how badly he was doing, and every time Tim would yell at him to get out he would just laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh -

***

Melanie dragged him to work with her the next morning, as Tim chugged a shitton of coffee and considered braining himself with a hammer so he could forget the dream he had last night. He would literally prefer the construction site nightmares. He could barely meet her eyes, and lived in relentless paranoia that somehow she knew and was going to call him disgusting which would be fair and true and -

“Do you think the old man in Home Alone is a Jesus allegory?”

Tim blinked blearily at her, still chugging his coffee. They had gotten his car keys and car back from Sasha - she still had everything he ever owned, but he didn’t want to deal with that - but Melanie was driving, since Tim’s reaction time wasn’t that good anymore and he tended to zone out. They would take the tube and avoid London traffic except, well…

“I have no opinions on Home Alone,” Tim said blankly. He had been reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra on his phone. So far he had several points of disagreement, his largest was the man’s weird obsession with atheism. Granted, it was hard to be a nihilist and be religious, but Tim had insider information on the nature of the universe and he was working on a thesis - anyway. Anyway. “Why?”

“It’s a good movie, right? We should watch it for movie night tonight.”

“I thought you wanted to watch T2 today.”

“Aw, fuck, right.” Melanie slightly slapped the steering wheel. They didn’t move - traffic was really hell. “I am a slut for fictionalized violence. Isn’t Sarah Connor the most badass action hero ever?”

“She’s awesome,” Tim agreed warmly. “But Schwarzenneger in that movie is just peak. Have you ever seen Predator? It was his best role.”

Melanie snorted. “Predator was so boring. Just a lot of oiled up men flexing at each other.”

Typical. Tim rolled his eyes, propping an elbow below the window, but he found himself smiling anyway. “What do you want me to watch instead, Blue is the Warmest Color?”

“Laugh all you want, idiot. You’re getting the whole rota of required watching for gay people. First on the list is the Birdcage, then right after that Paris is Burning -”

Tim groaned theatrically, drowning her out, but all that did was hit him with the musk of his small, battered car. The smell of Melanie hit him like a truck - her Melon shampoo, her 24 hour deodorant, the dust of the Archives, something unique to her that he just couldn’t place.

To Tim’s horror, the scent pulled at that deep pit in his stomach. Don’t think about it. Don’t tell anyone. Don’t let them know - except for Sasha, who always knew. It made him want to do - stuff that he didn’t want to do. Not really. Tim didn’t want that. Whoever Tim was.

Counterintuitively, the hunger made it easier to keep that fake smile and forced manic energy when they got to the office. He wasn’t really up to it today - some days were easier than others - but that didn’t really matter when he had to aggressively convince everybody that he was fine. The alternative was everybody giving him sad and pitying looks, which was a thousand times worse than any infernal hell torture.

It wasn’t. But he still didn’t want to deal with it.

So he kicked the door open, yelled something meaningless about how the bitch was back, and let Basira ignore him and Martin roll his eyes and Sasha very pointedly ignore him. He noted that Daisy wasn’t in this morning - ever since their planning session, she had been dropping by more frequently to flirt obnoxiously with Basira, but she obviously couldn’t spend all of her time here if she wanted to keep up the pretense with Peter Lukas.

Which was...somewhat of a relief.

Tim collapsed in what used to be Daisy’s chair at her desk, which was for far more important reasons than just because he didn’t want to sit next to Sasha. The upside is that Melanie sat diagonal from him, across from Basira, who didn’t give a shit what he did if she wasn’t using him as a meaningless sounding board for her constant venting. It wasn’t all bad, if he didn’t look too hard at whatever the fuck Martin was doing at any given time.

So he swiveled in his chair as Melanie, Basira, and Sasha disappeared into the library. He stood up to go with her, but Melanie made a gesture that sent him sitting down again. Martin, who was writing something ornate in his journal, snickered.

Six months ago Tim would have snapped at him, but instead he just leaned back in his chair and squeezed his grip trainer. The grind never stopped. “Writing love poetry, buddy? In the Romantic tradition or the...fuck, I don’t know any other poets.”

