#included the other floyd but at some point i just went 'mine now' with him this is no surprise

[blacksurvivalnostalgichanges]

i should be doing schoolwork but instead i’m doing

#not a quote #i mapped this shit out to a tee now i just have to edit it #even included the new character! unexpected right? #included the other floyd but at some point i just went 'mine now' with him this is no surprise

[thesunshinebunny]

Can you please do headcanons for what the twisted wonderland boys would do if their girlfriends ex showed up wanting her back?

Uh… .ALL OF THEM ???? Are you serious ?? Oh My God !!!! Ummmmmmmm, OK, I’LL DO MY BEST, but I think it’s about time I started putting character limits because this is going to be difficult.

IT WAS INSANEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE For obvious reasons I didn’t include Ortho, so I hope this is still to your liking

Riddle

He tried to make the meeting as smooth and consistent as possible.

He is the dorm leader, he has to be the example of maturity and consistency in dealing with women.

He tried for more than half an hour to dispel the insults towards him and politely asked them to get out of Hearstlabyul, but when your ex started talking about you… oh boiiii

Our Queen is pisseeeeeeeeed.

Indispensably if your ex had magic or not, it’ll be OF WITH THEIR HEAD.

Had to ask not only to Trey and Cater but also the dynamic duo to escort them out.

Treat him with little sweetness and a cup of coffee, our redhead will thank you.

"I love you, and I will always be by your side as long as you want to have me with you"

Trey

The personified knight. Outside of joking, at no point did he get upset or ask them to leave in a rude manner.

He handled the situation calmly and when your ex finished speaking, that was when his face changed radically.

Yes, the knight in shining armor was quite a facade.

He gave your ex a gloomy look and in a low tone commented that they were not welcome at Heartslabyul, much less NRC and that they had to leave if they didn’t want to end up with a broken leg.

SHOOK.

Both of you spent the night baking cakes and watching bad movies, even though what Trey really cared the most was spending the night with you, snuggled between his sheets.

"I may have reacted in a somewhat terrifying way, but believe me when I tell you that that look will never be directed at you"

Cater

Our dear orange haired man here didn't take it very well. It was one of the few moments in which his face or voice had not the hint of happiness and amusement that characterized him so much.

He may have used his unique magic to intimidate your ex… I mean, if a mildly angry Cater doesn't do any good, I guess five will work.

Indispensably whether it worked or not, you could always call in the dynamic duo to get your ex out of the way.

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t necessary the one neuron duo, with the five Caters it was more than enough.

Before they left the dorm, he took a selfie as not in a mockery mode and uploaded it to his social medias.

“Do you want to appear in the photo? So I can show the world how beautiful you are, how lucky I am to have you and how stupid your ex was to show up at school "

Ace

Another one who lost his temper, but just when the person in front of him said it was your ex.

Don't overthink it, he just made an angry face because he already knew what your ex was up to, and he didn't like it one bit.

Believe it or not, Ace didn't hold on to the punches with them. No, he simply told them that he had no intention of letting you go and immediately sent them flying with his magic.

For the last thing, he told them not to bother trying, turned around and went to where you were to give you a long, possessive kiss in front of your ex.

"I maaaay have been a bit possessive, but I don't want you to leave my side"

Deuce

He threw a cauldron at their head ... jocking ... or not?

Nah, nah, I'm kidding, but he did come close to throwing his famous cauldron at them and leaving them squashed like a figurine.

Lowkey rogue mode activated.

It may have scared you a little, but it didn't have much of an effect.

Your ex didn't leave you alone until Deuce punched him across the face, screaming for them to leave you alone.

You have to get out of the crime scene before any teacher comes.

Ashamed of himself. Maybe the way of resolution he had was not the best, but it was effective and you were grateful for that.

You gave him a sweet kiss on the cheek and told him everything was fine, that he didn't have to worry about anything; he was your knight in shining armor.

“Sorry, anger washed over me again. I couldn't bear the idea of you being taken away from me "

Leona

Man, this one acted out of pure pride. A stranger grabbing his beloved herbivore? Ohhhh noooo, honey, you messed with the wrong lion and prince.

This is one of the few times he wouldn't send Ruggie in to fix it. No. He would stand tall and beat this motherfucker ass.

You'll have to stop him before he turns your ex to sand, and I'm not kidding this time.

The very thought of someone taking his girlfriend from him drove him wild.

With your ex out of reach, and scared for life, he will demand cuddles and a nap.

He won't admit it, but Leona was afraid for a moment of losing you. You are his, and no one else's.

“I will not let anyone take you from my arms. I will protect you no matter what”

Ruggie

Used Laught with me, no discussion.

And there was no discussion with your ex. He just saw them with you, heard snippets that they wanted you back, that they wanted a second chance, blah blah blah ... and that was it, unique magic in action.

You got disoriented for a moment when you saw your ex walking strangely towards the exit, but when you heard the famous giggle of your boyfriend you knew immediately what was happening.

Let's be honest, in all it was a pretty funny image.

Ruggie stayed by your side all afternoon in the Savanaclaw lounge room playing and splashing in the water.

"I may be a possessive and territorial hyena, but this hyena is at your complete mercy"

Jack

Nothing like a good roar to scare away any predator that intends to stick its nose into other's prey.

Just kidding, Jack would never consider you prey, you are his significant other and that means he must protect you from any danger.

Wolf mode activated to the surprise of your ex.

He growled until their figure could not be seen on the horizon… lowkey cute as fuck.

Give him cuddles in this form, he would really appreciate it… he really would love your hands caressing his soft fur.

Record a video of his tail wagging, just for science.

“I figured you were uncomfortable and couldn't think of anything else to get your ex off your back. Now come with me, I want to caress you correctly"

Azul

Believe me when I tell you that the appearance of your ex not only irritated Azul, but also brought him insecurities that he thought were already buried under the ground.

The fact that a stranger appeared at the doors of the Mostro Lounge with an air of melodrama was enough for our octopus to go out to meet them directly, thinking they was just another customer ... an annoying customer, to tell the truth.

But when they started yelling for your presence, demanding that you come back to them, oh ... Yeah, this so-called customer is now banned from entering.

He let Floyd and Jade take care of them.

Like Riddle, give him love and a few sweets, he needs it. He really needs affection.

He needs to hear your voice, to remind him that you are with him now. He wants to hear you say that he is the only person in your world right now and that you would not leave him for nothing.

“I'm a silly octopus who got tangled in your arms and not the other way around. Only you give me the comfort that I've been looking for so much "

Jade

Your ex must have some balls of steel to even be close to Jade and plan to face him to have you back ... this guy has a suicidal desire.

Jade's appearance was not only scary, but his way of talking and engaging in conversation with your ex was what made them run out of the Mostro Lounge.

But you were already more than used to his characterization as an intimidating person.

Bring him a basket full of multiple mushrooms from the botanical garden, he will appreciate it.

And maybe also a glass container to create a little mini environment for those mushrooms… both of you will have a nice time together, maybe the whole night putting it together.

"You are my favorite starfish and I cannot allow any sea thorn to monopolize your beauty"

Floyd

Even having the same calm expression as Jade when he saw your ex, it didn't last long. The moment your name came out of their mouth, Floyd's face broke.

