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uranometrias · 6 days

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✮ꜜ : ❛ you're still a traitor : criminal minds x fem! reader [ pt. 1 ]

pairing: aaron hotchner x bau! reader (unrequited) | spencer reid x bau! reader | s7 team x bau! reader (platonic)

summary: being in love with your boss was hard. especially when there were so many factors surrounding you that made the possibility of being with him, out of the question. for starters, there was your age gap, and hotch was a stickler with baggage that he couldn't quite disclose to you. hotch was a fantasy, always out of your grasp, that is until emily dies. in the four months that followed emily's death at the hands of ian doyle, you found yourself living a life that you'd only ever dreamed about. hotch was careful, but the proof was right in front of your face as he went out of his way to care for you while you grieved. how stupid of you not to realize something was horribly wrong. but now emily was back, and hotch was back from reassignment in pakistan, and you were all on trial, and absolutely nothing makes sense except for the bitter understanding that you were a pawn in a game that in so few words was "way bigger than you." but at least you had spence.

content warnings: this is literally a barrel of angst. reader breaks the skin of her palms with her nails. mentions of slight! anxiety. follows the plot of "it takes a village" aka the iconic "this is calm, and it's doctor" episode. flashbacks x present day! spencer has been crushing on reader for as long as she's been crushing on hotch. hotch is NOT romantically interested in reader. slight! hotchniss vibes (but that's up to your interpretation. jj x reader angst! reader does not react to emily's return well. mentions of unit transfer / bureau resignation. spencer confesses to reader... open ending making room for a part 2! heartbreak, drinking, crying. best friend! penelope garcia + derek morgan. reader has a sister & niece.

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Your leg shakes violently as you sat just outside the court room, hands balled into tight fists as your nails press deep into the callousing skin of your palms. You couldn't say you were nervous, as far as the previous case was concerned you'd done everything you could to save Declan. You'd take whatever suspension they'd throw your way without batting an eye. You didn't regret the part you played, no, you just regretted the team that you were apart of.

It had been a crazy seven months. You remembered when things turned left, back when Emily started acting weird. She was shorter, snappier, she had less patience with any of you. Long gone were the days of wasting your time with jokes and innuendos. She had a lot on her mind, a lot none of you were privy to, and you remembered how you'd stretched yourself. You'd all tried so hard to show her you were there, to let her know that you could be trusted.

Your face contorts into a scowl, it had become your new resting face in the last few weeks. God, you hated how stupid and naive you'd been back then. Now that everything was out in the open, it was almost too obvious where the deception began. What was the point of taking care of people who had no trouble treating you like some disposable pawn piece to be moved to fit their whims. Damn. You were crying again, you'd been doing that a whole lot too lately.

You scrub furiously at your face, and you hate your teammates a little bit more. JJ had gone first, face devoid of any timidity or uncertainty. Long gone were the days of Jennifer Jareau the Liaison, she was a profiler now, one of you. When she'd come back, you'd been ecstatic. The unit hadn't been the same since she was transferred, you'd missed her so gravely. But now, now the sight of her just reminded you of the secret you'd been holding on the tip of your tongue.

Hotch wasn't the only one who had known about Emily.

You feel a hand moving to rest on the top of your thigh, and you flinch violently. You sniffle audibly, eyes moving to rest on Penelope, your God-given solace. Your best friend. She, Derek, and Spencer were the only ones who wholeheartedly understood what you felt. But even still, Hotch hadn't used their feelings to make them blind, the way he had done with you. He'd played you like a goddamn fiddle, and you'd let him. Because you were weak, stupid, grieving, and in love.

Hotch had never been in the cards for you, not that you weren't beautiful, gorgeous, an amazing agent. You had the stamp of approval of both Agents Gideon and Rossi. Erin Strauss had been (by your request) rejecting every request of transfer any other unit had tried to offer. You were an asset to the bureau, and a major part of this team. You'd been around since the beginning. You'd witnessed doe-eyed Spencer Reid join at age 23, full of facts and anxiety.

You'd seen Derek blossom and break out of his play-boy persona, and become someone that other branches of the law fought to have. You'd been around for so long, you'd witnessed so much, and Hotch knew that. Which you suppose is what you allowed yourself to believe was the reason he'd never shown signs of reciprocating your feelings. He was respecting your future, leaving your options open. But those were the delusional musings of a girl in love with someone she can't have. Hotch wasn't into you, and you knew that.

So why, why, why did you let him convince you of the opposite? For even one measly second? And, yes, of course in the grand scheme of things you understood why he did what he did. But it didn't make it hurt less. In fact knowing his duty to Emily outweighed his duty to anything else just made this whole ordeal feel more like a slap to your face. Penelope gives your thigh a reassuring squeeze, and you're pulled from your running mind. You blink, registering her worry.

"Are you alright?" she asks, and it's the first time anyone's asked you that since the first day. You know they were giving you space to cope, which only seemed to reaffirm your feelings of betrayal and loneliness. "We'll get out of this, alright? And we'll-we'll be able to be a complete family again." she proceeds, and serves you right for believing someone understood what was going on. They'd all misunderstood you. They thought your behavior was fear of the team being dismantled. Some profilers you were surrounded by.

"I'm fine, Garcia." you say, and you can't bite the snippiness if you wanted to. "I just want to get this over with, and get the hell out of here." you add, and you're standing up, Penelope's hand dropping limply as you move your seat. You find a more isolated corner, plopping back into the uncomfortable seat, as the legs squeak slightly. Your leg is back to shaking, only now you've taken to chomping on your bottom lip. You don't imagine Penelope's hurt expression, you know without a doubt that you'll cave. And you can't.

Not this time.

Your phone chirps in your pocket, and you jump once more. Your jumpiness was a new attribute triggered by the amount of sleep you hadn't been getting. Pulling it out you see that it's a call from your big sister, and you curse under your breath. You were supposed to be watching your niece so your sister could pick up an extra shift. None of you had really expected for things to go this far.

"Hey..." you wince, because you can hear the heaviness of your feelings ladled over your words.

"Hey, are you alright? I got a call from Spence." and you're surprised. You look up, searching for the brunette anywhere in the vicinity, and find that he hasn't shown up yet. It's a bit of a shock, especially for someone as punctual as Reid. You did however spot JJ still meandering about, and she's not looking tense at all. Despite your anger towards her, you couldn't deny that she'd quickly fallen into the role of a profiler. It fit her almost like a glove.

"Spencer called you?" you ask, and you hear the tension in your sister's sigh. You imagine that she must be exhausted. Your sister did a lot, and managing a blossoming family was hard. Your niece was five, and she had a new addition to the family on the way. Which was why it was so important for you to be there on the days she needed you to watch your niece.

"Yes, he said something about..." your sister lowers her voice. "Emily." she questions, and you find your head nodding despite the fact she can't see you. "Are you alright?" she asks again, and this time she emphasizes how important it is for her to hear directly from your mouth the state of your wellbeing. Your sister seemed to always see right through you, it was a wonder she wasn't the one in the FBI.

"I'm-" you trail off before you can lie. "I'm sure if they could they'd disband the unit." you whisper, and you look up just as Derek is exiting the court room, Penelope looking terrified as she takes his place. Derek scans the room before he spots you, and his eyes soften. JJ approaches him and the two seem to chat animatedly. Still they look so serious, there was no room for smiles and banter today.

It's not long though before they're looking at you again, and you know that they know. Your self isolation wasn't something you were exactly being subtle about. You immediately look away, focusing in on what your sister was saying. "Bad decisions or not, they're no good without your unit." she says, and pride still manages to swell up inside of you. "You guys do good work. You work because you're together, everyone plays their role." she proceeds, and it's then you shatter.

Play your role. What role exactly did you play? Hotch was the stoic leader that somehow seemed to play the role of pseudo-father so well for every member of the team, with the exception of Rossi and Derek. Derek, was the shoe-in for promotion. The older brother who teased you relentlessly, but would fight til his last breath to protect you, and he always did. JJ, the pretty girl. The one who everyone on the team at some point had been attracted to. But more than that, she was resilient, a subtle glue that kept your unit running.

You quickly slot through everyone else's roles in your head, and huff. What were you except the odd-woman out. The dummy with a crush on your unit chief, and too much knowledge for your own good. You supposed that was why Hotch had to distract you with exaggerated gestures. If you got out of your feelings and really thought about it, you knew that if anyone on the team was going to see through the smoke, and uncover the truth about Emily, it would be you.

So he had to handicap you. What better way than by hanging the possibility of a romance in your face. Still, it was cruel. Just more proof that this was not the family you made them out to be. "Yeah, I'm not so sure." you reply, and you can hear how disgruntled you sound. It smacks you like a ton of bricks, and it's then you truly realize just how hurt you were by everything. Your sister sighs deeply, and it makes you second guess yourself. Were you being irrational? Unfair?

"I know what Hotch did." she begins, "And it was awful to play with your feelings like that." she expresses, and you feel validated. "And nobody's expecting you to just welcome Emily back with open arms after months and months of thinking that she was dead. You were deceived, and I want you to feel however you want, okay?" she says, and you don't respond, mostly because it feels rhetorical. "Just don't do anything rash without thinking it through alright?"

You don't know what she means by that so your eyes roll. "I think we're well past that, if they find us guilty I could lose my job." you remind her, and she chuckles. You don't find it funny, you can't. Your love for the job outweighed a lot of things, so it had been a no-brainer to help Derek seek out Ian Doyle. You wanted his head spinning on a pike, and you weren't planning to take no for an answer.

two weeks prior.

You were sitting across from Derek, steaming mug of coffee in your head that was more french vanilla creamer than anything else. You held the staged photograph of Declan and Louise. Derek's holding an identical photo, a heady sigh escaping him as you both rack your brains for some sort of bullseye. Something that would point you right in the direction of Declan. "Okay, Emily needed to get Declan a new identity." Penelope says as she walks into the office. She sits in the chair right beside you, arm full of stress balls and files. "So she must have used someone that she trusted." she proceeds.

"Alright, well that's a short list, but it's probably not even written down." is Derek's tired reply.

"Even if it was, she's been so many places, with so many different points of contact. " you speak up, and you take a sip from your coffee, praying it kicks in and wakes you up a bit. "It's not gonna be super easy to track and narrow them all down." you say, and you realize your mistake just as Penelope is placing a file in your hands.

"Oh, tell me about it. Two columns, domestic and imports." she says as she passes the other to Derek, who's looking at you with an amused smile stretched across his face. Serves you both right for underestimating the genius of Penelope Garcia. "I accept your apology, cutie." she says, leaning into you as you grin, smacking your lips in a kiss.

"Hey." JJ's at the door of the office, all three of you turning to look her way as she beams brightly. "Have you guys seen, Spence?" she questions, and you remember how you'd offered to bring him a coffee as a respite from the garbage water they served in the bullpen. He'd shut you down politely asking to reschedule as he was going to be spending his day at the Firing Range. You understood the need, he wanted to protect himself, and the team. He had to get better.

"He's at the firing range." you and Penelope speak in unison, making eye contact, as hers narrow. You knew instantly she would have questions about why you of all people knew Spencer's whereabouts.

"Again?" JJ questions as you shrug your shoulders, her eyes flitting towards you.

"Ever since Prentiss died, he..." Penelope speaks your thoughts.

"Right." JJ nods her head. "Uh... did you guys just get a new case?" she questions, hands clasping together in front of her.

"It's just an old one." Derek answers.

"Do you want some fresh eyes?" she asks, and it's painfully clear that she's still figuring out how to feel more like the team again.

"Not just yet." Derek denies, and he's polite, but you knew why he was being this way. You were all for keeping anything related to Doyle under wraps until you were further along.

"Ok. Um, well let me know." she hums, and then she looks back at you. "Y/N, can I..." your eyebrows raise as she trails off. "Can we talk? It'll only take a second." she hopes, and you look to Derek and Penelope for a moment.

"We won't do anything big without you." Derek promises, and you nod, closing the file, and handing it off, before you stand to your feet. You follow JJ out of the office, and down the hallway, stopping just before you reach the heart of the bullpen. You look to her expectantly, a bit confused, but not on edge. You had missed JJ, and in the two months she'd been back, it'd been pretty hard to get some real time with her. You'd hoped a break in the case would help to change that.

"Everything okay, Jaige?" you ask, and you witness how she exhales in relief right in front of you.

"God, it is now." she says, and your eyebrows jump up. She seems to understand the confusion on your face as she lets out a chuckle, dispelling more of her own tension. "You've been calling me Agent Jareau since I got back... not JJ and definitely not Jaige." she explains, as it seems to register for you. "I guess I was just a little worried I'd done something to make you mad at me." she admits, and she's clearly sheepish.