Martin silently held up his journal. The only thing written was ‘murder kill murder’, repeatedly, up and down two pages.

Well. That was enough teasing Martin for one day. He really had no idea how Melanie was brave enough to get Martin to listen to listen to her - or, worse, why he did.

After an hour or so, spent reading Plato and disagreeing with a great deal, Jon slunk out of his office and blinked owlishly at both Tim and Martin, who had been politely minding their own business.

Tim realized - in the same way that, whenever he saw Jon, he was inescapably reminded that he knew what he looked like when he was about to die - that the room was filled with two guys who had tried repeatedly to kill him. Fuck, he was probably uncomfortable. Good job, Tim. Way to keep terrorizing people. But he really wasn’t capable of doing anything else, so it was hardly a surprise -

“Hullo, Martin. I’m picking up some food from the vending machine, do you want anything?”

Oh. They were going for ‘disturbingly banal’ today. Martin smiled shyly at Jon, who blushed in response. “Surprise me. Thanks, Jon.”

“Want any razor blades in the apples?”

“You know that’s a myth, Jon,” Martin said disapprovingly. Or maybe not.

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“You are the sexiest guy I’ve ever met,” Martin whispered.

Then Jon flushed, and leaned casually in what he probably thought was a hot pose and unfortunately totally was against Martin’s desk, and Tim was subjected to their absolutely fucking atrocious flirting for the next ten minutes. At that point, Tim found his breaking point and left the Archives, the terror of being in semi-public outweighed by the terror of Jonmartin. That was what Basira and Melanie kept calling it. He really didn’t know what that meant, but whatever.

But after fifteen minutes of standing in front of the vending machine himself, quietly overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of choices and colors and flavors and sugar, he heard someone else approaching. He snapped his head to the left to see a gawky, hunched scarecrow slouch down the hall, raising a hand apologetically. That man put no effort into his appearance, how as he still that hot -

Maybe Jon and Martin were normal, Tim secretly wondered, and Tim just didn’t understand gay courting rituals. He had to find out, right? How do you flirt with guys? It wasn’t as if he could practice with the two guys in the office. Especially Martin. Tim had never really paid a lot of attention to him before he came back to life, writing him off as a beta male - which ended up being so hilariously incorrect it forced Tim to sit down and reconsider his entire framework of alpha and beta males. Melanie had given him a sticker.

“Uh. Hey.”

Tim stared at him blankly.

Jon rubbed the back of his neck. “How...are you?”

Tim blinked at him.

“Well. I would, er, enjoy using the vending machine.”

Oh. Obviously. Tim stepped aside, cheeks burning, and silently let Jon punch in the code for a Mars Bar (for Martin, probably) and a granola bar (because an alarm went off on his desk if he didn’t eat a snack at 3pm).

It wasn’t their first time being alone together since he came back, but as Tim had been more or less catatonic at that period in time he was inclined not to count that. Jon hadn’t seemed scared, anyway. Probably. Tim hadn’t paid much attention.

He should do this. He had to do it. It was all about making up for the shit he did, right? He had to face this. Then Jon would forgive him, not that he had to, and - and something vaguely good would happen. He would find that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and the hunger would go away, and the intrusive thoughts would be all gone. Melanie would give him another sticker. Or something.

“You can go for it, you know.”

Jon whipped his head around, shocked at Tim addressing him directly for the first time in a very long time. “What?”

Idiot. If this guy had been in a single fight in his life, he’d eat his hat. From what Jon had seen of his childhood friend, Georgie’s girlfriend who he hated for absolutely no reason, she had probably defended him from every bully. It was almost cute.

“You can get a good one in,” Tim repeated slowly. He turned his cheek. “Promise I won’t punch back or anything.”

“I - do you mean punch you?” The Mars Bar rattled down the machine, dropping heavily into the tray. “Why would I do that?”

Jesus, the guy was thick. “Do you remember when I kidnapped and tried to kill you, or is that just me?”

Jon blinked owlishly at him. “Lots of people try to kill me.”