You remember in episode 3 when he asks Adeuce braincell to shut up, well… that same expression.

By this time, Floyd was no longer as calm as his brother; in fact, he went directly to squeeze them.

If you paid close attention you could hear how the ribs were cracking little by little. Good thing you were there to stop Floyd.

Your ex stalked to the exit as they was nearly squeezed alive and Floyd gave you a grin from ear to ear as if he had done nothing wrong.

"I protect what is mine, no one has the right to take my shrimpy from my side"

Kalim

At first this ray of sunshine didn't even know what was happening, he thought they were just looking for you to chat, to keep up.

But when he heard this strange person exclaim that they wanted you back… he was still just as lost, but not in an innocent way.

He went to where you were to give you a big hug in front of your ex. He may have looked cute and adorable, but unconsciously Kalim was marking his territory.

Kindly asked your ex to leave the dorm and not make any more advances, they were making you uncomfortable, and if you were uncomfortable he was uncomfortable.

He gave you butterfly kisses when the situation calmed down. Give him kisses back, he needs them.

“You love me, right? Because I love you very much, and my love cannot be compared with anything in the world, and yours cannot be bought even with all the jewels I have in the treasure chamber "

Jamil

This is simple. Jamil only asked your ex once to leave the dorm.

Not understanding reasons the first time, he simply used his unique magic causing them to go "on their own".

Problem solved. NOW, that doesn't mean Jamil was in a good mood.

Not at all. Anger can be seen rising from his ears like smoke, but his face expresses calm.

Help him in the kitchen, he may not say anything, but internally he will thank you.

Cuddling in the middle of the night, curled up in his bed? HELL YEAH.

"You are the most precious diamond I have in my life, I am not going to let you go so easily"

Vil

How dare this pathetic person to proclaim you back in front of his own nose?

Putting aside how impressed he was by such a daring act, Vil was once again furious.

Vil isn’t a person who defends his opponent in a violent way like Leona or Floyd, but he could attack the self-esteem and brain.

Even though… if the obscene words towards you kept bubbling out of their disgusting mouth, he would have to give him a poison apple.

It almost happened, thank goodness you were there to lower the fumes.

Vil was irritable all day and not even a beauty treatment could calm him… shit this was bad.

Give him a couple of hours to calm down and try talking to him during the night and if he doesn't want to, you can always do the routine for his face before going to sleep.

“I'll be honest, I liked your ex's audacity, but it didn't displease to see how mistreated they was and if I can correctly assume, the mistreatment they caused you. You are here with me and I am here with you, neither is going to be detach from the other "

Rook

When Rook saw how your ex was trying to convince you to come back… let's just say he didn't take it very well.

But his face said otherwise. He had the same grinning and somewhat creppy expression as ever, so it was difficult to determine in that tense moment whether he was really angry or not.

I think the arrow that passed between the two of you, best expressed between your two faces, made it pretty clear that Rook wasn't going to sit idly by.

A bit violent and shocking, but effective. Your ex shitted their pants and stormed out of the place, without even looking back.

Coward.

"I'm sorry for the bad moment I put you on, but nobody touches my prey"

It may be that his action was with tenderness of support, but that doesn’t remove the shock from your face.

You slept with one eye open that night.

Epel

Let's say the conversation got off to a good start, until your ex had the brilliant idea of mistaking Epel for a girl.

Oh yeah, the truck driver's voice came out to our farmer.

Be prepared to hold him and prevent him from giving your ex a tremendous punch in the face. Even in that situation your damn ex had the decency to keep asking you to go back to them.

It even occurred to them to denigrate Epel for how short and his supposedly sweet voice was... now you can let him go.

With your ex out of your sight and a reprimanding of Vil towards Epel's ugly acting, you guys spent the night in your bedroom.

Simple caresses and a few small butterfly kisses to calm the atmosphere.

“Sorry, I lost control and gave you a hard time. Don't be mad at me, I don't even want to think about the possibility of losing you "

Idia

Oh… .emmm, embarrassed baby became even more embarrassed at having to come face to face with a complete stranger.

Talking to you is one thing, but talking about yourself with your supposed ex is another thing entirely; he even finds it difficult to talk about you with his own brother, so imagine the traumatic moment Idia had to go through.

In a stuttering manner, he asked them to please get away of hs face… and from school. If the shame towards his person was not enough to get your ex out of there, no problem ...

From somewhere he'd get a little machine that would run your ex's fucking ass outside the doors of NRC.

The machine would have a small camera embedded so you could see from its monitors how your ex ran like a baby with their butt burned thanks to Idia's invention.

He may have uploaded the file to the internet… who knows.

After this terrible and agonizing day, Idia doesn’t plan to leave his room until the end of the year.

Stay with him as long as necessary, hours, days, afternoons, nights, early mornings, whatever it is, just ... stay hugged him at all times.

“For a moment I thought you were going to leave with your ex. You know, Ortho loves you very much, and you leaving would make him very sad ... and me too"

Malleus

They have to have balls to go straight to Malleus and tell at his face that they wants you back.

10 for the audacity, -1000 for their physical health.

 Malleus, like Vil, doesn’t need to destroy or attack your ex, just standing there and acting intimidating is enough.

If your ex still wants to hang around you after seeing that scene, then Malleus is going to have to put his horns on it.

Nothing like a spark of fingers to make him disappear from your side and send him flying out of school.

They are fine, at least that’s what Malleus said.

“Even being amazed at the audacity of that little creature, they should learn that the word no means no. You, little human, you are mine"

Lilia

Big bear mama Lilia took the situation with great grace. If only your ex knew that the were talking to a fairy over five hundred years old I throw a number they would freeze.

He endured the boring and monotonous talk with your ex with a sarcastic smile and when they finished speaking he wished them a good way back. He then sent them flying towards the exit of Diasomnia.

With their butt out, Lilia slammed the door in their face. You watched the scene from the top of the dorm lounge stairs.

At no time did our little fairy have a hair out of place. And with that same tranquility he disappeared from the door and magically appeared next to you with his characteristic smile and face down.

He gave you sweet kisses before he went out to babysit some freshmen who were about to set the kitchen on fire… as if Lilia hadn't done it before.

“Don't listen to them, they are part of your past. The best thing is to leave it behind, because now you have a present with me "

Silver

It happened in one of the few times when Silver was wide awake and with no intention of going to sleep in whatever corner he came across first.

Still, he literally didn't understand anything, he just wanted to spend time with you and that time was ruined.

Silver did nothing, just grabbed your hand and led you into the hall of mirrors, disappearing into Diasomnia's one.

Before going through the mirror, you turned your gaze over your shoulder, seeing how your ex was following both of you and with a handshake which happened to be raised the middle finger you disappeared into the mirror.

In the warm cold of the bedroom, you spent a long time in the arms of your loved one.

"There is no need to look into the past, I like living the present with you"

Sebek

Don't hate me for what I'm going to say… but your ex didn't even have a chance to say hello, Sebek was already on his shoulders asking them to leave if he didn't want them to face a duel.

Just kidding, not a duel… but it would give him their lesson if they didn't immediately leave the dorm.