"Oh." you chuckle yourself, and you reach out to hold her shoulder. "No, you've done nothing wrong." you promise. "I've just been a bit in my head these last few weeks, but I'm really glad you're back." JJ beams at your words, and all the remaining tension in her posture dissipates instantly.

present day.

"Hey, everything alright?" you look up, pulled from your thoughts at the presence of Spencer Reid. He's holding a medium cup of a steaming liquid that you can only assume is coffee, and you find yourself smiling despite yourself. "I remember you asked me a few weeks ago about coffee." he holds it out, and you're quick to press your phone to your shoulder, neck craning slightly as you take it.

"Thanks, Spence." you mumble, and you can practically hear your sister's smirk from the other line. "Could you just give me one second, I'm talking to my sister?" you question, and Spencer nods his head, eyes widening in understanding. You smile politely, and he beams back at you, pretty eyes seemingly brightening before he's making his way over to Derek who's smirking like the nuisance he is.

"Hey." you mumble once he's gone, and your sister is snickering. For some odd reason she'd been dropping hints that maybe the guy on the team you should be setting your sights on was Spencer. To your defense, it wasn't like he wasn't attractive. You'd be an idiot to deny his boyish charm and good looks, but after he'd sat you down and admitted he had a crush on JJ, back during his second year, you'd sort of blocked any potential attraction towards him out of your head.

Now he was just Spence.

"Hey, I should go. I just wanted to check in, Spence made me aware of everything so I've got everything figured out on this end." she promises you, and you nod once more despite yourself. "Just think about what I said, alright? It'd be a shame for you to leave behind such a good job." she finishes, and you don't know how to respond to that, so you don't. "Call me later?" she questions, though you know she's telling you more than asking.

"I will." you reply, and she sounds pleased as she exhales.

"I'll talk to you soon." and then the phone is clicking. You adjust your grip on your coffee, using your free hand to grab your phone, and place it down on your lap. The coffee smelled good, it was from that cute shoppe that sold different pastries and always smelled like cinnamon. You'd been there with Spencer and Penelope a handful of times, and they always made your coffee exactly how you liked it. Still, Spencer had never ordered for you so you await a mishap.

The first sip warms you up instantly, and you're knocked flat on your ass by how on point the drink was. Your eyes snap upwards, looking across the lobby towards Spencer, who's awkwardly sitting in a seat, Derek beside him. JJ was gone now, but you figured she was probably with Hotch and Emily, the three of them had been attached at the hip since the team was "back together". You're certain them being gone was what led you to standing to your feet.

You walk towards Derek and Spencer quietly, slipping into a seat next to Spencer as Derek leaned up against the wall. "I didn't know that you knew my coffee order." you whisper, and Spencer turns to look at you. He offers a half smile, you were certain you'd be passing a lot of those back and forth until the court proceedings were done with.

"Of course I do." he shrugs his shoulders. "I pay attention when you talk." he promises, and you wonder why he had to like JJ, and why you had to like Hotch. On paper, and off paper Spencer Reid was the perfect candidate for boyfriend, plus he never pretended to be into you to keep you from finding out the truth. You both fall into silence, there's not much else to say, but you let his words repeat in your head. I pay attention when you talk. It makes your stomach twist.

"You alright over there, pretty girl?" Derek's voice barely reaches over a whispered volume. It seemed you all were feeling the dreary aftershocks of an ordeal like the one you'd found yourselves in. You look up at Derek tiredly, and you don't understand why he's asking you this, not until you feel the scalding heat of hot coffee singing your skin. Two sets of worried eyes are drawn to your cup, it's squished in your palm, brown liquid streaming everywhere.

"Shit." you hiss, and the cup falls to the floor, you're quick to clutch your burnt hand. God, you were really torn up over this.

"I'll get this cleaned up." Derek promises, and he looks at Spencer as if he was communicating something he didn't want you privy to. Spencer falters, only for a second before he's reaching out for your forearm, and guiding you to your feet. You trail after him, walking down the long corridor, listening out for the telltale sign that Penelope was done, and they'd be calling you next. On your route you pass JJ who looks concerned as she looks between the two of you.

"Spence, Y/N?" she says, and you avert your gaze, you're not sure if you're more angry or embarrassed.

"Sh-she spilled some coffee." Spencer explains, but he doesn't stop walking. "Shouldn't be more than a first degree burn, if she soaks her hand for five minutes, everything should be fine." he is passive as he speaks, eyes never quite meeting hers as he continues to lead you.

"Let me take her." JJ offers, and both you and Spencer are quick to offer denials. She looks hurt but masks it quickly. "It's not like you can go into the girl's bathroom with her, right?" she says and it's then you both realize you've got no other choice. He looks to you, trying to gauge how you'd feel about it, and you sigh. Maybe this was for the best, you could finally get things off your chest with JJ. It was only fair. He seems to clock the instant you've decided, and concedes.

"I'll be right out here." he promises, and you nod slowly. He looks like he wants to say more, but he doesn't get the chance to.

"Spence." JJ says his name a bit more sternly, and he resists the urge to cut his eyes in her direction. He ignores her long enough to take in your ailed hand, he saw the way the skin began to redden and swell. He seems cross as he passes you off to JJ, and you feel a bit silly being fussed over for something as minute as a coffee burn. JJ's earnest in the way she takes you to the nearest women's restroom. You hiss the second the cold water comes in contact with your skin.

You don't say anything to JJ though, losing your nerve the second the two of you were alone. She looks like she's waiting for you to say something though, eyes brimming with some sort of unease. She was reading you, using her new skills to profile you. You suppose that's exactly what pushes you to finally speak. "We said we'd never profile one another." you remind her crossly, and she's sheepish. "Just because you're doing it in your head doesn't make it any less invasive." you keep your wrist in place, hissing silently.

"If you would just talk to me I wouldn't have to go that far." she counters, and you blink. Fair, but you had every right to keep your distance from her. Just because the rest of the team was still more or less unaware of JJ's role in harboring the secret of Emily, you'd read right through her.

"What's there to talk about exactly?" you ask. "None of us want to be here dealing with this." and you take the route of the naive girl.

"I'm not talking about with the trial... and the senators." she shakes her head, and she's almost pleading as she tries to catch your eyes in the mirror. "I'm talking about Emily." she deadpans. "Everything that happened?" she proceeds. "You've hardly said a word to her since she came back." she doesn't want to come off like she's scolding you, and so she takes in a breath before her tone can become defensive.

"I don't speak to ghosts." and it's a quiet little dig that she hears all the same. It forces a tense silence to wash over the restroom, the only sound slicing through the awkwardness is the water rushing from the spout. JJ clears her throat, blinking a few times as she adjusts your wrist, allowing the water to evenly coat your burn. Only a few more minutes of this and you could make your grand escape.

"That's not fair." she finally voices her thoughts with a deep sigh.

"Isn't it?" you snap. "Seven months we thought she was dead." and you suppose that was a mistake of hers, getting you started. "Pretty lucky that you were off at the Pentagon, right?" you ask sourly. "Or was it lucky that you were in on the whole scam? I mean you were at the funeral, but you didn't have to cry, you didn't have to grieve." you accuse, and JJ's jaw slackens, clearly surprised at your outburst.

"I lost my friend too, okay?" she counters and you scoff.

"Did you?" you argue. "All those nights I called you crying, all those texts, those check ins... how long did you know Emily was still alive?" you demand, and JJ's feeling cornered, and her heart rate is picking up. She knew there'd be mixed feelings about this, but she'd never expected to ever be at odds with you. You, Spencer, and JJ rounded out the younger crowd on the team, it was your job to stick together. "Answer me." you insist, and you sound so crushed as you speak.

"I knew the whole time." she answers, and you nod your head, because of course you already knew.

"Exactly." you sneer. "You're a liar." you hate how angry this whole thing makes you, but you can't deny it. They'd played with your feelings, all of them, and now you were meant to behave like nothing was wrong. "Did you know about Hotch?" you ask, and JJ flinches. She doesn't answer for a while, and the water seems to rush even louder in your ears.

"I told him it wasn't smart." she finally answers. "But we needed to ensure that Emily wasn't at risk, it was harmless... just some flirting to keep you from getting too close to the truth." and JJ is speaking as if this wasn't some major breach of your position as coworkers and alleged friends. "He'd never cross the line." she reminds you, and the reminder that yeah, Hotch would never be with you makes you wince.

"And he didn't." she says this like she knows for certain. "It was flirting, Y/N. it didn't mean anything, we just needed you to..." and she trails off when she sees how destroyed you look at her admission. "Y/N..." she trails off, and you inhale sharply.

"Don't." you exhale, and you snatch your hand from her grasp. The cool air of the bathroom immediately attacks the welts blooming on your hand. You don't have time to pay them any mind.

"We just wanted to protect you... and keep Emily safe in the process. The more of us that knew Emily was alive, the more of a liability we'd be while Doyle was still on the run." she says, and you suppose in the grand scheme you understand. As profilers, as special agents working for the FBI they'd done great work. As your friends, as people you'd considered family for years... they'd betrayed you.

Plain and simple.

"Congratulations, you did exactly what you meant to." you say dully, and you sniffle, though no tears are set to come. Instead you feel more anger blossoming in the pit of your gut. "I hope it was worth it." and it's dramatic, but you deserve the dramatics, sidestepping the blonde and leaving her behind just as Emily is stepping inside. She looks at you wide-eyed, before she sees JJ standing there seemingly frazzled.

"Is everything okay?" she questions, and you don't offer her an answer, instead leaving the restroom as your earlier words ring in your head. I don't talk to ghosts. And you don't, and despite your history you'd never allow yourself to. You find your way back to the seats that led to the courtroom, Derek was gone, the only person still there was Spencer. He stands up as soon as he hears your shoes.

"Where's Derek?" you ask quietly.

"He left with Garcia." he answers quietly. "I guess they're dismissed for now. They're in with Dave now." he explains, and your eyes shift to the door. More than likely you or Spencer would be next.

You sit down, and Spencer follows you, sinking back into his seat as his legs just barely brush against yours. "Are you scared?" you ask, and Spencer's head shakes.

"Are you?" he shoots back, and you look away from the door.

"Not of this." you admit. "But of what comes after." you add and Spencer's pretty brown eyes are swimming with confusion. "Can we really all bounce back from something like this?" you ask, and it's rhetorical, but he answers you all the same.

"We've come back from worse." he reminds you, and that faint smile is worming back onto your face.

"Sure we have." you agree numbly. Spencer's eyes drop to your hand.

"How does it feel?" he asks, and you follow his gaze with a shrug of your shoulders. He doesn't look pleased by this approach, and it makes you sigh.

"Just feels like I ran some water over it." you admit, and Spencer chuckles. "A bit anticlimactic if I'm honest with you, Doctor." and you're partly teasing, mostly because it's so easy.

"You'll need some sort of petroleum jelly... there's some pretty good products that aren't at all carcinogenic like the leading brands." he begins on a tangent, and it makes you smile a bit bigger. "That with some gauze is the perfect remedy for such a mild burn." he proceeds and you look down at it. There's a moment of silence between you, before he's talking again. "Can I ask what happened?" he whispers.

You hum, almost like you're pretending you can't hear him.

"With the coffee? Was it not good? I tried to follow your order exactly." he says and you squeeze your eyes closed.

"It wasn't you or the coffee, Spence." you promise him, and without thinking you reach out, small hand resting on his shoulder. "The coffee was perfect." you insist, and he relaxes, but not enough. "I guess I'm just thrown about all of this." you proceed. "No matter how much I try to remind myself that they did this to protect Emily... that their deception was for a good reason, it just makes me angrier. Why is it that I have to rationalize being angry?" you question.

"I have to reign my feelings in for the sake of the team." you're careful not to grow loud. Spencer's eyebrows are pressed inwardly, head shaking.

"You don't." he denies you quickly. "You shouldn't." he corrects.

"You're right." you agree, and your silent for only a second. "I wish everyone could be like you, Spence." you say, and your words surprise him. He feels this familiar wave of adoration that always seems to swallow him whole whenever he was around you.

"Really?" he knows it might be pathetic, to be hopeful for something like this. The chance to hear what popped in your head whenever you thought of him.

"Yeah." you say firmly, and he tries not to look too eager. "You're so smart." you tell him, and he knows this, but it still feels nice hearing it from you. "And you're always nice to me." you add with a quiet laugh. "And you'd never lie to me would you?" you ask, and in truth, it's not a fair question. Spencer wasn't in the position the others were in.

"What do you mean?" he asks, and he fears it may be the wrong response. You don't even react, at least not that he can tell.