“Don’t you want to?” Tim cried, a little bit higher and a little bit louder than he intended. “Come on, as if you’ve never wanted to do it? Wouldn’t it help? You got in a week of being a passive aggressive asshole, that isn’t enough. It doesn’t make up for anything. This would.”

“How would that fix anything?”

Tim’s breath hitched. But Jon was just staring, as if he could see right through him. Maybe he could. “What?”

“How would hurting you make me feel better?” Jon repeated slowly. “It won’t change what happened. Punching you wouldn’t change what you did to me. All it would do is make you feel better, as if that fixes it. It doesn’t. Is that how you solve all of your problems? That explains a lot.”

His breath was coming faster, hitching again. He couldn’t control it. “I’m trying to do you a favor, asshole.”

“No, you’re trying to make yourself feel better.” Jon smiled politely and, before Tim could jerk away, clapped him on the shoulder. “I forgave you a long time ago. Not because of you. But I just didn’t want it hanging over me. I gave myself closure and moved on. Sometimes bad things happen to us, and we have to get up the next day and go to work anyway. My friends helped. My family did too. I’m sorry you don’t have that, Tim. You’ll get closure one day.” Jon looked thoughtful for a second. “I mean, getting closure about being almost killed one time must be a lot easier than dealing with the fact that you killed fifteen people in your life? Twice that supernatural people, I think. You know you’re technically a serial killer? I won’t judge, this is a safe space, but I thought you ought to know.”

Somehow, inanely, all Tim could think of to say was, “It’s not serial killing if it’s part of your job.”

“Which is why I’m sure you took that job,” Jon said brightly. “Let’s get back to the office before Martin decides to amuse himself.”

For a second, just for a second - or two, or ten, or a minute - Tim vividly imagined himself ripping Jon’s throat out. Killing him properly this time, putting that look on his face again. It had felt so good, and - and it had made him feel so bad, but that felt good too, and he still didn’t know why, and he wanted to eat Jon so bad. Jon, who was innocent in everything, gentle and kind. Nothing like Tim. That was why everybody liked Jon and hated Tim.

From what he had heard, while Tim was going insane hyperfixating on the chase a few years ago, the girls had spent ages talking Jon down from a breakdown and steering him away from the same path that Tim had barrelled down. Who had done that for him? Sasha made a big show of keeping his head level, but she had used him just as ruthlessly as he had used her. She never had an investment in keeping him sane; just functional.

If somebody had done that for him, would he still be cruel?

They went back to the office, and Tim pretending that the hunger swirling in his gut was just self-hatred. But, then again, they really were the same thing.

When Melanie came out of the library with Basira and Sasha on her heels, talking quietly about some new scheme they were cooking up, Tim found himself reaching out to her. Melanie smiled and squeezed his hand, before gently heckling his choice in literature.

Some stupid part of him - maybe even a large part - thought that once he was clasping Melanie’s hand again, the hunger would quiet down. It had protected him underground, it felt as if it should protect him in the world above.

But it didn’t, and it didn’t solve anything, and Tim tried not to think about the fact that he was slowly unwinding, and that he didn’t want to see what was inside him when everything that was Tim Stoker fell away.

***

A short yet tumultuous time later, Tim was called into Jon’s office.

He hadn’t wanted to come to work. But the alternative of stewing at home - Melanie’s flat - was much worse, and Basira had reported that too many skip days made them all way too sick. Might as well come in. Melanie had spent the night at Georgie’s - like she had the past two days, what a fucking coincidence - so he didn’t have to worry about that awkwardness.

After too long memorizing the face after too many sleepless nights, Tim could imagine it vividly. Soft, uncreased, innocent of how hard the world could be. Tim couldn’t bear it. He had to ruin it. He just couldn’t bear it.

He was the first one in the office, so it was easy to see the poisonous death glare Basira shot him when she walked in. So Melanie had told them - of course she fucking told them, she hadn’t done anything wrong, she wasn’t obliged to lie. Daisy was hot on her heels, and she actually properly snarled at him before Basira pulled her back while somehow giving the full impression that she wanted to do the same thing.