No one without the consent of his young master Malleus could enter the residence. And speaking of Malleus… he spent about half an hour talking about his master and how he would be able to turn them to ash if they approached Diasomnia again.

And by the way to you too.

"Incredible how a person thinks they had the right to appear like this out of nowhere, how could you be with a person like that?"

Oddly enough, the day passed like nothing, even at bedtime Sebek acted as if your ex had never shown up.

But… during the early morning, a heaviness on your stomach woke you up from your dreams. Sebek was huddled behind you, his head buried in your hair, his arms across your belly.

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #twst #twst x reader #riddle x reader #trey x reader #cater x reader #ace x reader #deuce x reader #leona x reader #ruggie x reader #jack x reader #azul x reader #floyd x raeder #jade x reader #kalim x raeder #jamil x reader #vil x reader #rook x reader #epel x reader #idia x reader #malleus x reader #lilia x reader #silver x reader #sebek x reader

[jangmi-latte]

I heard you wanted help with a character analysis! I have come to help out, if I can! So, I have a question for you that may help out with at least one character we have information on, do you think Jamil Viper truly hates Kalim Al-Asim because of how the two's families' situation or Jamil is lying to himself? If you wish, I can discuss it with you and help you come to a conclusion, I am more than happy to help you if you need it.

You know, I have been observing Jamil’s actions ever since Chapter 5 started. It has been very visible that this vice-dorm leader has gone through a lot and the fandom knows that for sure. It bothers me sometimes seeing some Jamil x Kalim one-shots where it focuses on Jamil being all friendly with Kalim – friendly in a way the servant master relationship doesn’t bother him when it’s the other way around. I hope this essay of mine helps out expound on Kalim and Jamil’s relationship starting from pre-enrollment to post-enrollment. Before I jump straight into the main question, I’ll slowly expound on Jamil’s progress throughout the Scarabia Arc towards Pomefiore’s Arc.

i would also love to created the TWISTED WONDERLAND WIKIA and for the translators who are behind this site for providing the translations. this analysis won't be complete without them. it has been a very big help.

do note this analysis is NOT SPOILER-FREE so if you don’t wanna get spoiled, this meal is not for your dear customer.

01. Jamil’s freedom

First, let’s differentiate how Jamil acts with and without Kalim around. In most of the main and personal stories, Jamil was always with Kalim. In one instance – like in his PE card – we have seen Jamil without Kalim around. We can see how Jamil has a tendency to be bossy and how he has a way with words in terms of helping Floyd with his desire to do a headstand. Yes, he may have shown this personality around Kalim, however, it is noted how Jamil didn’t hold back into explaining to Floyd (very detailed at that) about the one thing he’s good at. Until he has caught himself again and realized he spoke too much.

We can see how Jamil desperately wants to share who he really was (his talents, his ideologies, etc.) to others, something he couldn’t show when he’s around Kalim.

He said it himself, “my inner dancing soul started to ache…” which is why he shared his own thoughts.

“Ahem! …It’s nothing. When I went out with Kalim in the past, there were occasions where I did a bit of dancing.” He held back again just because Kalim was mentioned. Ace even mentioned how it wasn’t A BIT of what Jamil did in dancing.

It’s obvious how Jamil actually wanted to dance more and teach Floyd what he’s good at except Ace mentioned how it was a basketball club and not a dance club. It’s clear how he’s used to adjusting himself and hold back with what he wants to do. We’re just glad Floyd somehow persuaded that made Jamil show his real self.

Do note how Floyd complimented Jamil when he did a handstand and how happy he must’ve felt about himself.

He was willing, his own choice, to teach Floyd and NOT because he’s obligated to like he was around Kalim. He even shared what techniques he could do.

In his voice lines, we can see how Jamil actually wants to be more powerful. Not like that’s already not obvious, however, there was always the resentment of holding back. He wanted to enjoy himself, as noted in Fairy Gala where he went all out and didn’t hold back, and in Dances and Wishes where he mentioned that he wanted to travel alone. In one of his groovy lines, he said “Sometimes it’s nice to just forget about everything and enjoy yourself. It’s been a long time since I felt like that.”

HE DOESN’T WANT TROUBLE ANYMORE!!! Please, give this man a break, he really hates getting into other people’s business. Let alone getting dragged into them. Why is this under his freedom category? Because anywhere Kalim is, there will always be trouble. Meaning, not only is his safety in the line but also the way he acts. Stiff, robot-like, servant, guardian, you say it. Is Jamil one of those? No.

He always tries to find something beneficial with being around Kalim. Dancing, for example. He stated that whether he likes it or not, Jamil has eventually found fun in dancing and let alone develop strength just by chasing him around.

It has always been mentioned how Jamil is good at cooking and I even read that his kitchen is his go-to when he's stressed and whatnot. But let's remember that Jamil DOESN'T really likes cooking that much. He's only obligated to do so. He mentioned it in his SSR dorm uniform voice lines. Don't associate him with the kitchen too much. 

He ALWAYS mentions Kalim!!! In every voice line, in every personal story, hell, even the main story, there wouldn't be ONE instance where he wouldn't mention Kalim. Why? That's what he was born to do. To always mention his master, to mention his position, to keep the focus away from him and move it towards who he's serving. That's his life. Imagine his happiness when he finally gets a chance to shine on his own.

Connecting to the previous paragraph, either Jamil notices it or not, he consciously and subconsciously lies to himself and to others — except to those who have Asim as their last name. We all know Jamil would go boast about his intelligence, skills, and talents when he wants to and as noted in his overblot, he didn't hold back (he was in a state of no control, yes, but when someone overblots they most often spill what they were truly feeling deep down). Yet, Jamil has grown accustomed into lying to himself and to others that, "This is what I can only do. This is what I am for, etc." He always belittles himself to others and it wasn't a choice of his. 

I noticed how Jamil would always say he doesn't want to stand out and I couldn't point out whether this includes him lying to himself or he genuinely just doesn't like attention. Why this confuses me is because he said he wanted to be number one and known for his own talents yet he doesn't like standing out. I would assume that he wants to be known for who he is in a way of recognition and not by any loud or crowd settling attention. 

Now, Jamil often jokes about "I'm the master now, serve me" in his SSR birthday card and it's easy to point out that (1) he isn't used to attention being placed on him and he's growing accustomed to it, (2) it's a form of control mechanism for him that he knows he's still a servant despite getting such privilege for a day. He is used to his position but that doesn't mean he won't fight for what he wants/believes. After all, Kalim already told him and he's slowly trying to do so without breaking his position still.

02. Jamil’s relationship with Kalim (post-overblot) 

Jamil has vocally stated his hatred for Kalim which happened after his overblot. He doesn’t want to be friends, he doesn’t want ANYTHING that involves being with Kalim. He is there solely for the purpose of being a servant and to finish school. Just like I stated, Jamil tries to find benefits with being around Kalim, whether he likes it or not, he is getting a good dose of education, a good shelter, food, etc. Even though Jamil wants not only him but his family as well to get out of the traditional servant position, he knows he doesn’t have the power to do so. My only conclusion here is that Jamil has very limited choices and that he knows that he has to endure Kalim maybe a bit longer.