"Nothing." you settle on, head shaking from side to side. "Forget I mentioned it." and he doesn't really want to remind you that his memory quite literally makes that impossible. "I heard that you weren't fighting the suspension." you say conversationally, and he's surprised, mostly because the only person he'd told about that was Derek. Which meant you had been talking about him when he wasn't around.

"I guess I just stand by everything we did." he tells you, and your hand still hurts a bit, but it's definitely a problem for a later version of you.

"Me too. I'm glad we got Doyle, and Declan's safe." you exhale, and despite your anguish towards the team, you meant every word.

"And the team's back together." Spencer himself doesn't sound so convinced. You look over at him at this, your own unconvinced expression slowly cracking through his attempt at a cool facade.

"Is it?" you ask, and Spencer's face softens, a small little frown taking over his otherwise usually content face. He couldn't admit it now, mostly because it didn't feel like the right time, but he paid attention to you. He knew all about your complicated feelings for Hotch "I don't want to be on a team with people who purposely keep me in the dark about things." you ask, and Spencer pauses.

"I'm sure they wouldn't if they had another choice." he offers, and it's not how he feels at all, but it's what you need to hear.

"You don't believe that." you deny, and Spencer can't fight his chuckle. "Or maybe you do, you've always been good at seeing the best in people."

"Oh, do you think so?" it's a bit of a surprise. With your job description it would've made more sense for you to tell him that he saw the worst in people. He felt it was a fair thing to say that he was exceptionally good at his job, but it's then he recognizes what it is you're truly saying, or at least alluding to. It makes his face heat up immediately, cheeks blossoming a rosy red that makes him want to roll his eyes.

"Of course." you promise, and then you're looking at him again. Your face is one of the prettiest he's ever seen, and it's not even subtle. You seem a bit uncertain of your own allure though, which to him is a major shock. "You're like the best person ever." you add, and he expects you to snicker or show some sign that you were joking, but you don't. Bad for him, because his deluded mind full of fantasies starring you would take words like those the wrong way.

"I think you're the best person ever..." he's whispered this, but you hear it all the same, and he's lucky enough to witness the way your entire face morphs. Despite the bleariness in your eyes, you beam brightly. He hates though, that you start to cry. It starts with one tear slipping down your cheek and dripping into your lap. The onslaught comes right after, and before you know it, you're choking on sobs.

"God..." he hears the bitter tang of self-loathing that attaches and weaves itself into your otherwise honey-filled tone. "You're making this so hard, Spencer." you huff, and you scrub at your face harshly. He doesn't understand, but he's too frozen in place to ask you what you mean. Lucky him, you seem to know that you've got explain a bit, so you do. "I'm gonna resign." you say this quietly, sniffling as more tears fall. Spencer feels like he's misheard you.

He wants to have misheard you. He flounders a bit, and he's mentally scolding himself, because he has to hurry the fuck up and say something. "You can't!" and he's scolding himself again for sounding too eager. You jump a bit at the outburst, and he winces right along with you. "We just got everyone back." he reminds you, and you exhale, head nodding in understanding.

"I know." you promise him. "Why do you think this is so hard. You think I want to be the asshole that turns the unit on its head?" you ask. "But I can't stay here and pretend that everything's fine... or act like I don't feel thrown about all of this." you proceed, and of course, Spencer understands, he's upset he was lied too as well.

"I understand." he admits with a sigh, and you let out a quiet noise of relief, almost like you were worried he'd be upset with you. He assumes this is just him being delusional again. You look like you have something sitting on the tip of your tongue, so he stays silent to give you the room to say all that you need to.

"Have you ever had feelings for someone?" you ask. You chuckle at the look he shoots you, "Not just for a second, Spence." you proceed. "I mean like... take your breath away, kind of almost-in-love feelings." you indulge, and Spencer's keen to shut his mouth. Yes, is the loud and resounding answer that rings in his head, because foolishly he'd allows you to captivate him like the siren you were almost three years prior. He'd be a dummy to tell you such now though.

"I-" he blinks harshly, eyes feeling too dry. "I can't say I have." he lies, and he remembers your words from earlier, how you'd praised him for being someone who would never lie to you. You don't seem to notice his deception though, and if you do, you're too in your own head to comment on it.

"Good." you say with a shuddered breath. "They're nothing but a headache, especially when the person doesn't want you back." you exhale the words, and it's like a dagger is being lunged into his chest. How dense could you possibly be with all your super smarts?

"Did something happen with Hotch?" he asks, and now it's your turn to be embarrassed, face pinching up as you choke on a breath. "I don't mean to pry, if it's personal... it's just that-" he trails off, seemingly waiting for you to berate him or tell him to back off. You don't, instead your nose twitches, and you begin to look at your shoes. "Y/N?" he nudges you with his elbow, and it's light.

"No." you finally say, head shaking. "I thought maybe..." you trail off, more embarrassment slicing at you as you cringe. "But it was all a ruse, just a way to keep me from getting too close, and figuring out everything about Emily before they wanted us to know." you say and Spencer's eyebrows furrow.

"They?" he pries, and you look at him like he's silly.

"Hotch and JJ." you answer plainly, and it takes Spencer a second. JJ who he'd went to for comfort for ten weeks? He blinks at you, and you shrug. "So you see... anyone that could take my feelings and use them to manipulate me... are they really worth sticking around for?" you ask, and Spencer doesn't want to validate you in this way. He wants to be selfish, he wants you to stay on the team.

He thinks about how devasted everyone would be. How devasted he would be to walk into the bullpen and find that your desk was empty.

"I don't want you to go..." he admits, and it's quite pitiful, the sadness that soaks the words like gasoline. You find yourself chomping on your lip again, nails pressing into the cuts of your palms, and Spencer's catching your bad habits in real time.

It's a bit invasive, the way his hand surges out, and stops you in your tracks. "Please don't do this." and you're not sure if he's talking about leaving the unit, or if he's referring to the gashes littering your hands. When he holds your palm out flat, and rubs his thumb across the bleeding indentations, you find that you understand quickly.

Every few seconds it's ebbing with more droplets of blood, and he's quick to wipe them away like they offend him. Just as he's moving to say something else, the doors to the courtroom are opening, and Dave Rossi is exiting, his eyes immediately on you and Spencer. You must look foolish, hands intertwined as you stare wide-eyed at the team's senior agent. It's probably why Spencer is dropping your hand as you're snatching it away from his grasp.

You still find that your eyes are quick to appraise one another. He's looking at you, and you're staring back, mouths parted as if you'd been caught. Had you been caught? Had there really been anything to catch? You don't have time to answer, because you're being called next. You frown at Spencer, standing to your feet as he feels his pulse threaten to leap to disrespectful speeds.

"Y/N..." he calls after you, and you stop for a second. Eager eyes fall back on him, and he's trailing off, because the look in your eyes says it all. If you got out of this without being fired, you could imagine a world where quitting the FBI no longer made you sick to your stomach. Silence befalls the space, and he shakes his head after a beat. You look disappointed but not surprised, inhaling deep and audibly as you march towards the court room.

Spencer doesn't know what you're going to say, but he hopes recalling all you'd been through in the last few weeks will be enough to make you stay. At least until he has the courage to ensure that you leaving the team doesn't equate to losing you entirely and completely.

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charliejaneanders · 21 days

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Marcus Aurelius crashed my attempt to make a cool tableau to let y'all know that my YA threequel PROMISES STRONGER THAN DARKNESS is out in paperback today 😹🚀🎉🎸⚡💕💃

#books #writing #ya fantasy #ya science fiction #young adult science fiction #young adult fiction #ya books #ya fiction #ya romance #space opera #book tumblr #bookwyrm #bookworm #book worm #reading #star trek #victories greater than death #dreams bigger than heartbreak #promises stronger than darkness

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lxclerc · 2 months

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𝐢 𝐝𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 ─ 𝐜𝐥𝟏𝟔

summary... old wounds are ripped open as you and charles finally face each other. faceclaim... christina nadin pairing… charles leclerc x reader warning… angst. angst. angst. kinda mean charles

note... okay i know i disappeared from the face of the earth but if you guys are still here, i hope you enjoy this. this is really when the story starts tbh.

series masterlist

main masterlist

part three → current (part four) → part five

you’d grow to resent him; this is the ugly truth. if you’d stayed, you’d eventually grow to resent him. if you stayed, he’d grow to resent you. the both of you have dreams bigger than yourselves, love each other in a way that’s greater than what your teenage, immature brains were capable of.

you hated that everyone knew you as his girlfriend as though you don’t have an identity of your own. in everyone’s eyes, you’re just charles leclerc’s girlfriend. and you would have hated living like that. you would have hated always being accused of being where you are simply because you’re dating a driver.

you’d enter formula 1 one way or another. it’s your world and you would be a part of it eventually. had you stayed with charles, it wouldn’t be your world. it’d be his world with you as his tag along. your dreams and hard work would be invalidated.

it was bad enough in f3 and f2. you’d be no one had you entered formula 1 hanging on to his arm. and you can’t handle being no one, being a shallow extension of charles. you’re your own person with your own identity and your own dreams and you would have resented him had you stayed.

he would have given up racing had you asked him to. you’re his lifeline, the arms holding him together at his lowest points and the hand entwined with his at his highest. anyone who knew the two of you knew this. to charles leclerc, you were everything — the breath in his lungs, the beat of his heart.

it doesn’t matter what he’s lost, what he doesn’t have, so long as he had you. he would have given up everything if it meant you’d stay. you were all he knew — you’d taught him love unlike any he’s ever experienced.

and then you taught him heartbreak bigger than he knew possible. he just needed you to stay. he needed you by his side always.

had you asked him to, he would have given up his dreams. he needed you constantly — needing you to ground him, to keep him together. he needed you to give him reason to look forward to the next day.

but he would have hated you, he would have resented you. he’s exactly where he’s meant to be. he was born to race, born to compete and asking him to give it up for you would have been messing up the formula of what made charles charles. and eventually, he would hate you. he’d hate you from keeping him from what he’s born to do.

it was over before it ended — you both knew it. it wasn’t the same as before. being together would have held you both back. but charles held on, trying desperately to fix the broken glass despite his bleeding hands.

you were just the one who finally said it as it is.

charles had begged you though. he’s gotten on his knees with tears streaming down his eyes as he begged you to stay. he begged you try and make it work, he would have found ways to make it work but you begged him to let you go, cried as you asked him to remove his arms around you.

the days after were brutal. he showed up on your doorstep every night, called you every chance he got, and left pleading messages.

but eventually you left and he had no way of reaching you, of knowing where you are.

“i hope you get everything you’ve ever wanted and i hope it’s still never enough.” it was his last voicemail to you through tears, drunk and angry and heartbroken but it was also his curse.

you’d get everything you want but you’d always wonder what your life could have been if you stayed with him, had you been content in being just his wife.

you hadn’t answered charles’ text and for his part, he’d completely ignored you. whenever you find yourselves walking past each other around the paddock, he doesn’t even glance your way. it’s like you’d turned invisible. and when he does meet your eyes, it’s filled with nothing but contempt and hatred.

it’s better this way, you tell yourself. some love stories just don’t have happy endings and unfortunately, yours is one of them.

you didn’t expect to meet him here. at least not tonight, which thinking back to it now, was foolish of you. the season just ended after all, where else would charles leclerc be rather than partying at home?

but you’ve done your best to stay clear of him, keeping close to your friends. you’d be lying if you said the alcohol didn’t help with distracting you from his presence. maybe a little too well considering you hadn’t even realized you were alone with him until it was too late for you to leave without making it awkward.

you’re both at the rooftop of the nightclub, far enough from the party going on downstairs with all the privacy someone as well known and important as charles leclerc might need, but with the beat of the song causing vibrations beneath your feet.

you know that the rooftop is only available for special guests and you should have known it’d be charles when your friends mentioned it but the two of you have ran in the same circles from your childhood throughout your adulthood. the venn diagram of yours’ and charles’ friends is a circle so it was no surprise when your group of friends had been invited along.

half of your friends had left after the clock struck two while half of the remaining ones had been caught up with a man or another and the two you’d been left with left to get more drinks. charles had been with joris, hugo and andrea earlier but you aren’t sure where they are now. it was the explanation of how you found yourself in this predicament – left in the mercy of the chilly monegasque air with your bitter and possibly drunk ex boyfriend.

across from you, charles is staring at the bottle of his drunk, seemingly not aware of your presence if the focus he has on the bottle is anything to go by. for your part, you’re already planning your escape plan, eyes darting to the door as you contemplate whether you should leave now or wait for your friends. they’re not meant to be taking this long considering they’re only getting more drinks which meant that they’d probably gotten distracted by one thing or another.

the silence is awkward, the only sound coming from the hum of the music below you, and charles’ nonchalance avoidance of ignoring your existence makes it all worse. you needed to get away.