He should probably go hide in the library before Martin came in. He couldn’t decide whether or not this was worse than the shunning. The shunning had driven him absolutely crazy, but at least he hadn’t been legitimately afraid that Martin would stab him and that nobody would stop him.

There was the faint sound of raised voices in the cowpen. Tim knew that they were arguing about him. He already knew what they would decide - wait for Melanie’s verdict. But are you sure she isn’t too close to this? No, she knows the fucker better than anybody else, she would judge if they needed to do anything. What are we going to tell Sasha? The truth, fucking obviously.

Sasha. Tim wanted her to be surprised. He knew she wouldn’t be. That hurt more.

After what felt like an infinite amount of time but he knew was only a few hours, pouring over Sasha’s collection of Vast and Spiral Statements, he heard the library door open. It was Jon, standing at the threshold, and all Tim could think was - oh, man, here we go.

It was a regular walk of shame into Jon’s office, and he couldn’t miss the way everybody’s heads snapped to look at him. Sasha, just as he thought, looked resigned. Melanie was frowning.

Jon’s office was the same as ever, not that Jon went in too frequently. The only strange thing about it was that Jon locked the door behind him. Tim didn’t know what that boded, but it wasn’t good.

Well, might as well take control of the situation. He collapsed on the chair in front of his desk and propped his boots on Jon’s desk, wishing he had a drink to obnoxiously sip. “Is this the part where you threaten me?” He affected a fake baritone, somehow still not even hitting Jon’s register. “ ‘Touch her again and you’ll answer to me’. ‘Stay away from her or you’ll face the consequences’. Come on, I’ve read a thousand creeps the same riot act. Get it over with.”

Jon sat down heavily in his office chair. The office had chipped in to buy him a new one as a birthday gift, much more comfortable than the old one. But he was leaning forward now, arms folded on the desk.

“Would that make you feel better?”

Great, this again. “Yeah, it evokes the emotionally absent father I was raised with,” Tim snarked. “If you aren’t going to say it, what am I in here for?”

He was afraid to know what he was in here for. Melanie had told him that if he did it again, she’d sic Jon on him. And Tim knew what it looked like when Jon was sicced on someone. This wasn’t it.

“Tim,” Jon said seriously, and he was somehow kind about it. “You know what this looks like, right?”

Something ugly and ashamed twisted in Tim’s gut. He fought the urge to sink in his seat. “Yeah.”

“You know why we’re worried now.”

“Yeah, I know.” Tim looked fixedly at the wall, unwilling to meet Jon’s eyes. “I - I’m not going to do it again. I swear. And - and it wasn’t like that. I promise. I’m not - I’m not a creep, okay? Ask Sasha. I’ve never - I’ve killed people, but that’s not nearly as bad as - I’m not going to do it again. It was a mistake.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Tim’s head snapped back to Jon, and before he could think about it he found himself half-rising from the chair. Jon’s cold stare had him sitting back down again, but his heart was thumping a drum in his chest. “Then what do you want?” Tim just barely restrained himself from yelling, knowing that the girls were probably listening at the door anyway. “What can I do to convince you that’d rather chop off my own hand than hurt her?”

“You can give your permission to let me ask you some questions.”

Tim faltered. “What? Just questions?”

“Uh.” Jon waved his hand in a circle in the air, as if that meant anything. “You know. Questions. I haven’t really done it since - since I think I did it to you? But I think I can do it on command now. I don’t like to.” His eyes sharpened, and for a second Tim could have sworn that they glimmered. “But I can’t take a chance. Not on this.”

It was like he was falling again, through that infinite void that was the last taste of freedom he had thought he would ever have. It was like he was suffocating again, a mile of dirt piled on his chest, banging incessantly at the lid of the coffin. Nobody saved him, until she did. He was distantly aware that he was barely holding back hyperventilating, but all Tim could feel was dissociated horror.

“You - you can’t. Jon, I - I won’t do it again, you can’t.”