Now, this is where we start answering the main question, does Jamil Viper truly hates Kalim Al-Asim because of how the two's families' situation or is he lying to himself? The answer is no – in the prospect of hating Kalim. BUT the most logical answer I could give is that Jamil is slowly warming up (VERY SLOWLY) to Kalim AND NOT HIS FAMILY’S POSITION. Those are two different things:

Jamil’s obligation is to look after Kalim, feed him, protect him, teach him, etc. That’s what he hates. What I’m trying to say here is that Jamil still cares about Kalim. Why do I say this? Notice in the Fairy Gala event, not only did he prove himself to the audience and to Vil but he also was having fun. Despite the harsh training he went through, I believe those smiles he shared with Kalim showed the progress in their relationship with each other.

In Chapter 5-34, we can see Kalim talking about how he was poisoned and mentioned he doesn’t like the idea of the culprit (whoever plans to poison him)  never apologizing when he ever was poisoned. Based on Jamil’s silence, what he probably felt was guilt. He never apologized for what he did but he knew what he did was wrong. At the beginning chapters of Chapter 5, he did explain what happened between him and the dorm students and how he’ll just stick to Kalim from now on. He despises Kalim’s sweet, sunshine, nature because he’s the exact opposite. He knows he’s the villain, he knows he can’t accept Kalim’s personality due to his nature. Kalim’s too nice, Jamil isn’t, they go well together and he (Jamil) doesn’t want to do anything with it. Let Kalim live his own life, he’ll live his.

“We’re not friends, remember…?” Remember Jamil’s tendency to lie? He’s lying to himself. He always tries to make himself hate Kalim but he can’t.

Want to be even more convinced? Chapter 5-30, why would Jamil eavesdrop on MC and Kalim’s conversation? He’s watching over Kalim, yes, but what do you think he felt after hearing Kalim finally learn? Don’t you think he felt relieved? I know for sure he won’t feel guilt over that, all he wanted was for Kalim to be aware of their differences and to be independent. That’s what’s happening to Kalim right now.

Ah, additional to that, the Halloween event. Jamil checked on Kalim, didn’t he? He trusted Kalim on his own. He was actually smiling when Ace pointed out how he keeps checking his phone. He was only checking on Kalim, okay, but please. The trust he actually placed on Kalim was big. Improvement in friendship.

Concerning his position, that’s the sole thing Jamil wants to change. That has always been his goal. To change his family’s position as servant, get a break, have freedom. Who knows? If Jamil ever did get what he wanted, he might go back to Kalim. He’s hard to read.

Conclusion:

I wanted to expound more on the depth of their relationship but this post has gotten too long. To keep it short, Jamil is still contemplating to himself. We can’t instantly jump into the ‘yes and no’ into his hatred for we are still ongoing with Pomefiore’s chapter which will unfold more of their relationship. He somehow hates Kalim but doesn’t in a way of personality and ideology, not the whole person himself. He also hates his position but again, Jamil did something wrong and he knows it. They’re both still learning, they’re both still progressing throughout their relationship. I hope this analysis answered your question! It was fun ^^.

#twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #twst #twisted wonderland character analysis #jamil viper #kalim al asim #scarabia

[imagineaworlds]

I Love You (Part Twenty-Two) -- Aaron Hotchner

Written By: @desperately-bisexual​

Request: None.

Warnings: Cursing. Mentions of smut. Mentions of Dom/sub relationship. Talk of murder, kidnapping, shooting-- literally everything Criminal Minds.

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Greenaway!Reader

Word Count: 14289

Timeline: A month after part twenty-one.

When we got back from the case we had just finished, Hotch and I decided to stop at a diner for dinner. I wasn’t necessarily hungry— especially after that case—but Hotch put the option out there, which meant that he was probably hungry, so I accepted for his sake. I could afford to snack on something, I supposed. But, really, how was I supposed to eat anything after that confession? I mean, Morgan practically ran out of the interrogation room to go throw up in the bathroom. None of us expected what Floyd Feylinn was going to admit to. We thought that, if anything, he was going to tell us that he ate Tracy Lambert, and we were going to call it a day. I don’t think any of us stopped to consider that everyone at the search party two days prior had unknowingly consumed Tracy’s remains in the chili he made. Our team hadn’t taken the offer of anyone’s home cooked meal because we were too busy trying to organize the search and build the profile. It was a good thing that we hadn’t. Despite not actually eating anything, though, I could tell that none of us were too keen on the idea of eating— which was why I was so shocked when Hotch offered. Maybe a milkshake or something wouldn’t hurt. I mean, it was cold that time of year, but a milkshake never killed anyone… Geez. Even thinking about it made me sick to my stomach.

At the diner, there were only a few other couples occupying some of the booths, but since it was so late, most of the dinner rush was gone. Hotch and I could pick anywhere to sit, so he took my hand, and he led me over to a booth away from the window, somewhat towards the back of the dining area. He let go of my hand when we arrived at the seat he wanted. We both sat down simultaneously, scooching into the middle of the booths until we were comfortable. Hotch picked up his menu and started skimming. I picked up my menu, but I hid my face behind it so that he couldn’t see how disinterested I was.

Nothing looked good. Nothing sounded good. All I could think about was that chili and the way he laughed when he told us the truth. He didn’t care that he did that to all those people. He didn’t care that he did that to Tracey Lambert. He was a monster. The worst of the worst. And his wicked laugh was still ringing in my ears. I almost wished that Morgan and Hotch would’ve let the preacher strangle Feylinn then and there. He deserved it, didn’t he?

I put my menu down and sighed quietly, just thinking about how I was ready to go home. I was fine with not eating. I wanted to just lay down in his arms. I wanted to feel how his chest moved slowly against my back every time he breathed, and I wanted to feel how his strong, long arms would hold me tight, and how his breath would be hot on my ear, and how he would take random moments to kiss me. I needed simple. I needed him. I needed home.

Hotch finally looked up at me, reading my face. No. Profiling all of me. I looked up at him and did the same. Neither of us seemed happy or hungry. I originally thought that he wanted dinner, which was why he offered it; but I started realizing that he probably thought that I wanted dinner. It was clear that neither of us wanted to be there. What was the point of staying and spending money on a meal that we weren’t going to eat?

“Do you want to get out of here?” he finally asked me. I nodded immediately. He dug into his pocket, fishing out a ten dollar bill as an apology tip for ditching the waitress, then he reached across the table to take my hand. We both stood simultaneously, and he started pulling me towards the door. When we got settled in the car, Hotch leaned over the armrest between us, grabbed my chin between his fingers, making me look at him, and said, “You know what sounds nice?” I shook my head slightly while still being held by him. “Hot chocolate, blankets, and a movie.”

I hummed an agreement before leaning in to kiss him. After he pecked my lips a few times, he settled in his seat to face forward while starting the car. It wasn’t a long drive home from where we were, but Hotch seemed insistent on holding my hand in his lap while his thumb drew circled around my knuckles. His touch was so relaxing to the point I nearly fell asleep in the car, actually. I had been staring out the window, looking up at the sky and the stars that were above, and we were listening to quiet music over the radio. Together, his touch, the sky, the music, it all gave me a chance to forget for a moment just how horrible that case was. I knew that Morgan probably wasn’t taking it as well, since it had been personal for him, for some reason. But I couldn’t even take a moment to ponder his behavior while I was practically falling backwards into tranquility.