you already moved to stand up and leave when he spoke up, eyes finally leaving his stupid bottle to meet yours. “repartir ? vous êtes doué pour ça, n'est-ce pas ?” (leaving again? you’re good at that, aren’t you?)

your jaw clenched in annoyance and if you were even a little logical, you would ignore the jab and just leave, but you’re halfway through being out of your mind drunk and you hate the sharpness in his tone as if he hated talking to you.

you rolled your eyes, bringing your cocktail back to your lips as you lightly shook your head, crossing your leg over the other in an attempt to hide your almost-escape. “non. je me mets à l'aise.” (no, just getting comfortable.)

you don’t want him to know how being in his presence absolutely terrifies you, especially after the last time and the last text he’d sent you.

charles grinned wickedly, letting you know that he didn’t buy into your lie, and you were sober enough to recognize the cloud of alcohol in his eyes. he’s drunk, way more than you are. “Pourquoi as-tu peur de rester seule avec moi, y/n?” (why are you scared to be left alone with me?)

you scoffed. “qui a dit que j'avais peur, charlie ?” (who said i was scared, charlie?)

if you’d been paying more attention, you would have seen the way he visibly flinched as the old nickname fell from your lips. he hated you and the effect you still have on him.

silence engulfed the two of you again as you looked past him and focused on the view before you. despite the fact that it’s nearly three in the morning, monte carlo is as lively as ever, bright and beautiful as the view of the ocean and the waves crashing against rocks is a deep contrast from the bright neon lights from the nightclubs and casinos and many many hotels.

you’d be lying if you said there wasn’t ever a time where you wished you hadn’t left monaco, hadn't left home. you miss it terribly, but you don’t regret leaving.

once again, it’s charles to break the silence. he’s watching you again as though you’re a jigsaw puzzle with a thousand pieces he’s trying to all piece together. he’s looking at you as though he doesn’t recognize you, as though you’re a stranger he used to know. and the worse part is that it isn’t that part off the truth.

“i hate you,” he says, tone bitter and so sharp it feels as though it cut the air providing you oxygen. you turned to him, all of the sadness in the world hidden behind your eyes that he almost wants to take it back if only the bitter, abandoned monster you’d birthed and left him with after he lost you didn’t feel so much satisfaction at seeing the hurt in your eyes, at being able to hurt you as you hurt him then, as your presence’s sudden return in his life continues to hurt him now.

“that’s okay,” you say softly, a crack in your voice as the ache in your chest expands. “if that’s what will give you closure.”

he hates you and that stupid, fucking answer. he hates your lack of reaction. he hates that he’s the only one seemingly losing his goddamn mind, that he’s the only one who suffered – who hurt – after you left. he’s so fucking exhausted of hurting because of you.

you sigh, trying to stop the tears beginning to pool in your eyes. neither of you are in the mental state to be doing this right now.

“we’re going to be working together a lot this season, charles. the past should be left where it belongs – in the past.”

he glared at you with such ferocity that you thought he might actually set you on fire on the spot simply with the burning hatred behind his glare. “that’s it then? no explanation on why you left me? dropped me off so easily as if i never mattered to you. make it easy, y/n. say i never mattered. that would be my closure.”

it’s getting increasingly hard to keep your composure. when you decided to go out tonight, this was the last thing you expected. though if you were being honest with yourself, you should have known that this confrontation would come eventually, especially after the two of you were thrown back in each others’ lives so suddenly.

you’d left charles broken. you hadn’t meant to and you badly hoped he’d be able to piece his heart back together as the distance between the two of you grew, but he looks as broken now as he did the night you told him you couldn’t do it anymore. and you felt as much of a monster now as you did back then.

you wanted to scream. you wanted to scream how it hurt you too, how much you thought of him, of returning into his arms, how much you missed him, how much you love him, how sorry you were that this is the way the two of you became. your ‘almost’ would always haunt you.

it’s a tragedy the way your story went; maybe, perhaps, almost.

you wanted to tell him that you were scared – terrified of the love you had for each other because you knew it would ruin you and worse of all, you knew you would let it. how were you meant to deal with a realization like that so young? how were you meant to deal with the kind of love that was so soul crushing?

“it was like walking into the sun,” you say finally, muttering the words so softly that charles could barely hear you. “being with you was like walking into the sun in the hottest of all summer days after a terribly long winter. it was all consuming and all too much too soon. you burned me, charles. you set every part of me alight. you kept me so warm that you were burning me.”

charles held back a sob threatening to escape past his lips. “so you decided to break me?”

“we were too young,” you said instead. only eighteen. “we were too young and we loved each other too much. there was no place together for two teenagers with such big dreams.”

charles looked angry again, the tears staining his cheeks momentarily stopping as he all but snarled; “i would have given up racing for you.”

you stared ahead as you nodded, your own tears falling. you know this already. he would have given up everything if you asked. “and you would have hated me for it eventually.”

charles opened his mouth to argue, but no words came. He wanted to deny it; wanted to tell you that he could never hate you, not when you were everything to him. he adored every part and piece and molecule of you. you were the sun and the moon and the ocean and the thing that made the world go round. you were everything beautiful in the universe and he was so madly in love with you. he would have created a new religion just so he could worship you in a way he believed you deserved to be worshiped all he ever wanted was for you to stay. he just needed you to stay, to allow him to keep loving you. how could he ever hate when you were the breath in his lungs and the beat of his heart?

but he couldn’t say it. maybe he wouldn’t have stopped loving you. he doesn’t think he’s ever capable of not loving you. even now, when he hates you, he loves you. if you asked him to choose you over racing, the put your dreams before his own, he would still love you. he would still crawl to you, but he would resent you. that seed of resentment would continue to grow till it became unbearable. he will still love you, of course, you’re the breath in his lungs after all, the beat of his heart. he needed you to live, but he would resent you. your lives would have been miserable.

“how did it feel?” he asked instead. “after you left me.”

“like i’d never recover,” she said without missing a beat. “like i’d never draw another breath without half of it being a wish for you.”

charles expected it the answer to satisfy him. he wanted to be selfish and be happy over the fact that you were hurting too. he wanted to want you to suffer, but he feels nothing now. it all feels so empty. how many times will his heart break for you? he’s a mess. he’s a mess desperately trying to hold it all together. somewhere between love you and hating you, between knowing you and desperately wanting to forget you, he forgot how to love anyone else. he forgot how to know anyone else. he forgot how to love himself.

“in another universe, we meet later in life and love each other right,” you tell him as softly as you could, repeating the mantra you’d repeated to yourself for the past years. you stood up, soft, familiar hand caressing his cheek.

but it would not be in this universe.

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#formula 1 #f1 #charles leclerc #charles leclerc x reader #formula 1 one shot #charles leclerc fluff #formula 1 x reader #charles leclerc x you #f1 one shot #charles leclerc angst #charles leclerc smau #smau #social media #formula 1 smau

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zot3-flopped · 10 days

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Sylvia Plath did not stick her head in an oven for this! When Taylor Swift took the Grammys stage last month to claim her award for Best Pop Vocal Album for Midnights, she saw that spotlight as an opportunity to announce her 11th studio album: The Tortured Poets Department. The follow-up cut to audience members—Swift’s music industry peers, mind you—told us all that we would ever need to know, and the collective disinterest across the crowd echoed through our TVs.

Folks from all walks of life took to social media to express a multitude of reactions. Swifties clamored to their beloved monarch’s forthcoming era, while others lambasted the terminally cringe title and artwork and ridiculed Swift for making a night recognizing musical achievements across an entire industry about herself—knowing perfectly well that it would send her fanbase into a surge that would, no doubt, overpower the excitement around the ceremony itself.

Quite a few people questioned whether or not that moment suggested that a critical—definitely not commercial—tide would turn against the world’s most-famous pop star. And, perhaps it has—but, to most, it will look like nothing more than a single ripple in Swift’s ocean of successes.

Swift remained relatively hush-hush about The Tortured Poets Department up until its release, leaving her fans, admirers and haters alike with nothing but an album title to ponder about. And it’s a bad title.

If you have never been in Swift’s corner, her taking the route of labeling her next “era” as “tortured” was likely catnip for your disinterest. If you are a fan—not necessarily a Swiftie, but even just a casual lover of her best and brightest work—you might be beside yourself about the first Swift album title longer than one word in 14 years.

In terms of popularity—certainly not always in terms of quality—no musician has been bigger this century than Swift, which makes it impossible to really buy into the “torture” of it all.

This is not to say that Swift being the most famous person in the world makes her immune to having multi-dimensional feelings of heartbreak, mental illness or what-have-you.

But, she has made the choice—as a 34-year-old adult—to take those complex, universal familiars and monetize them into a wardrobe she can wear for whatever portion of her Eras Tour setlist she opts to dedicate to the material.

Torture is fashion to Taylor Swift, and she wears her milieu dully. This album will surely get comparisons to Rupi Kaur’s poetry, either for its simplicity, empty language, commodification or all of the above.

And, sure, there are parallels there, especially in how The Tortured Poets Department, too, is going to set the art of poetry back another decade—as Swift’s naive call-to-arms of her own milky-white sorrow rings in like some quintessential “I am going to take pictures of a typewriter on my desk and have a Pinterest mood-board of Courier New font” iPhone fodder. 2013 called and it wants it capricious, suburban girl-who-is-taking-a-gap-year wig back!

Soaking our book reports in coffee or having our moms burn the edges with a kitchen lighter cannot come back into fashion; the cyclical notions of culture cannot make the space for such retreads.

There is nothing poetic about a billionaire—who, mind you, threatens legal action against a Twitter account for tracking her destructive private jet paths—telling stadiums of thousands of people every night that she sees and adores them.

Tavi Gevinson says it well in her Fan Fiction zine: “When 80,000 people are also crying, you become less special, too.” If Swift can return to one of her dozen beach houses across the world, kick up her feet and say “I’m a poet of struggle,” then who is to say that millions—maybe billions—of people with access to a notes app and a social media account won’t dream that dream, too?

Maybe that looks like a net-positive, but it’s inherently damning and destructive to take an art form that has long stood on the shoulders of resistance, of love and of opposition to power, systematic injustice and climate warfare and boil it down to the new defining era of your own 10-digit revenue empire. “My culture is not your costume,” yada, etc.

The Tortured Poets Department does begin with a shred of hope that, just maybe, Swift knows what she’s talking about—as she sneaks in a cheeky “all of this to say,” textbook transitional phrasing for poets, on opening track “Fortnight.”

But “Fortnight” unmasks itself quickly as a heady vat of pop nothingness, though it isn’t all Swift’s fault. “I was a functioning alcoholic, ‘til nobody noticed my new aesthetic,” she muses, attempting to bridge the gap between a behind-the-scenes life and on-stage performance—only for it to occur while propped up against the most dog-water, uninspired synth arrangement you could possibly imagine.

Between producer Jack Antonoff’s atrocious backing instrumental and the Y2K-era, teen dramedy echo chamber of a vocal harmony provided by out-of-place guest performer Post Malone, “Fortnight” chokes on the vomit of its own opaqueness.

“I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary,” Swift muses, and it sounds like satire. This is your songwriter of the century? Open the schools.

The Tortured Poets Department title-track features some of Swift’s worst lyricism to-date, including the irredeemable, relentlessly cringe “You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate, we declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist / I scratch your head, you fall asleep like a tattooed golden retriever” lines glazed atop some synthesizers and drums that just ring in as hollow, unfascinating costuming.

Aside from the Puth nod, which I can only discern as a joke (given the fact that he is one of the 150-most streamed artists in the world and is one of the blandest pop practitioners alive—I don’t care if he can figure out the pitch of any sound you throw at him), I think Antonoff should stick to guitar-playing. Get that man away from a keyboard, I’m begging you.

Synths can be, if you use them correctly, one of the most emotional and provocative instruments in any musician’s tool-box. There’s a reason why keyboards defined the 1980s; they rebelled against the very oppressive nature existing outside of the cultural company they kept. There’s resistance in electronic music that, while they brandish an aesthetic that, to a layman’s ears, seems like technicolor hues for any infectious pop track, it’s a genre that aches to tell its own story. That is simply not the case here, and that electronica hangs Swift out to dry when she drags us through the lukewarm “I laughed in your face and said, ‘You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith’ / This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel, we’re modern idiots” lines, only to hit us with a softly sung F-bomb that sounds like a billionaire’s rendition of that one Miranda Cosgrove podcast clip.

I used to rag pretty heavily on Reputation—mostly because I thought (and still do, mostly) that it sounded like Swift had given up on making interesting, progressive pop music; that, in the wake of her (arguably) best album, 1989, it seemed like she’d lost the plot on where to go next. But as she’s put out Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department back-to-back, I find myself clamoring for the Reputation-era more than ever—at least seven years ago, Swift wrote songs like she had something to prove and even more to lose.