Jon’s mouth twisted into a frown. “I won’t if you give me a flat no. I don’t like doing it.” That was a lie and they both fucking knew it. “But if you don’t, we can’t trust you again. We’d convince Melanie to let you stay with Martin. We wouldn’t leave you in the same room together. You’re not stable, Tim. It’s obvious. We thought it was harmless - or, at least, the only person you were hurting was yourself - but it’s not anymore. We’re all scared. I don’t want to hurt you just because we’re scared, but Melanie is the only one here who couldn’t really defend herself if you decided to do anything else to her.” He grimaced slightly. “Not that she admits it. She always puts herself between us and any enemy. But we have to pay that back. I know you understand.”

He did.

Hate burned in his stomach. What a hypocrite. Giving all of that big talk about choice and options. He knew that there was no option, not if they were going to rip him apart from the one person who he felt safe with.

The one person who wasn’t safe with him.

Tim deserved this. Even if it had been his worst fear a year ago - well, Tim had experienced much worse than that since then.

When you did shit to other people, you make up for it. You make sure that you can’t hurt anybody else again. Jon was right - gestures didn’t mean anything. He had to commit. He had to improve, be better. Otherwise he’d be sent straight back down to that place when he died, and there would be no saving him.

“Yeah,” Tim said, mouth dry, “you can do it. But - but no personal questions this time, okay? Just stick to the subject.”

“They seem to always end up a bit personal,” Jon said apologetically, “but I’ll try.”

Deep within Jon, inside of the unassuming and kind and gentle man, the subject of Tim’s nightmares rose. His eyes flashed green, then shined with a bright and sickly radioactive green. His hair strained against its bun and fuzzed at the end, but it didn’t break free.

“What’s your name, Tim?”

The worst part about the compelling, Tim had decided long ago, was that you didn’t feel brainwashed.

You felt exactly as if you were talking normally, that there was nothing strange about Jon or you. His words didn’t ring with a mysterious power. If you had entered it thinking you were talking of your own volition, you probably wouldn’t notice. But if you knew what was happening, the curtain was lifted, and you were deathly aware of the way the words were ripped out of you with fishhooks. It left Tim gasping, straining for air.

“Timothy Ji-hoon Stoker,” Tim said, and it was almost as if he wanted to. “My dad just calls me Ji-hoon though. So do my grandparents. My last name’s made up as fuck - I think Mom just saw a book at the airport and picked it out from the cover. Kind of ironic, considering everything.”

“Oh, really? Daisy says that she got Tonner because her English wasn’t great and she misheard someone at the airport asking her for a tenner - right, right.” Jon coughed. Wait, was the reason why Daisy barely talked when he first met her was because her English was bad? “On topic. Tim, do you want to attack Melanie again?”

“Of course not,” Tim burst out, and these words, at least, came easy. “I love her. I hate hurting her, I hate how I’m constantly fucking up and doing it anyway. I’m just violent and I don’t know how not to be violent. It’s the only way I deal with things, being violent, and I know it’s eating me up inside but I just can’t stop it. But if there’s one person who can help me stop, it’s Melanie. She’s going to fix me, I know it.”

The words were unbelievably humiliating, the kind of thing that Tim had never wanted to admit, but Jon’s expression didn’t change. Tim wanted to look away, to pretend that this was just an internal narration and that he wasn’t telling this his fucking coworker, but he found himself incapable. Their gazes locked, and Tim couldn’t pull away.

“Why did you do it?”

“Because I was scared, and I hate being scared so much. It’s what I always do, ever since I was a kid - I would get scared, and I would try to hurt something or someone about it. I did it to you, I was so scared of you that I obsessed about killing you and covered it up with some bullshit about justice or Sasha. It was just about me, it’s always been selfish. But - but- but -” The words were sticking in his throat, coagulating on the wound ripped open by Jon and his fishhooks. “But I hate her. I hate that I care, and I hate that I need her, and - and I don’t think I did it just because I was scared. I think I did it because I was scared, and I love her, and I hate her, and I’m beginning to think I have some kind of weird complex about women because of my mother’s overly dependent narcissistic personality and my father’s emotional detachment -”

“You just now figured that out?” Jon asked incredulously. “Sorry, you just now started realizing that your toxic masculinity controls your entire justification for your actions?”