When I was little, Elle used to tell me that we would all turn into stars when we died. Now, of course, I knew that was a lie; but for the longest time, thinking that there was some other physical form waiting for us after life brought me comfort. When the world was quiet and life was peaceful, it was nice to think about that. Even now, I liked to think that Elle’s dad was up there in the sky, watching her and protecting her since I couldn’t. It made me feel better sometimes to think that there were people up there who could watch over me, my family, and my friends. When I couldn’t be there to protect people like Jack and Elle, maybe there was someone out there who was doing it for me.

At home, Hotch waited for me to walk around the car and meet me on the path in front of the house. After noticing how he was holding his hand out for me again, I balanced all of my things in my less dominant hand and intertwined my free fingers with his. As we walked up to the house, Hotch kissed my knuckles again. He had an obsession, I was convinced. I didn’t mind, however. I liked the comfort it brought me. I liked that it was a gentle, caring touch that silently told me that he loved me.

“You sure you’re okay?” I asked him.

He nodded.

Hotch put his go-bag down so that he could open the door while still holding my hand. I thought about how Hotch was either going to just tear my clothes off and cuddle me or he’d actually give me the chance to get changed. I really wanted to go upstairs and throw on one of Hotch’s old sweatshirts and a pair of sweatpants to go with it. His obsession was kissing my knuckles all the time, and mine was wearing his clothes around. It was nice.

The door opened and Hotch led me inside. We put our go-bags down on the floor and I sighed. “I’ll make the hot chocolate if you pick the movie.” He agreed by grabbing my hips and pulling me in for a passionate kiss that I had to push him away from before we could lose our breaths. “Pick a movie that we’ll actually end up watching.”

“What if I just pick one that we’ve already seen, that way it doesn’t matter if we miss some of it.” He grinned widely in response to the way I squinted at him. “Fine,” he threw his hands up in surrender. “As you wish.”

After I winked at him, I went to the kitchen. I sighed again as I grabbed two mugs from the cupboard, then two of the instant hot chocolate packets from the box next to the fridge. I turned on the electric tea kettle before leaning back against the kitchen island.

It was late, and I was somewhat tired, but a movie and a night with Hotch was the perfect way to wind down. In the morning, we’d probably call Haley to see if we could have Jack for a few days, and she’d probably say yes. She was good to us like that. She knew that with our unreliable schedules, every moment with Jack was practically borrowed time. She wanted to make sure that Jack got to see his dad as much as possible, and if that included giving him up and taking him in on random days without warning, then she was going to make it work. I liked that about her. It made her strong. It made her a good role model for Jack. It made her a good mom. In a way, I kind of envied her, actually. She had years with Hotch, and she had this connection with Jack that I would never have or be able to understand. If Hotch and I ever had kids, I just hoped that Haley would still be understanding with us. I somewhat hoped that she would actually be able to help. Her and Jessica were practically there at our every beck and call— which was a horrible way to put it, honestly… But I always wondered how they could do it. If Hotch and I got serious like that, I hoped that she could help me understand how to navigate it all.

When the water was hot, I poured equal amounts of water into our two mugs, then sifted in the hot chocolate powder. Hotch liked his hot chocolate scalding, unlike me. If it were too hot, I couldn’t drink it until it was practically room temperature. The way to find the right heat after practically boiling was to throw in a hidden ice cube with the marshmallows. Perfection.

I stepped back into the living room, carefully juggling the mugs while making sure that none of the marshmallows would hop out over the edge. “Alright, one order of hot chocolate for you— hold the ice cubes— and one hot chocolate for me with extra marshmallows and an ice cube.” I slowed my speed as I noticed that Hotch was getting off the phone. I prayed that it wasn’t work. We had just gotten back from that case, and I wasn’t too excited about jumping back into a new case yet. I just wanted to have a night to ourselves for once…

Hotch sniffled away a cry before turning to me with red eyes.

“Aaron?” I questioned worriedly, racing to put the mugs down. “Baby, what is it?” I sat down next to him and ran my fingers through his hair.

He cleared his throat as he found the bravery to say what was on his mind. “Penelope…” He hesitated. He never called her Penelope. Ever. More importantly, however, was the question running through my mind of why was he talking about her right now? What happened while I was gone in the kitchen? “She was shot,” he finally answered the question running through my mind before I could even ask.

I stopped petting his hair for a moment. “What are you talking about?”

“She’s on her way to St. Sebastian’s right now.”

“I—” I hesitated as I pushed myself to my feet, feeling how my head started spinning and my knees felt weak.

Garcia… How did this happen? Why her? When? Of all people, Garcia didn’t deserve to be hurt. Ever. She was the most innocent, precious being I had ever met. She would never hurt a soul. Why would someone shoot her? Our Penelope Garcia. This all felt so unfair. It all felt unreal. We needed to do something. We needed to be there for her. We needed the team to find out what happened—

Morgan.

Hotch reached out for my hand as I tried to stumble onto my feet. “I need to call Morgan,” I croaked, escaping Hotch’s grasp so that I could search for my phone. “Emily, JJ, and Reid went out for drinks, I think. You could, uh…” I brought my free palm up to my forehead while searching for Morgan’s number in my phone. “You can… You can call them—”

“Y/N,” he tried to catch my attention.

I brought the phone to my ear and listened as it rang a few times. Hotch was still trying to make me pay attention to him, but I had my back turned to him, my eyes trained on the floor, my hearing focused precisely on waiting to hear Morgan’s voice. How was I supposed to tell him this? Garcia meant the world to him. I knew that no matter how close Morgan and I would ever be, his connection with Garcia would remain ten times that. That was fine by me. I loved Morgan, and I loved Garcia. Morgan was my partner in the field, and my best friend in the entire world, if we were being honest. Having to tell him that the most important woman in his life had just been shot… It reminded me of when I got that call from Hotch after Elle was shot by Randall Garner.

Morgan and I had similar coping mechanisms. We connected through our traumatic pasts, and we grew close because of how we dealt with it, and how our platonic chemistry made us special. It was fine to work with him, to tease him, to have his back. But it was also a comfort to know that he was always there, no matter what. I knew that he would always understand me, and I would always understand him. When I found out about Elle, I practically shut down until I could hold someone I loved— Hotch, specifically— in my arms; at which point, I broke into pieces. I didn’t understand why it happened. Why Elle? Why us? I remembered feeling so desperate for answers, but there was nothing I could do. When Morgan would inevitably find out about Garcia, I knew that he would have the same reaction. I knew that this call was going to shut him down, turn him into a zombie of worry. I knew that he wouldn’t feel anything until he got to hold someone close, and then all of the questions and desperation would flood in. Why Penelope? Why us? Yet, no one would have any answers.

Morgan’s phone went straight to voicemail.