That was the always-obvious charm of Reputation, even despite the downsides—that she took a big swing from the echelons of her own musical immortality, that the comforts of winning every award and selling out the biggest venues in the world were no longer pillowing her aspirations. Even though that swing didn’t land, she still made it in the first place—and Swift is at her best either when she is clawing upwards (Reputation) or faced with nowhere to go but into the studio and noodle with the bare-bones of her own sensibilities (folklore).

You get something like The Tortured Poets Department when the artist making it no longer feels challenged, where she strikes out looking.

The mid-ness of The Tortured Poets Department will not be a net-loss for Swift. She will sell out arenas and get her streams until she elects to quit this business (a phrase decidedly not in her vocabulary, surely).

She will sell more merch bundles than vinyl plants have the capacity to make, and rows of variant LP copies will haunt the record aisles of Target stores just as long as Midnights has—if not longer.

Perhaps, in five or six years’ time, we will speak of this record just as we now do of Reputation. But right now, it is obvious that Swift no longer feels challenged to be good. The Tortured Poets Department is the mark of an artist now interested in seeing how much their empire can atone for the sins of mediocrity.

Can Swift win another Album of the Year Grammy simply because she released a record during the eligibility period? The Tortured Poets Department reeks of “because I can,” not “because I should.”

On “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can),” Swift tries stepping into the shoes of the country renegades who came before her—the Tammy Wynettes and Loretta Lynns of the world. But her self-aggrandizing inflation of importance, glinting through via a seismically-bland bridge, is backed by a minimal set dressing of guitar, drum machine and keys.

“Good boy, that’s right, come close,” she sings. “I’ll show you Heaven if you’ll be an angel—all mine. Trust me, I can handle me a dangerous man. No, really, I can.” On “Florida!!!,” Swift calls upon Florence + the Machine to help her sing the worst chorus of 2024: “Florida is one hell of a drug / Florida, can I use you up?”

Even Welch, who is a fantastic pop singer-songwriter in her own right, delivers a grossly watery verse: “The hurricane with my name, when it came I got drunk and I dared it to wash me away.”

Not even the typos on the Spotify promotional materials for this album could have foretold such offenses. I won’t even get into the sonics, because Antonoff just rewrites the same soulless patterns every time.

What separates The Tortured Poets Department from something like Reputation is that, on the latter, Swift made it known what was at stake and who she was making that album for—herself, in the aftermath of her greatest long-standing criticisms (“Look What You Made Me Do” triumphs exactly because of this).

On The Tortured Poets Department, there is a striking level of moral nothingness. The stakes are practically non-existent, and the album sounds like it was made by someone who believes that they had no other choice but to finish it, as if Swift fundamentally believes that her creative measures are firmly embedded in the massive monopoly her name and brand currently hold on popular music. That’s how you get meandering pop songs about hookups, wine moms, Stevie Nicks comparisons, Jehovah’s Witness suit mentions, hollowed-out, tone-deaf nods to white-collar crime in lieu of empowerment and, topically, Barbie dolls.

(Don’t even get me started on the Anthology lyrics, which feature these absolute barn-burners: “Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto” and “My friends used to play a game where / We would pick a decade / We wished we could live in instead of this / I’d say the 1830s, but without all the racists / And getting married off for the highest bid.”) This album and its hackneyed grasps at relevance exist as “Did I just hear that?” personified, but in the most derogatory sense of the notion.

My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” features another low-point in Swift’s lyrical oeuvre, as she sings “I felt more when we played pretend than with all the Kens, ‘cause he took me out of my box”—perhaps a measure of her capitalizing on the Barbenheimer mania that none of us could escape, not even the musician who spent most of 2023 flying across the world from one country to another.

But you, us, the listener—we want to believe that Swift makes these records because she has the artistic will, drive and interest to continue giving us parts of her story in such ways that they exist as an archival of her life.

But the problem is that, on The Tortured Poets Department, Swift is packaging her life into a form that is easily consumable for the 17 or 18 years olds who pour over her music. Just because her Eras Tour film is on Disney+ doesn’t mean she has to strip her songwriting (which we know can be, and has been, phenomenal) down for the sake of it being digestible by a wide spectrum of ages.

And, sure, maybe that makes the work accessible. But on The Tortured Poets Department, Swift makes Zoomer jargon her bag—titling a song after one of the most popular video games in the world and conjuring flickers of “down bad” and “I can fix him”—and it feels like she’s cosplaying because the Fountain of Youth was out of order.

Now that Swift is in her 30s, it sounds like she is infantilizing her own audience more than ever before—that singing to them at a level that could force them to reckon with something more akin with adulthood would be some kind of kink in the coil or her consumeristic threshold, that writing lyrics that sound like they were penned by a 30-year-old would, somehow, deter the interests of the billions of people who adore her.

If making one, continuous coming-of-age album is what Swift has been doing for 15 years, folklore and evermore were hiccups in the timeline—existing as the most fully-formed renderings of Swift’s own insecurities and concerns. They mirrored our platitudes towards an uncertain future with sweet, stirring remarks about isolation and heartbreak and the unavoidable, hard-worn truth about getting older. On those records, her larger-than-life living seemed, for once, to truly feel as close to the ground as ours.

Now, though, Taylor Swift is at the top of the mountain. Far better artists have made far worse records than The Tortured Poets Department, but you can’t read between the lines of this project. There is nothing to decipher from a place of quality.

Sure, Swift’s fan base will pour over these lyrics for the rest of their lives—insisting they know, for certain, which song is about who. But you cannot place a bad album on the shoulders of lore and expect it to be rectified.

We are now left at a crossroads. Women can’t critique Swift because they’ll run the risk of being labeled a “gender traitor” for doing so. Men can’t critique her because they’ll be touted as “sexist.”

And, sure, Swift is probably too easy a punching bag in this case—and most of the time, I would argue she is undeserving of being a victim of such barbs. But, you cannot write about someone being a “tattooed golden retriever” and get away with it and still retain your title as the best songwriter of your generation. You just cannot.

Sisyphus should be glad he never got the boulder to the top of the mountain—because Taylor Swift is showing us that such immortality and success ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. And, when you’re standing on the peak alone, who else is there left to hit?

In a recent interview with The Standard, Courtney Love said that Swift is “not interesting as an artist,” and I think The Tortured Poets Department proves as much. She has nothing to fight for, no doubters left to drown.

So where does she turn? Well, to boredoms of celebrity thinly veiled as sorrow everyone and their mother can latch onto—because we’ve all had to “ditch the clowns, get the crown” at some point in our lives, right?

The billionaire is having an identity crisis, but there are no social media apps for her to buy up. So she sings like Lana Del Rey and writes meta-self-referential songs about looking like Stevie Nicks.

What’s hollow about The Tortured Poets Department is that the real torture is just how unlivable these songs really are. No one can resonate with “So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street, crash the party like a record, scratch as I scream ‘Who’s afraid of little old me?’ You should be.” And normally, that wouldn’t be an end-all-be-all for a pop record—but when your brand is built on copious levels of “I’m just like you!” as the demigod saying it to their fans does so from a multi-million-dollar production set, it’s hard to not feel nauseated by the overlording, overbearing sense of heavy-handed detritus we’re tasked with sifting through on The Tortured Poets Department.

Love’s words to Lana, her advice to “take seven years off,” should be applied to Swift. Now, that doesn’t mean that, to make a good album, you must sit on material for years and labor extensively through the sketching, shaping and recording in order for it to be transcendentally landmark. But it’s obvious now that not even Taylor Swift wants to be the head of an empire—that she, too, can’t outrun the damning fate of being plum out of ideas by hopping in her jet and skirting off to God knows where.

See you at the Grammys.

****

#this review is everything #anti taylor swift #taylor swift #travis kelce #3.6 !!!#hope Pitchfork comes for her too #jack antonoff #taylor swift reviews #the department of tortured poets

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bubbles-for-all-of-us · 7 months

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Pretty like the wind

Previous chapter / Next chapter

a/n Part five! here we meet again. Thank you for everyone who is reading this mess! 🤍✨

warning: lots of past trauma, Illyrian camp kind of trauma, anxiety, kids because some of you said it was a warning, same old things.

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Azriel's eyes were burning. It truly felt as if someone had dumped a bag of sand into his head and given it a little shake. But he didn't regret it. He wouldn't have done it any other way. As heartbreaking as the situation was, he didn't want to be anywhere doing anything else. That had frightened him when the late hours of the night first struck, and Azriel was the only one awake. It had clawed at his soul, urging him to flee like he was used to. Before it all got too real. All got too personal. Before Azriel started... to feel.

He was the one who had gone down to look for Zofie. You were barely standing on your own two feet. Swaying and cold as the snowflakes that Azriel had dreamed of the previous night. No, he told himself as he walked down the corridor; no one was dying here today. He wouldn't let it. He would bargain with fate if he had to. But would he? Yes, he was protective of his family. But he had known Cassian and Rhys for almost all of his life. Loving their mates came in the package. It was an honor to protect them. Loving Elain... Azriel realized that the thought of her, the thought of whatever had been happening or more of what Azriel hoped had been happening, hadn't crossed his mind as much lately. Was he forgetting Elain already? Was it never as serious as he had claimed?

Azriel found Zofie sitting on one of the stone steps in the communal. There were several females next to her, talking to her. But the girl sat firm as stone herself, arms folded over her chest, rosy cheeks damp with the tears she had wept. Only now did Azriel realize that he had never asked if the two kids were related. Siblings? Same family tree? Or were they just brought here and fallen in love with each other by destiny?

Her eyes found him almost immediately. Azriel could tell that she was fighting the urge to do what she always did when he was around—hide. But the flame that blazed within her kept her put. She was no bigger than Azriel's forearm, yet she stared him down as if she would find a way to escape him if she had to. Azriel folded his wings behind him, once again trying to appear smaller and once again realizing that there was not much he could do about it.

"You must eat, and sitting here won't change anything", one of the females stated, but Zofie had her gaze glued on Azriel. Urging him silently to sort this out. One stubborn girl, he thought to himself before he stepped closer, grabbing everyone's attention. "If you don't mind, I'll take it from here", he cringed slightly at how stern his voice sounded. Who in their right mind would leave a child with someone like him? He sure wouldn't do it himself. "You know him?", the female turned to Zofie. The girl contemplated her answer for a moment. "Axel's friend", she muttered. The room fell silent, and Azriel was about to fall into a long explanation when the female handed him a brown teddy bear, "She hasn't eaten lunch, and it's way past dinner time too. Find a way to feed her, please". Great, Azriel thought to himself, how he found himself in these situations over the past few weeks he was unsure of, but... The mortified eyes of them both sinking into the river flashed in front of Azriel. Those same eyes were looking at him now.

Azriel turned the teddy in his arms and asked, "Does he have a name?" if only his enemies saw him now. He would not be able to frighten a single soul. "Earless", the voice was so quiet that Azriel was grateful for his strong sense of hearing. "He only has one ear", the girl continued, pointing at the bear. "Quite straightforward", Azriel muttered, "Ear for short?", the girl nodded.

Azriel watched her for a moment before he crouched down to her level. "Okay, listen", he muttered under his breath, only to be met by Zofie's palm in front of him. "No, you listen", her voice was weary, and the way she shushed him had Azriel raising his brows. But it was when she spoke that his heart finally shattered that day, "Will you hurt Axel?"—the question that sounded so innocent on her lips, left such a bitter taste in Azriel's mouth. "No, of course, no. I don't want to hurt anyone", Azriel had opted to say but got interrupted by the girl once more, "And Y/N?". The spymaster's heart gave a louder thump at the sound of your name. As if urging itself into life. "Zofie, I ain't going to hurt anyone", Azriel's voice was strong yet gentle. "You promise?", her eyes had sparkled with hope. And, Mother, had Azriel forgotten just how powerful hope could be. He reached out his scared palm toward her, "On everything", Azriel muttered. Zofie held a firm gaze. To be this weary and strong-willed at such a young age. She was a baby. Everyone around her was meant to protect her. And yet here she was... But all of Azriel's thoughts died down as her tiny hand wrapped around his finger.

Now Azriel wondered if he hadn't overstepped with a promise like that. Was he once again trying to dig an easier path for himself? He had known what the girl wanted; it wasn't hard to guess. Someone who listened. Who heard her. Who was willing to fight for the little family she had found. Family that she was willing to protect. The weight of letting everyone down loomed over Azriel. Hanging there heavily. Pressing down on his chest. Drumming against his ribcage.