“I’ve known for a while but I’ve been repressing it,” Tim said hurriedly, forced to answer that one despite Jon probably intending it as a rhetorical question.

Jon stared at him for a second silently, giving Tim time to catch his breath and try to control his breathing. He was one bad step away from a panic attack, and his hold was still clenched on this throat like a fist. Danny had done that to him one time, the son of a bitch, and he had never forgotten. Should he tell Jon that? Does he have to?

“Tim,” Jon said finally. He looked very uncomfortable, but also resolute. As if he didn’t want to ask, or maybe he just didn’t want to know, but he felt as if he had to. “Are you in love with Melanie?”

Tim opened his mouth to answer him, and found that he couldn’t.

The strange and evil magic didn’t like that. Whatever Tim wanted to say, if there was anything to say, it caught in his throat and made him gag. It choked him. He was well acquainted with the feeling, but it sent him into a panic anyway. His breath started shuddering and heaving, his vision swimming, and he kept on answering his mouth to answer because you have to answer but he couldn’t, he just couldn’t, he didn’t know how -

“Forget it! Forget it, Tim, don’t worry about it! Tim, what’s your favorite color? Tim, your favorite color! Answer me!”

“Grey!” Tim cried out. “Grey, it’s grey!”

He didn’t so much stand up from his chair as fall out of it. He didn’t so much let himself sit on the ground as found himself incapable of moving. He just breathed, waiting and waiting to spit up dirt and grime and rocks, but nothing happened. It was just a panic attack, because his hell was within him, and there was no escape.

No escape. There was no escape. Not from what he’d done in his past, not from how badly he’d hurt Melanie and Sasha, not from how he would inevitably hurt them in the future.

You had to cut out the evil things in this world. One bad apple spoils the bunch. When criminals are left to run wild, they corrupt and destroy society. Evil had to be eliminated. Evil people shouldn’t exist.

Evil people shouldn’t exist. It wasn’t a new thought for him. Neither was the thought after that. It was a thought he’d had for a very long time - before he even met Melanie, before he even admitted it.

“Tim, are you alright? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

After a few heart-wrenching seconds, Tim found himself calming down enough to answer. “You meant to. You just didn’t want to. I made you do this.” One bad apple spoils the bunch. “Is - is that enough? I can answer more -”

“No, that’s enough,” Jon said quickly. “It’s - it’s not my place to pass judgement on you, Tim. And your, uh, disturbed thinking. Melanie - anyway, we’ll work on it.” He smiled weakly, placatingly. “I’ve been there. The others helped. If it wasn’t for them, I’d be - I don’t know where I’d be, but I’d be a lot worse off. We can help you too. If you let us. I know it’s scary, but it’s worth it. I promise.”

“Right,” Tim said. “Can I go now?”

When he left Jon’s office, everybody was at their desks. He knew what the guilty expressions when they all pretended they hadn’t been eavesdropping, but they weren’t wearing them now. Maybe everybody had grown up a bit recently.

Tim slunk into the library, and for good measure locked it behind him. He pulled out a thick stack of books, a teetering pile of Statements. He needed to research. There was a decision he had to make, and he needed as much proof as possible and a well-laid plan. It wasn’t quite a hunt, but it was close. It wasn’t quite the apocalypse, but it was his own.

But, of course, it was a lie. Tim had made his decision a few minutes ago. He had made it a long time ago. He kept making it, every time. Everything else was just justification.

It wouldn’t fix anything - but it’d make him feel better.

#my writing #the magnus archives #tma #tma fanfic #hunt!tim #timothy stoker #melanie king #sasha james #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #this one's a roughie try not to read it if you're in a bad place right now #danny stoker #also keep in mind that tim absolutely one of the most unreliable narrators ive ever written if not the most #it was incredibly fun #anyway enjoy

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