I cursed under my breath and tried again. Hotch stood from the couch, realizing that he wasn’t going to get me to talk to him yet. My mind was too far into thinking about Elle, Garcia, and Morgan to talk about if I was alright or not. I’d be fine when Garcia was okay. I’d be fine when Morgan would finally just pick up the damn phone. Maybe then I’d be willing to talk about how my head was spinning and I was fearing the worst. But until then, I just needed Hotch to call the rest of the team so that they could meet us at the hospital.

“Reid, Emily, and JJ are going to sober up and catch a taxi to the hospital,” Hotch said quietly from behind me.

I slowly turned on my heels, threw my arms up slightly on my sides in defeat, then whispered, “Morgan isn’t picking up.”

Hotch finally reached out to put a hand on my hip and practically drag me over to him. I reluctantly let him pull me, my feet stumbling under my mindless steps. His fingers dug into my hip slightly. When Elle was shot, Hotch immediately pulled me into a hug, even though our relationship had just gone public (unwillingly), and Gideon wasn’t too happy about it all. But Hotch still did it. He did it because he loved me, and he wanted to comfort a family member who had been put in harm’s way because of the job. But now we had another family member in the hospital, and neither of us were sure what to do. There shouldn’t have been a difference between Elle and Garcia, but there was, somehow. Hotch was paralyzed this time with me. He didn’t know what to do or what to say. But being able to touch me, to hold me, to grab me like he was on my hip, it brought him enough comfort to let his mind sort out all of his racing thoughts.

When we got home from the Feylinn case, we did what we normally did: tried to relax. Home was where we felt safe. Virginia and D.C. were supposed to feel safe, if we really wanted to broaden the area, but… Garcia was home. Garcia was in D.C. and she was hurt when she let her guard down, too. Why? Why couldn’t our team ever catch a break? Why did it seem like the world was always working against us? Why did the world have to go after the most innocent out of all of us?

“There are moments like this…” he whispered, “where I… I just don’t know what to say.” His other hand shook as he brought it to my hand and squeezed. “I—” he hesitated again. His eyes softened before he pressed his forehead to mine. “I love you.”

My free hand wrapped around his bicep. “She’s going to be okay.”

Hotch was always the one to give that reassurance, even if it was sometimes false. But there were times when someone just needed to hold him and tell him that it was going to be alright. With all of the burdens he carried around every day, there probably weren’t even a handful of instances where someone was able to ease his suffering. There were a million times where Hotch put everyone else before himself, but who else was there but me who could recognize his pain in his actions and his voice and understand that he needed comfort, even if he wasn’t going to admit it. Hotch was a stubborn man who had troubles with expressing how he really felt. It took him a long time to accept that it’s important to tell his loved ones every day how much they meant to him because time with them was never guaranteed, but he still struggled to come to terms with everything else. Confessing that he was worried about Garcia wasn’t going to happen, but I knew what he was thinking without him having to say it. I always knew it.

I kissed the end of his nose since our foreheads were still pressed together. “I love you, Aaron.”

Hotch’s hold on my hip tightened like he couldn’t find a better way to express how grateful he was for me. I understood the feeling. Sometimes there weren’t enough words— sometimes the words didn’t exist. “I love you” was a strong affirmation, but even then, it didn’t really convey what we meant. For me, at least, there was this strong urge in the pit of my stomach to constantly be by his side. It felt like this pull towards him that I could never ignore, no matter how hard I tried. That urge in return made his touches electric against my skin, which only made me yearn for him more. I felt like no matter how many times I could touch him or kiss him or tell him that I love him, it was never enough. Sometimes I asked myself if Hotch felt the same way, but then we’d have moments like this, and I knew that he actually felt it twice as hard, yet it pained him that he couldn’t show it as much.

“I’m worried about her, too…” I finally flung my arms around his neck and hugged him. His arms snaked around my waist and he pulled me as close to him as he possibly could. That urge had returned, and it wasn’t going away, especially not now. There was a tug in my heart when he kissed my neck. “Aaron.” I played with the ends of his hair. “Listen to me.” He nodded somewhat against my shoulder. “It’ll be alright. She’s at the hospital. She’ll be okay. I swear it. It’s okay to break, if you need to.” He shook his head. “Okay.” I knew that it wasn’t my place to push him. “I’m going to keep calling Morgan until he finally picks up.”

“We should go to the hospital,” he insisted, trying to part from our hug, but I held on tight.

“I love you, Aaron.” I wasn’t sure why the sudden urge to tell him that washed over me, but it did. We should have been spending all of our time and energy worrying about Garcia, of course, but there was a part of me that needed to stop and appreciate Hotch for a moment.

“I love you, too, Y/N.”

As we pulled up to the hospital, Hotch and I practically jumped out of the car before it was even off. We ran inside, racing around to find the emergency room. St. Sebastian was a huge hospital—bigger than the one that Elle had been taken to when she was shot. It was the hospital closest to our house, which was nice for getting there as soon as possible in situations like this, but finding anything or anyone within it was damn near impossible. You could ask twenty people where something was, and they wouldn’t even know, or they’d keep sending you around the hospital to find someone who did know because they were too scared to admit that they didn’t know.

Hotch searched around frantically, trying to find someone who could help. I turned to my left to look towards the O.R. and spotted a bloodied paramedic walking towards us. My brows furrowed and I ran up to him.

“’Scuse me,” I stopped him in his tracks. He looked up at me with shocked eyes. “Did you just bring in a gunshot victim?”

The paramedic glanced over his shoulder briefly. “I can’t disclose that information—”

“FBI,” Hotch said, flashing his credentials. “I’m her supervisor. What happened?”

The paramedic sighed. “It’s not looking good, if I’m being honest. We got her here just before she bled out, and the wound on her shoulder won’t stop bleeding. We can’t get the slug out until we get the bleeding under control— if we get the bleeding under control.”

I put my palm over my mouth to cover my shock and turned away from them. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t real. It was like finding out about Elle all over again, only this time there was no reassurance that everything was going to be okay. Instead, we were hit with the worst kind of odds. I hated it. I hated the asshole who did this to Garcia, and I hoped that he would eventually suffer for what he had done. It didn’t matter who he was. He shot an FBI tech analyst— he shot our family; and we weren’t going to just let that slide.

“I’ve gotta go,” the EMT insisted before running past myself and Hotch.

I heard Hotch step away from the hallway, probably to go think to himself. I didn’t blame him. We both needed some space— just for a moment, nothing too serious. My mind was wrapped around Garcia, Morgan, and Elle all at once. This was going to kill Morgan. I mean, rip his heart out of his chest, kill him. How was I supposed to tell him the truth? Maybe it was a good thing that he wasn’t picking up the phone.

I felt a comforting hand grab my shoulder, then the next thing I knew, Hotch was spinning me around and pulling me into his arms. My fingers curled around the back of his suit jacket. “I just talked to the local PD,” he whispered. I pulled back slightly to look at him. “They think it was a botched robbery.” I put my head back on his chest. “There aren’t any leads. As soon as the team gets here, I’ll head there to see how I can help.”

“No—” I begged. I didn’t want him to go anywhere.