But all it took was the feeling of your hand moving over his chest. The weight of Axel's head on his lap. The feeling of a tiny frame pressed to his other side for it all to die down. Three slumbering frames. Grounding him without any clue. Breaking apart the stormy clouds. Something primal rumbled inside Azriel. Protesting against his fear. He had to keep these three heartbeats safe. He was willing to go the extra mile. He found himself thinking that if he was to find the people responsible... Find the camp. Oh, he would unleash his darkest demons upon them. Anyone who dared to inflict any harm

"Breathe", a delicate voice pulled at Azriel's consciousness. Guiding him. Guiding him back into his body. He blinked a couple of times. His gaze darted down to find your tired eyes looking up at him. "You're trembling", you muttered. Back in the day, Azriel would have taken a statement like that as an insult, but now he glanced at his hands. And he did find them shaky. But not for long. Not after you moved to lace your fingers with his.

"Did you have any nightmares?", Azriel had wanted to ask you how you'd known something like that. But then he remembered last night. Remembered the fear. Remembered... But it all drowned out at the thought of you. As if you rested his thoughts to bed. He shook his head. "Did you manage to sleep?", you asked, and Azriel jerked his head once more. "Azriel...", you breathed out, and oh, how much strength it took for him to not ask you to say it again. Because he had never cared much for his name. It didn't matter to him. People could call him however they pleased. But there was just something about the way you said it. The way it lingered. No bitterness. No...

"Hey, you're with me?", your soft palm guiding his face towards you. How many broken souls were in this room? How many hearts need healing? All of them, truthfully. And something about that realization made Azriel grow anxious. These kids, you—he could see you all healing the pieces that weren't even broken by you. Azriel took a shaky breath. His hand held onto your hip firmly. The shadows that sprung out of his control made him jump slightly. "Y/N", and Azriel knew that tiny voice, the weight from his side disappearing. "It's okay, grab a pillow for Axel's head, munchkin", you urge the girl softly, trying not to let the worry show. But the girl sat there, her eyes on Azriel. "It's just panic, Zo; we get those too, remember?", you reassure her, reaching for Azriel's hands and wrapping them around your middle.

You had a feeling he suffered from them. Had to. His head was too full of sorrow, worries, and guilt. And yet what he failed to see was that he was the only one holding his head under the water. "Come back", you whispered, trying to meet Azriel's eyes. Yet he was so deep in his mind. You could tell from the way his eyes had grown dull and ashy. So you did what you do best, pressing your palm to his chest, and your hand warmed. The glowing seeped through his skin. Sprouting. You reached for his face once more, slowly guiding his head onto his shoulder, catching it just in time as his body finally sagged. Pulling him under just like the very first time you two met.

"You can't leave them unpunished", you said through gritted teeth. Padme had asked for you to come to her office. And the conversation that had stretched out was making your blood boil, and your blood rarely boiled. "Y/N, they are kids", the high priestess said calmly. You huffed out a frustrated laugh, "Who needs to learn the weight of their actions." This whole conversation was making you see red. Yes, you were more protective of the two. Yes, you had made them your priority. But what you were asking wasn't something that couldn't be carried out.

"They are on the sanctuary duty list", Padme said almost in a dismissive manner. "P, you know...", you stepped closer to her table. You had seen her as a mother figure. Since the day you were brought here, she had been stern and rough around the edges, but she was fair. She was always fair. "Let's turn the question around", she said, lowering her pen, her eyes blazing at you, "Why are they still huddled around you like lost puppies? You know the rules". You bite the inside of your cheek. Fists clenched beside your sides.

If she saw it, she chose to ignore it, jabbing even harder, "You've been my most loyal worker, and you took a tumble with...", you shook your head. "Don't", you plead silently. Yet she doesn't seem to care about your wounds tonight, "The shadowsinger", "Don't do this,", you stated softly, your eyes already burning. You didn't need to lift your head to know that she had that tight smile on her face. "The days of all of this are counted; you do know that?" And you knew. You knew this wasn't for forever.

This place wasn't for forever. These people weren't. Azriel wasn't. You reached deeper into yourself, holding the broken pieces together and letting the wounds blend out. "I serve the sanctuary. My intentions haven't wavered", you said, letting your words seep through your gritted teeth. You feel the flicker of the flames within your body dying. You looked at the woman in front of you. Looked until the pain turned into nothing more than numbness.

"I'm going to start having issues with your hands. It's the second time", Azriel's voice found you in the hallway. You bit your lip as you turned to him before your face turned neutral. "How are you feeling? Are you able to breathe? Did you have another bad dream?", but Azriel quickly cupped your face, making the sound of your voice die down. "I'm fine; stop worrying", he muttered, his eyes locked on you. The tightness in your chest from that conversation with Padme eased. "If you can boss me around, so can I", You jabbed your fingers at his chest, moving away from him slightly.

"They are playing together. Axel was sitting up when I slipped outside", you gazed, darting back to him. How did he know that your mind just wandered back to the kids? How did he always seem to know? You nodded slowly. "We stretched our wings", Azriel muttered, your eyes pooled with worry and Azriel caught onto that quickly. "I was careful, and for the record, I have wings too. So...", Azriel said but you just shook your head. "It's good that you did. He just...", you let out a sigh, "Axel had never done that with anyone besides me".

Azriel couldn't help but frown, "He doesn't stretch his...", "His father was the one who broke the bones when Axel was trying to protect his siblings", the words just slipped past your lips. Azriel stiffened, his hands falling to his sides. "I found him all mangled up in the cellar when we were in one of the camps. His birth wasn't even marked in the books", Azriel had a feeling where this was heading. He had a feeling that twisted his guts. "Bastard didn't note it so he could do whatever he wanted", the spymaster finished, and from the sadness in your eyes, he knew that his words struck truth.

"Besides the pain, it causes Axel when he moves the wings", you continued, "He's just terrified... He said that every time he tried to fly back in the camp, his father...", "Don't even call that man Axel's father; he doesn't deserve that title. No male who puts their hands on a child...", Azriel snarled through gritted teeth. He turned away from you once he realized that his anger was boiling over the edge of his composure. Azriel took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. An ache ran deep within your chest. You had a feeling that this pain of his ran deep for a reason.

You second-guessed your next move. The way his shoulders stiffened, you could guess that the male was in fight mode. Yet you stepped closer, carrying yourself between the arches of Azriel's wings and carefully wrapping your arms around his torso from the back. Azriel took a deep breath before his palms wrapped around your smaller ones.

"I want to teach him how to fly and how to heal these scares", his voice was barely audible—the quietest you've ever heard him. "You know he'll love it. You bring sides of him that he holds close to his chest", you breathed against his back. "He's a good kid", Azriel stated, "He reminds me a lot of myself when I was his age". You can hear the ache in his words. Yet they don't surprise you. You could see it from the way Azriel looked at Axel. There were things only they understood. The pain that they both endured and that now linked them in ways no one else could comprehend. As if they were meant to find one another. As if Azriel was always destined to end up here.

"It looks better", your hand was softly inspecting the boning of Axel's wing. "It doesn't even hurt", he stated, his legs bouncing as he moved on the bed. "Can you spread them out?", you said gently. That's how the past couple of days have been. You only felt your anxiety subside when you saw Axel moving his wings. The anxiety that was way too deeply rooted within you. He tried to. You could tell, but the leather didn't even twitch. You bit the inside of your cheek.

Azriel pulled away from the wall he was leaning against, "Can you feel my fingers here", he asked, pressing the finger beneath the wing and leaning to the side to watch Axel's face. The boy nodded, and Azriel followed suit. "These are the main muscles in your back that support your wings", the spymaster explained, "Can you try to flex them?". And that's how it had been. That's how he had been. No matter what Axel did, he was always there. And no matter what Azriel said, it always made the inner flame in Axel burn brighter. It scared you. It scared you even more now because the conversation with Padem had been playing in your head without stopping. This is not forever. The time for this was counted. And you would get through it. You'll suck up the pain, but what about the kids? What about Axel? He looked at Azriel as if the male carried the whole world around in his palm. And Zofie? Who had been convicted that Earless had to go with Azriel if he was having panic attacks?

A fluster caught your eye, and a gasp slipped through your lips. Axel was holding onto Azriel's hand with both of his. The male had a firm grip on the boy's back, but the most important thing was that Axel was moving his wings. Slowly and not at all in a seamless manner, but he was moving them. "Good job", Azriel said, right as an excited shriek slipped from Axel. "Let them rest now, boy. Don't strain yourself", Azriel ruffled his hair. "Did you see it?", Axel's gaze was darting between you two, and you couldn't help but laugh. "I did, Ax", you leaned closer to him, kissing his cheek and making him squirm in your arms. You frowned slightly. "Are you suddenly too big for my love?", you asked him with a gasp. Axel whipped at his cheek, "Azriel is here. He's a soldier", the boy whispered, "Soldiers don't do that". You couldn't help but let out a laugh at that. Catching Azriel with a smirk on his face as he stood there, "I let you in on a secret", the spymaster said, and Axel nodded eagerly, "If a lady as beautiful and kind as Y/N were to smother a soldier, he wouldn't run", and he says it without breaking eye contact with you. All you could do was blink at him. Watch that smile of his blooming.

You were grateful for the cold wind that danced in your hair as you stood on the upper balcony. There was always something soothing about the wind. The way it sang as it flowed through the land. You knew that you should feel at ease. Everything was fine. Axel was napping, and Zofie agreed to go to her dance lessons. You had smoothed things over with Padme. But something felt off. Something was missing. Like an itch that you knew about but just couldn't seem to scratch. You wrapped your arms around yourself. Somewhere deep inside, you knew what was missing, but you didn't allow yourself to chase that thought. The fact that someone was able to shake your inner walls so easily and so quickly...

You felt his presence as if you had summoned him. As if he had a way of slipping through your mental shields. "You're going to catch a cold", you felt a cloak being draped around your shoulders, followed by a firm hold on your shoulders, and Azriel's wings warping you up, shielding you from the wind. "Be careful; the mother hen within you is showing", you teased him softly. It all felt so odd. The looks. The stolen touches. The way he was there. Always there as if he had indeed turned into your shadow.

You dared to glance up at him. Regretting that choice instantly because of the golden eyes that looked down at you.

"I got told off for tying the too-too wrong", Azriel stated, making you let out a laugh. You would trust Zofie to boss him around. "My tying technique is terrible, but she said I wasn't a lost cause", Azriel said as he shook his head. "One of them has to keep you humbled", you smirked at him. Azriel quickly pulled his wings up, making the wind crash into you. You shrieked before falling into fits of laughter, hair all over your face as you stared at the male in front of you.

Azriel was brisk to brush your hair out of your face as if it was second nature. As if he had been doing that for decades. As if he knew you for decades. Your eyes met, and for what felt like a thousand times, you let yourself get lost in him. Letting him look at you with the same crackling longing. The same way he had run his eyes over your body last night.

And you were convinced that you weren't thinking clearly. This wasn't you. Because you were not ready to admit this, but you muttered, "Kiss me...". You scanned as the muscles in his jaw tightened. The way his nostrils flared. You were convinced that you looked like a desperate girl because of the way you were nearly reaching on your tippy toes to meet his lips. Hand pressed against the toned muscles of his chest. But Azriel doesn't lean in. Doesn't come any closer. He just watches you. Thumb caressing the side of your cheek.

"Azriel", you muttered. Suddenly you become painfully aware of the fact that you must have read this all wrong. Must have moved too fast. He was here because of another woman. He was here because he loved someone he couldn't have, and here you were offering yourself as some easy piece of lamb. Azriel shook his head as if he had read your thoughts. Both of his palms reached up to hold your face, and your hands instantly reached to wrap around his wrists. "If I kiss you...", he breathed out after a long while. And from the sound of how raspy his words were, you knew it was taking a whole lot of effort for him to say anything now, "If I kiss you, I'll never be able to walk away", a breath hitched in your throat as you staggered to pull away. Feeling the splintering pain of your broken heart, cracking all over. But his hold doesn't ease; doesn't let you move away, as he states, "Rhys wants me back".

#azriel x reader #azriel imagine #azriel x you #azriel spymaster #azriel spymaster x reader #azriel shadowsinger #azriel acotar imagine #azriel acotar x reader #acotar x reader #acotar x you #acotar imagine

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deliciousangelfestival · 4 months

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Echoes Of Revenge || Part 1

Character: Bucky x Reader

Summary: Y/N, an analyst at Goldenlix Capital, discovers her promotion hopes crushed by favoritism. Seeking solace in a nightclub, she encounters her past tormentor, Bucky.

Warning: Betrayal, heartbreak, manipulation.

Part 2 : Shattered Echoes

Part 3: All The Lies

Part 4: Sweetest Dreams

Main Masterlist || support: Ko-fi

Thank you to anyone who gave a like, reblog, and left a comment. It motivated me to write more.

Y/N, an ambitious analyst at Goldenlix Capital, had consistently delivered profitable predictions for the hedge fund.

Despite her hard work, the promotion she longed for slipped away when the CEO's nephew, Simon, secured the portfolio manager position.

Frustrated, Y/N sought solace at a nightclub with her colleagues. As Y/N immersed herself in the pulsating beats and vibrant atmosphere of the nightclub, she was unaware of the watchful eyes observing her every move.

The rhythm of the music and the clinking of glasses provided a temporary escape from the frustrations at work.

Suddenly, a lavish display of expensive drinks arrived at her table, catching Y/N off guard. The waitress informed her that they were compliments of the house, leaving Y/N momentarily puzzled by the unexpected gesture.

Just as she wondered who might be behind this gesture, Bucky entered.

Bucky made his entrance with confidence, navigating through the crowd with a swagger that suggested a newfound maturity.

Dressed in an impeccably tailored, expensive suit, he exuded a sense of self-assuredness. His arrival was accompanied by the subtle clink of cufflinks and the rich scent of a high-end cologne.

As he approached Y/N's table, Bucky flashed a charming smile, his eyes hinting at a mixture of mischief and sophistication.

However, Y/N, ever focused and unswayed by external displays, remained unimpressed by his polished appearance. She eyed him skeptically, silently signaling that material possessions wouldn't alter her priorities or impressions.

With a smirk, he approached Y/N, confidently revealing, "I thought you could use a taste of the finer things tonight, Y/N. It's on me.”

There, she unexpectedly encountered Bucky, a college classmate with a history of teasing her. Now claiming to be the club's owner, Bucky attempted to flirt with her.

Unimpressed, Y/N looked down on his attempt to impress her. "Owning a nightclub doesn't change who you are, Bucky. I'm focused on my career," she retorted, dismissing his advances.

Undeterred, Bucky tried a different approach, acknowledging his past mistakes. "People change, Y/N. Maybe you should loosen up and enjoy the night," he suggested.

Maintaining her composure, Y/N replied, "I'll pass on the life lessons, Bucky. I have bigger goals than spending my time with someone who hasn't really grown up.”

Y/N's colleagues discreetly made their exit, leaving her alone with Bucky. He nodded appreciatively, acknowledging their departure, and sat beside her, pouring a drink into her glass.

"So, what's the problem? I never thought the nerd of my class would spend money on the expensive table," Bucky remarked teasingly.

Y/N scoffed, "This is expensive? I didn't realize."

Surprised by her nonchalant response, Bucky commented, "Where is the timid Y/N I know? She's gone.”

Y/N gulped her drink, contemplating his observation. "Money. Everything could change because of money," she admitted.

Her past, rooted in a modest upbringing, had shaped her determination to succeed. Working hard to escape financial constraints, her dream was to become a fund manager.

She looked at Bucky with a hint of disdain. She doesn't appreciate people like him who lead careless lives just because they come from wealthy families.

Bucky noticed the scattered name cards of Y/N's colleagues on the table and picked one up. Reading it, he remarked, "Goldenlix Capital? You work there? That's impressive."

Y/N responded with a nonchalant "hmm."

Bucky, perceptive, ventured, "Let me guess, you didn't get the promotion?"

Surprised, Y/N asked, "How...?"

Bucky leaned back, a knowing smile playing on his lips. "I've seen many types of people come and go in this place," he said, revealing a hint of insight into the workings of the professional world they both navigated.

Bucky's casual revelation about his observations at Goldenlix Capital intrigued Y/N, prompting her to give him a scrutinizing look. As she contemplated his words, Bucky continued, "It's a tough world out there, especially when you're navigating corporate ladders."

Y/N, still guarded, responded, "You seem to have it all figured out."

Bucky chuckled, "Well, not everything, but I've learned a thing or two. Sometimes it's not just about hard work; it's about playing the game.”

Bucky leaned in, a glint of sincerity in his eyes, as he proposed, "Let me be your client."

Y/N, skeptical, questioned, "Why?"

Bucky shrugged a hint of nostalgia in his tone, "I don't know. Perhaps because of a nostalgic feeling. I want to help an old friend."

Y/N, maintaining her guard, retorted, "We were never friends. You always used me."

With a sly smile, Bucky countered, "Then, I'll use this as my apology letter."

The air between them carried tension, a mix of unresolved history and an unexpected proposal.

As Bucky got closer, the alluring scent of his elegant perfume enveloped Y/N. Their proximity seemed to amplify the tension, a subtle dance of conflicting emotions.

"I'm serious. Give me your name card," Bucky whispered, a soft murmur against the rhythmic beats of the music.

Y/N, somewhat reluctantly, handed over her name card. Bucky took it with a charming smile, his gaze lingering on hers. "Tomorrow your boss will go nuts," he predicted, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

With a final, lingering look, Bucky gracefully rose from his seat. "See you next time," he said, leaving Y/N in a state of contemplation, the lingering scent of his perfume and the enigmatic encounter resonating in the dimly lit ambiance of the nightclub.

Excitement mixed with intrigue surged through Y/N as she stepped into the bustling office the next day. Her boss, Ivan, beckoned her into his office with an animated expression, "Y/N, we've just landed a significant new client. The funds have been wired, and you're in charge."

Perusing the financial statement, Y/N's eyes widened at the substantial amount. "This is impressive, sir. I'll ensure it's handled with utmost precision," she assured.

Ivan leaned back in his chair, a shrewd smile on his lips. "Not just impressive, Y/N. Make it triple. We need to show our new client the prowess of Goldenlix Capital.”

Y/N nodded, her mind already racing with investment strategies. "I'll diversify the portfolio, perhaps allocate more in growth stocks, considering the current market trends. And we can leverage options to enhance returns without taking excessive risk," she suggested.

Ivan impressed with her immediate analysis, nodded in agreement. "Exactly, Y/N. Show them why you're the rising star here."

As she left his office, Y/N couldn't help but reflect on the unexpected turn of events—Bucky's proposition at the nightclub, the mysterious new client, and now the challenge to triple the investment.

Now witnessing his portfolio's profits tripling under Y/N's adept guidance, Bucky couldn't help but be impressed. As rumors circulated about Y/N potentially becoming the next portfolio manager, her boss and colleagues acknowledged her exceptional skills.

One day, Bucky approached Y/N with a mixture of admiration and amusement. "I knew I could count on you, Y/N. Looks like you're not just the 'nerd' from our college days anymore."

Y/N, maintaining her professionalism, Y/N replied with a slight smirk, "Money talks, Bucky. It's all about making the right moves in the market."

Bucky, however, seemed persistent in keeping the conversation personal. "Or maybe it's about making the right moves in life," he teased, a suggestive glint in his eyes.

Y/N raised an eyebrow, unyielding. "Let's keep it professional, Bucky. This is business.”

As Y/N attempted to make a swift exit, Bucky intercepted her, his hand gently restraining her. Irritated, she shot him a sharp look, demanding, "What?!"

Bucky, undeterred, asserted, "I'll double my money."

Y/N, skeptical, retorted, "What for? You already have enough. You need to learn about limits."

With a wry smile, Bucky countered, "If I have to pay a high price just to have a date with you, then I will pay everything."

Rolling her eyes, Y/N dismissed his proposition, "Yeah, right."

Bucky leaned in, a teasing glint in his eyes. "My silly Y/N. Don't you know why I always played with you back then?”

Y/N, unamused, shot back, "You bullied me to get my attention. Are you in kindergarten?”

Y/N, after a moment of contemplation, finally relented, "Fine. One date. But no, I don't want your money. The stock market is not good this time. What if you get mad because you lose money?"

Bucky chuckled, his tone playful, "There's no way I'm going to be mad at you, silly.”

As Y/N and Bucky shared that one date, their connection deepened, weaving a thread of unexpected intimacy into their lives.

The complexities of their relationship unfolded like a carefully scripted narrative, intertwining the professional and personal in a way that left Y/N simultaneously exhilarated and hesitant.

Her life, seemingly perfect after successfully handling Bucky's portfolio, took an unforeseen turn when her Ivan dropped a bombshell – he wanted to hand over Bucky, her biggest client, to his nephew, Simon.

The news sent shockwaves through Y/N, her world suddenly tilted on its axis.

Y/N, with a mix of frustration and anxiety, found herself standing at Bucky's doorstep, the weight of her predicament evident in her eyes. Sensing her distress, Bucky welcomed her inside, "What happened, Y/N? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Taking a deep breath, Y/N explained the situation, "My boss wants to hand over your portfolio to his nephew. It's a complete mess, and I don't know what to do."

Bucky, leaning against the wall, studied her with a thoughtful gaze. "You came to me for help. Looks like our roles are reversing."

Y/N, a hint of vulnerability in her voice, admitted, "I never thought I'd need help, especially from someone like you.”

Bucky, his expression softening, replied, "We all need help sometimes. It doesn't make you weak.”

As Y/N faced the uncertain aftermath of seeking Bucky's help, she soon discovered that her most significant competitor, Simon, had mysteriously vanished from the office scene.

The absence of the rival candidate created a void that only she could fill, paving the way for Y/N to enter the role of project manager uncontested.

The news rippled through the office, and Y/N found herself at the center of surprise and admiration.

Colleagues congratulated her on the unexpected turn of events, and her boss, puzzled by his nephew's disappearance, acknowledged her as the natural choice for the project manager position.

Gratitude and curiosity again led Y/N to Bucky's door, a soft knock signaling her presence. As Bucky opened the door, a knowing smile played on his lips, "Come to thank me, Y/N?"

Y/N responded with a hint of appreciation in her eyes, "I can't deny that your mysterious touch might have played a role in my unexpected promotion. So, thank you."

Bucky, stepping closer, his gaze lingering, remarked, "I'm always here to help, especially when it comes to you.”

Three months had passed, and Bucky, in the routine of his daily activities, eagerly anticipated seeing his girlfriend. The past week had kept Y/N busy as she jetted off to Dubai to meet with a new client.

However, on this particular day, as Bucky went about his usual tasks, his assistant interrupted, a hint of apprehension in their voice, "Sir, the police are here."

Bucky, initially thinking he had misheard, questioned, "Huh?"

The police, standing with an air of authority, informed Bucky that he was accused of money laundering. Unfazed, Bucky dismissed the accusation with a roll of his eyes, stating, "Money laundering? I'm a legit businessman.”

The police countered, accusing him of using Goldenlix Capital for money laundering. Bucky scoffed, insisting the company was legitimate.

The turning point came when his assistant displayed a live news report on their phone, revealing that Goldenlix Capital was now branded as a scam company.

Bucky, disbelief written on his face, uttered, "What?!" Realizing the severity of the situation, he urgently reached for his phone, attempting to call Y/N, only to face the frustration of her unanswered calls.

As the news of Goldenlix Capital being labeled a scam investment company flooded every media outlet, Bucky was engulfed in chaos. Desperate for information about Y/N's whereabouts, he pressed the police, hoping for reassurance.

Bucky questioned, anxiety seeping into his voice, "Have you seen any news about Y/N?"

The police, maintaining an air of detachment, replied, “She went missing."

Bucky's eyes widened in disbelief, and he uttered a baffled "Huh?!" The absence of Y/N from the news coverage added another layer of mystery to an already bewildering situation.

As he grappled with the unfolding events, uncertainty and concern for Y/N's safety overshadow the chaos surrounding Goldenlix Capital.

The unfolding chaos threatened his professional empire and the stability of the connection he had built with Y/N in the past few months.

Fury burned within Bucky as the realization sunk in – he hadn't merely lost money; he had been played. The anger surged through him, a relentless fire fueled by the betrayal he felt. Determination set in, transforming his frustration into a resolute mission.

His mind raced with questions about Y/N's motives, but the lack of information only intensified his desire to uncover the truth.

Bucky, driven by a newfound resolve, vowed to track down Y/N and unravel the mystery behind her involvement, or lack thereof, in the scandal that had befallen Goldenlix Capital.

As Y/N sat on the beach, watching the chaos unfold on her tablet, a sense of satisfaction washed over her. Finally, her carefully orchestrated plan to destroy Goldenlix Capital was playing out as intended.

The roots of her vendetta can be traced back 15 years when her family, once content in their middle-class life, had fallen victim to a deceitful investment scheme.

Flashback Start

Introduced by a relative, Y/N's father had invested a small amount in Maxim Capital, enticed by the promise of a 7% monthly profit. The regular returns had built a false sense of trust.