This was all too similar to the Fisher King, and I wasn’t sure if I could survive it on my own. I needed Hotch there as a reassurance that he was safe. If he left, I wouldn’t be able to protect him. We were already one teammate short; I didn’t need Hotch to end up in the hospital, too. Even if this were just a one off, robbery gone wrong case, I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t lose him when things were falling apart.

“Hotch!” Reid called out from the elevator. We tore ourselves off of each other and looked down the hallway to see Reid, JJ, and Emily all running towards us. “Any news?”

“She’s still in surgery. We won’t know anything for another few hours.”

My eyes snapped to Hotch’s cheek, trying to understand why the hell he was holding back on telling them the whole truth. Garcia wasn’t doing well. Things weren’t looking good. The team deserved to know the truth, to prepare for the worst, didn’t they?

“Any word from Morgan?” Emily asked.

I shook my head. “I’ve been calling and calling, to no avail.”

“I’ll try for a bit, just to give you a break.”

“Thanks,” I croaked, smiling shortly.

“Let’s take a seat in the waiting room maybe?” Emily offered up to everyone.

We all silently nodded and followed her to the waiting room just down the hallway. On our way, we saw Rossi come out of the elevator next. He went directly to Hotch for answers while the rest of us went to sit down. Emily and JJ took a seat beside each other, working on trying to get ahold of Morgan, and Reid sat across from them, just watching and listening. I saw on the opposite side of the room, right next to the window. I looked out and up. I took notice of the stars again, thinking about how they were luminating the night just a little dimmer now. It almost felt like they were waiting for a new bright star to join them, and I prayed that it wouldn’t be Garcia. We weren’t ready to lose her yet. The sky wasn’t ready for her.

Hotch and Rossi came in a few minutes later, refusing to take a seat. They stood in their own corner, still whispering between each other. They liked to whisper. The two of them were thick as thieves, and I knew that was bad news for me. I mean, I liked that Rossi and I could exchange stories about Hotch, and it made him red with embarrassment and anger. But I also liked how they were just two friends who had been reunited after years apart, and they had so much to discuss. I didn’t mind that they whispered about things. I especially didn’t mind that they whispered about me. But in times like these, when we were all searching for answers and comfort, their whispers seemed unsettling.

Morgan came running out of the elevator, eyes searching down both ends of the hallway to see if he could spot us. When he found us, he stopped for a moment to register that this was really happening. I stood from my seat and let him stare at me for a moment as he still tried to understand. When I found out about Elle, I felt paralyzed for the longest time. Even when racing around the hospital, I remembered not being able to think about anything. I couldn’t even remember how I got from the parking lot where Hotch gave me the call to the hospital where he held me in his arms. But once I had him, once I heard him tell me that everything was going to be alright, I knew that I was going to be fine. Morgan needed that same comfort. He knew it.

His arms opened slightly as he started running up to me. I caught him in a tight hug, letting him hide his face in the crook of my neck. He was taller than me, but he was fine with leaning down to nuzzle slightly. I told him what he needed to hear, that he was okay, she was going to be okay, and that it was going to be okay.

“Are there any leads?” Morgan asked, forcing himself out of our embrace. He looked over my shoulder for a response from Hotch. There was silence, which meant that Hotch probably told him the truth: we knew absolutely nothing. “Is she going to be alright?”

“The nurses said that we could be hearing from the doctors any minute now,” Hotch answered.

“Speaking of which,” JJ said, nodding to the door.

A surgeon walked in just on time. He was still in his scrubs, his mask on his chin, his cap still tied to his head. We all stood at attention for him, and I grabbed Morgan’s hand while preparing for the worst. He looked around at all of us, taking in our worry, debating on how he should proceed. I wished that he would just spit it out. It was either good or bad news. Just rip the fucking band aid off. Please.

“She’s alive,” he finally admitted. Everyone sighed with relief. Morgan dropped my hand so that he could wipe his face with his palms. “She was shot in the lower shoulder, and the bullet ricocheted into her abdomen, but we were able to stop the bleeding, seal up the wounds, and make sure that there was no damage from the internal bleeding.”

“Will she be okay?” Morgan asked.

The doctor nodded. “Yeah. She’ll be able to leave the hospital in a few days. She’s still in a medically induced coma, but you’ll be able to see her in the morning.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Hotch said with a forced smile, his arms still crossed over his chest. 

He nodded politely with the smallest of sealed lip smiles before leaving the waiting room. We all turned to Hotch. The room felt so much lighter now. With relief having washed over us, we could focus on the next part of all of this: finding the son of a bitch who shot Penelope Garcia. We were ready to work.

“You should all stay here for when she wakes up,” Hotch began, taking note of how we were all waiting for our assignments. “I’ll go with Dave to the crime scene. The lead detective on the case doesn’t think there’ll be anything to find, but we’re still going to try. I don’t care about protocol; I don’t care about whether or not we have new cases to work on. We’re not doing anything until we solve this.”

Everyone agreed silently, taking their seats again in the break room. Rossi gestured to Hotch, and they made a step towards the exit, but I caught Hotch’s sleeve first. He turned slightly to look at me. I know I appeared desperate, my pleading eyes trying to make him stay. We didn’t know if this was a robbery, or a target on Garcia, or a target on the team. He could have potentially been putting himself in harm’s way by leaving the hospital. I didn’t want him to be the next person brought in on a stretcher.

“I’ll be back before you know it,” he whispered, pressing his palm to my cheek. I lovingly nuzzled against his touch. “Morgan needs you.”

“I know. But I need you.”

“You were the one who told me that it would be alright. Do you still believe that?” he asked while tilting his head. I nodded. “Okay. Keep that faith. It’ll be alright. I love you.”

I kissed his palm before taking his hand in mine, then kissing his knuckles. He loved doing that with me, and I was simply curious as to why. I realized that it was so… intimate. So special. It was one thing to kiss someone on their lips, cheeks, neck, face, body; but kissing their knuckles was so humbling in the oddest of ways. It actually made me feel closer to him.

Hotch’s thumb caressed my hand lightly before he carefully pulled away and went with Rossi. He seemed driven, like he was trying to stop himself from coming back and staying with me. Honestly, I wasn’t going to stop him from doing either. I wanted him to stay, but I also wanted him to find who did this. I was just… confused. He probably was, too. I saw how broken he was back at the house, and now he had to bottle all of that up for the team. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like in his position. It was easy for any of us to break, but Hotch always seemed like an immovable, emotionless force at work. While I obviously knew that wasn’t the truth, and I knew that he was suffering inside every time something happened to our team or every time we had a case with kids; no one else knew the truth. I had to share the burden of his silent struggle. I could see with my own eyes that it was killing him, yet no one else, even with all of their profiling skills, could seem to figure it out. To them, Hotch was an enigma, and they were fine with not solving him.

I sighed quietly to myself as I sat down next to Morgan. His head was in his hands, his elbows propped up on his knees. Just as I expected, he was a mess. He had probably put his emotions on pause while racing to the hospital, then when he finally saw that this was all really happening, he didn’t know how to cope. Garcia was his everything. He couldn’t bear to lose her in the way that I couldn’t bear to lose him.