However, driven by greed, Y/N's father had invested half of their savings into Maxim Capital. The deceptive scheme vanished six months later, leaving the company in ruins and wiping out a significant portion of Y/N's family's hard-earned money.

As Y/N's family crumbled into financial ruin after the Maxim Capital scam, her relative, who had introduced them to the fraudulent investment, callously shrugged off any responsibility. The repercussions were severe, forcing Y/N's father to take desperate measures.

Unable to secure a traditional loan due to his plummeted credit score, Y/N's father sought assistance from a loan shark. The borrowed sum might have been small, intended for crucial medicine for Y/N's ailing mother, but its interest was exorbitant.

The loan shark in question, Nicholas Barnes, was none other than Bucky's father.

Fueled by a burning anger and a thirst for revenge, Y/N channeled her emotions into her studies, delving deep into economics to comprehend the intricacies of investments.

Her pursuit of knowledge became a double-edged sword, with academic excellence as a guise for a more sinister motive.

Even as she immersed herself in her studies, Y/N never lost sight of her plan for retribution. Every lesson about investments and financial strategies became a tool in her arsenal to orchestrate the downfall of those who had once exploited her family's vulnerabilities.

As Y/N navigated the complexities of her revenge plan, an unexpected twist unfolded in the form of Bucky. Fortune seemed to favor her, and she couldn't quite comprehend why the "Goddess of luck" appeared on her side. Bucky's growing interest in her became a peculiar element in her carefully crafted narrative.

While Y/N couldn't fathom the reasons behind Bucky's fascination, she saw it as a stroke of luck.

Y/N, cleverly using her position at Goldenlix, exploited the opportunity to gather information about the victims of the investment scams discreetly.

The guise of her role gave her access to crucial details, names, and backgrounds that would later become instrumental in executing her revenge.

In the case of Bucky, her intentions were more straightforward – to pilfer his wealth. The intricate dance of trust and vulnerability between them served as a cover for her ulterior motives.

Y/N, driven by a desire for retribution, saw Bucky's financial downfall as a key component of her revenge plan.

Their shared history of friendship only fueled Y/N's determination to make Bucky understand the anguish of misplaced trust.

Just as Nicholas had played with her father's trust, she intended to manipulate Bucky's emotions, leading him down a path of betrayal that mirrored her family's pain years ago.

Flashback End

As Y/N settled into her seat, her fingers danced across the keyboard with purpose. Each keystroke represented a meticulous calculation, determining the amount of money – with the accrued interest over 15 years – that Goldenlix Capital had pilfered from their unsuspecting victims.

With a determined click of the 'Send' button, Y/N initiated a digital cascade that would return the ill-gotten gains to those who had fallen prey to the investment scams.

Despite the years that had elapsed since their losses, she hoped this restitution would bring peace to the victims.

As Y/N gazed up at the sky, a quiet moment of reflection enveloped her. The weight of her actions, the meticulous plan for revenge, and the redemption she had sought for her family hung in the air.

She hoped, somewhere beyond the vast expanse above, that her parents would be proud of her unconventional method of reclaiming their lost money.

One year later, in the quiet embrace of a small town, a remarkable female teacher had become a beacon of inspiration at the local elementary school.

Known for her exceptional skills in teaching mathematics, she cultivated a passion for numbers among her students. She led them to triumph at the Olympic level, earning gold medals for their achievements.

The echoes of her dedication resonated through the halls of the school, leaving an indelible mark on the young minds she nurtured.

The once-sleepy town now boasted a newfound pride in its educational achievements, thanks to the remarkable teacher whose commitment and expertise had transformed the academic landscape.

The routine exchange of greetings became a familiar melody in the small town's elementary school. Every morning, as students hurried through the hallways, they would greet their beloved teacher with a cheerful, "Morning, Miss Y/N."

Y/N, now a beacon of knowledge and guidance for these young minds, responded with a warm smile, echoing, "Morning, don't run in the hallway."

"Okay."

The simple yet affectionate interactions spoke volumes about the transformation Y/N had undergone – from a seeker of revenge to a nurturing educator shaping the future

As Y/N reflected on the passing year, a bittersweet smile played on her lips. Justice had been served as the boss of Goldenlix, and Ivan faced the consequences, forced to part with his ill-gotten wealth to cover legal expenses.

However, when it came to Bucky, a twinge of regret and sadness lingered in her heart. The connection they had forged amidst the intricate dance of revenge carried a weight of impossibility. The revelation that he was the son of the loan shark, Nicholas Barnes, cast a shadow over what could have been.

Y/N, despite the passage of time, Y/N found herself haunted by a lingering fear that Bucky might seek revenge. The uncertainty gnawed at her, and she wished she could overcome the apprehension that one day, the consequences of her calculated actions might come knocking at her door.

As Y/N returned to her small home, an unsettling feeling crept over her. The once familiar space now emanated an unusual coldness. A sense of foreboding settled in, causing her to hesitate before stepping further into the house.

When she decided to leave, her hand reaching for the doorknob, she discovered a chilling truth – the door was locked outside. Panic set in as the realization dawned that she was trapped within her own home.

Fear gripped Y/N's heart as she grappled with the possibility that her past actions might be catching up to her.

A chill ran down her spine as Y/N stood trapped in her own house when the front door creaked open. The atmosphere shifted as an unwelcome presence entered, and the smile that once held warmth now appeared cold and calculated.

Bucky, who had stepped into her sanctuary, greeted her with an unsettling calmness, "Hello, sweetie. You have some explaining to do.”

Author Note:

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ancientgoddessofegypt · 2 months

Text

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE PURPOSE? WHAT ARE YOU MEANT TO DO? WHAT ARE YOU HERE FOR?

From Left (Pile 1, 3) Right (Pile 2, 4) Middle (Pile 5)

PILE 1 - 'HEALERS OF THE NILE, PROTECTORS OF THE EVE'

Psychic Tarot - Heartache & Loss + Sacrifice + Self-Master

Heart Oracle - Balance + Joy & Stability + Choose Your Battles + Sadness & Isolation

A lot of this pain you have transmutes itself into laughter, joy, and appreciation for life itself. A lot of people adore you and enjoy being around you because you heal them with just being who you are. You guys may of had a childhood that separated you from others. You could of been bullied, or felt like an outcast in some way. Some of you could have also dealt with depression or some sort of heartbreak that made you who you are today. You are a beacon of joy to others and without you a lot of people wouldn't have been able to see the light. When you feel like you're hiding there is always something that forces you back into the spotlight. You are like the sun and you've been brought here to show people what its like to live in your power, your truth and exploring the gifts God gave you. A lot of people who are depressed themselves, carrying pain and trauma will see your light and we'll see that there truly is hope in this world. You remind people that giving up is not an option, and you yourself get up everyday trying to make the world a better place to exist. So if no one ever told you thanks for all you've done, all you've been for them. I'll say it for you. You're efforts have not been unnoticed, and in due time you will see that the healing work you've put in will be another persons story that gets them out of bed. I'm not joking.

You're made for so much more, and you know it. Allow your vibe, your presence to be the journey. You don't have to do anything more. Just being yourself in this world is enough.

God bless you.

PILE 2 - 'GIVERS OF SUCCESS. MORPHING INTO YOUR TRUE REALITY.'

Psychic Oracle - Truth (Sideways) + Firm Foundation.

Heart Oracle - Seek the Truth + Win or Lose + Master + Victory & Success + Daydreams & Decisions (Sideways).

You guys are a big deal in the astral realms. You guys have an infinite connection to the spirit realm but through out life you guys weren't sure how to build that relationship with the divine. Some of you are a bit stubborn, hard headed, and even a bit arrogant. But it takes time to surrender to the divine. It takes patience, practice and diligence to agree with your life's purpose. With that being said, a lot your gifts are calling you to be an influencer in some way. Yes, I said it. You're called into the spotlight, but in a way that benefits the community and society as a whole. You guys are starlight with this alien consciousness that deserves to be noticed by the masses. People can't get their grip on you, and that's okay. Your purpose is equipped for bigger things, big magic I call it. Your called to be at the top love, do what you will with that. You came here already knowing what's within, I apologize if anyone or anything convinced you otherwise. You'll have that on your road to success. They'll never get why it was them who had to wait for the success they looked for, craved even. But you, never showed despair or an angst for not getting what you wanted. It was simply just not your time. Divine purpose is in letting the brain connect to the physical realm and find things to create during that time. You have big dreams kid, so let your voice, your mind, and your presence be the movement. Everyone will open their hands in order to help you guide the way to the Kingdom of Heaven. Influential Order. Dynamics Changing. Opening Doors To New Paths. There Is One Way, And It's Yours.

Take this time to learn yourself, you have more gifts and abilities than you know.

God Bless.

PILE 3 - THE SIREN. THE EMPRESS. THE KING. THE WITCH. THE POWERFUL MATRIX ASCENDER.

PsychIc Oracle - Accelerated Motion + Movement, Choices, Decisions + Passion Ignited

Heart Oracle - Dreams Coming True + New Vitality + Crown Chakra

There's power in your name. Your voice holds energy that can't be mistaken as weak. You have abundance written all over you, yet you still don't see your purpose. What makes you love your life and what is meant for you. A beautiful life. A world meant to be enjoyed and embarked on with full autonomy and free of the judgement of others. There are times where you wonder what roads to take, but there are none. It's just you, living, breathing, succeeding and just being in love. You have 'no purpose' to fulfill. Your purpose is to just be in enjoyment of the world and to view the stars as a magical infinity where all your dreams can come true. You have to learn that not everything is about you in this lifetime, that your world isn't like others. So don't make it out to be. You're blessed in areas that others work hard to get. Please remember that you're a goddess, a god, a king or queen or whatever you choose to label yourself as. You don't have to work hard in this life, let me remind you, you came here to succeed NATURALLY.. That is a gift. You're honored in past lives and this one you're honored in this one. You just have to make way for yourself to receive. Be open to the divine and what its promised you. Just take time being seen for all that you are, and watch how things come for you with ease and grace. No distress. Just practice gratitude in this life, thats literally you're calling. Special Presence. Love & Life. Appreciation Of The Stars. The Most High Watches Over You. Joy In Your Flesh. Being Present For The Moment. Enjoying Wonders Beneath The Soil. A Garden Awaiting To Bloom.

God Bless.

PILE 4 - LOVE & BALANCE. SPIRITUAL HEALING. MORPHING INTO ONE.

Heart Oracle - Spiritual Union + Balance + Master

Bonus Reading: New Vitality

A love from the Gods. Creators of the Promise Land. The adams and the eve. The Apple & The Tree. The Great Awakening. A spiritual love that surpasses time. A love worth dreaming and waiting for. Your higher-selves needed this. So you could show the world what is true. There is a billion stars in the horizon, but yet you two showed the world that the universe lives in you.Theres so many realities one could take, yet this is the one for you. You've been called, chosen for this. Your calling is connected to your romantic lover. Its graced with protection, love, grace, connection, authenticity and a reality that no one knew was possible.

The energy is felt across thousands, and this love is worth a million times more than that. You'll be protected in spaces that are deserving to see you and come in contact with you guys grace. Always remember to keep quiet about your union as some people's evil eye can try to infect itself into you guys love. Not all has to be private, but again, not many souls can view this perfect union. You are God's Angels on Earth.

You are connected to a higher love, a union that meets pass social standards and beliefs. God Bless.

PILE 5 - PERFORMING FOR THE UNIVERSE. STARS. CALLING AWAITS YOU ON THE LARGEST STAGE OF GOD.

Psychic Oracle - Firm Foundation + Memories Of Love + Stand Your Ground

Heart Oracle - Shine + Hope + Heal

A God Or Goddess that's been called to be on stage in some sort. Artistic abilities are strongest when you show them to people. You might be a leo or have leo placements. You might have 5th house placements. You might have neither. Either way, you have a destiny that makes you shine like one, thats for sure. You have been given the grace to keep these efforts flowing. Sure the humble beginnings made you feel like this was going no where, and there could of been weight you were holding that kept you beneath waters. You have to give yourself time to see yourself in that light again, thats ok. Feelings of being ungrounded might of been common in the past, but now you are more aware of your talents than ever before. And that counts for something. You've been given the green light to be a star since birth. You didn't know at the time, but at some point it became apparent. Give yourself time to grow in your talents and gifts. The stage is awaiting your gracious gifts. We really get a kick out of it. Also the number 17 in tarot is significant. 17 came up twice for you and its a simple of hope and making a wish come true. You can have the world if you asked, don't forget it. Always be you in a world that tells you otherwise. If you ever felt scared of your own gifts, now is the time to cast out that vibration. You're meant to be seen in all your glory. Remember it.

Unique talents will be what gives you the greatest joy & its what keeps you feeling alive.

Ase! God Bless.

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