“I miss Elle every day,” I spoke up in a hushed tone. Morgan did move or say anything. “I don’t think Hotch knows how painful it is to go through every second of every day knowing that he was the last person she spoke to before disappearing. He doesn’t tell me anything about her leaving and I don’t ask, but… I still think about her all the time.” I leaned back slightly. “Tonight, when we got home from the Feylinn case, we were in the car, and I looked up at the stars, and I thought about her again. For the first time in decades, I was reminded of a tale she told me where we all turn into stars when we die. I actually thought to myself that we have all of our loved ones up there, looking after us, protecting us, and I thought that nothing bad could happen. And then we got the call… No one was looking after Garcia, no one was protecting her. Something terrible happened and we weren’t there to stop it. I hate Elle for putting that dumb star idea in my head, but even more so because I thought I was over it, and the one time I stop to think that maybe she was right, the whole world seems to come crashing down.”

“Y/N…” he croaked quietly. “I can’t lose her.”

“I know.” I linked my arm with his slowly, somewhat forcing him out of the hunched position he was in. “But they said that she’s going to be fine.”

“I feel like this is my fault,” he finally admitted.

“You can’t believe that—”

“I do. After Feylinn, I’ve been thinking long and hard about God and religion… I prayed for the first time last night, Y/N. For the first time since my dad made me when I was a little kid. What are the odds that I do that, and it ends with Penelope on the table?”

“Derek,” I whispered, snaking my hand down to intertwine our fingers, “this is not your fault. I need you to hear me. No one could have stopped this.”

“I could’ve!” he said a little too loudly. “If I didn’t make her mad, she wouldn’t have blown me off, and I would have been there to save her!”

“Shh…” I cooed, squeezing his hand. I rested my cheek on his shoulder. “I promise it’s not your fault. The guy who did this is the only one responsible.”

“When am I supposed to start believing that?”

I paused and thought for a beat. “When we catch him.”

The sun started peeking over the buildings outside of the hospital when a nurse approached us. The stars that had been taunting us all night were finally gone, and so was the fear that Garcia would be joining them. There was another wave of relief in the room when the nurse came to collect us. We were all eager to see Garcia and to make sure that she was alright.

“Hi, my loves,” Garcia cooed before any of us could say anything. JJ walked up and took her hand. “No tears…” She reached up and wiped JJ’s cheek with her thumb. “I’m glad you guys are here. Thank you.”

We all smiled lightly at her. Her voice was so quiet and raspy, not at all like the Penelope Garcia we knew. Usually, she was loud, bubbly, and optimistic, but the surgery and the drugs had worn her down. I didn’t blame her for not being normal Penelope. In fact, I was glad that she was getting a break for once. After what happened, she just needed to rest. We would ask for our Garcia back when she was better.

“How are you feeling?” Morgan asked worriedly.

Garcia nodded vaguely. “I’m okay. I mean, I’ve been better… but… I’ll be okay.”

I hesitated as I looked around the room. I knew that we needed to ask her about the incident and about the Unsub in order to help Hotch and Rossi at the crime scene, but I didn’t want to push her either. There was a chance that she couldn’t be ready to talk about it, or maybe she couldn’t even remember anything. Either way, we needed to try. As much as it pained me to do it, I had to ask as quickly as possible.

I stepped forward slightly. “Are you up for answering some questions?” Garcia looked at me and nodded again. “Do you remember what happened?”

She cleared her throat, then said, “Yeah… I…” She chuckled to herself shortly. “I never saw it coming. He seemed so… nice.”

“You know him?”

“Mhm.” She looked up at Morgan, “You were right. I should have trusted my gut. I knew that there was something wrong about that guy from the coffee shop, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it, so I tried to ignore it. I just wanted to believe that he was into me.”

“What happened, Garcia?”

“He was dropping me off at home after our date. We were standing just outside, and he went to kiss me… I thought… I thought he was just nervous when he walked away suddenly. And then he turned around, and he shot me.”

“Do you have any idea why he would have done this?” Emily inquired.

“No. I just thought he liked me.”

“Do you have a name?” I asked, taking control of the situation again.

Garcia hesitated. After a moment of looking around at all of us, she nodded, a tear falling down her cheek. “James Colby Baylor.”

As I made eye contact with Morgan, I grabbed my phone from my back pocket. “I’ll call Hotch to let him know.” I stepped out of Garcia’s hospital room and quietly entered the hallway. I leaned up against the wall and dialed Hotch’s number quickly, praying that he would pick up. I didn’t want to chase him around like I had to with Morgan, and I didn’t want to worry about him like I was with Garcia. Thankfully, though, Hotch answered the phone fairly fast. “Hotch?”

“Yeah?”

“We’ve got an I.D. on the guy. He went on a date with her, then when he went to wish her goodnight at her place, he shot her.”

Hotch sighed on the other end. “Makes sense. We weren’t sure why he did it in the courtyard, but that answers that. There’s not much else to find here, unfortunately. He used a revolver, so there’s no—”

“No bullet casing for evidence,” I finished, my shoulders falling in defeat. “If he’s smart enough to clean the crime scene, then the name he gave her is probably just an alias.”

“I know. I’m going to get in contact with another tech analyst back at the office and see if they can start digging around. Send me the name Garcia gave you. For now, just stay at the hospital with Garcia and Morgan. They both need you.”

Someone tapped my shoulder from behind me. I turned, the phone still pressed to my ear, to find that it was Reid. He whispered that Garcia wanted to see me and Morgan, but I shook my head at him. “I’ve gotta go, Hotch.” I hung up the call before he could say anything else and dug it into my pocket. “I can’t go back in there, Reid,” I told him quietly. He cocked a brow. “It reminds me too much of Elle.”

Reid’s face softened. “You know, I heard what you told Morgan last night about the stars…” I bit the inside of my cheek and turned my gaze to the floor. Of course, of all people, the great Dr. Spencer Reid had to hear me talking about stars and afterlife. He was probably preparing himself to give me a whole speech about what actually happens to us when we die and the science of stars and whatnot— “I liked it.”

My attention snapped back up to him. “What?”

“I mean, it’s not realistic, and I think we all know that, but… in times like these, when we need a little hope, it’s nice to hear. So, I just… I wanted to thank you.”

“Reid—” I didn’t know what to say.

The two of us were never close, which was why we never really talked or paired up in the field. It was always me and Morgan— and sometimes Emily— against the world. Reid did his own smart thing elsewhere while we went to go talk to witnesses or look at crime scenes. The two of us never sat around to get to know one another, but we never even got a chance to talk like this, which was so weird considering how I did still consider him as family. Our family included everyone on the team, even the people I didn’t get to chat with too often, like Reid and JJ. Their pain, what they were going through right now, was just as valid as the rest of us. Hell, they had been on the team longer than me, so of course it mattered. I was glad that I could help Reid somehow, even though I didn’t initially realize that was the case.

“I’ll stay with Morgan while they talk,” Reid offered, changing the subject quickly.

“Thank you, Reid.” I searched his eyes for a moment so that he knew I meant it. He smiled and gave a short nod before turning to go back to Garcia’s hospital room while I returned to the waiting room with Emily and JJ. “You guys okay?” I asked them, taking a seat beside them.

“I will be once we find this guy,” Emily answered.

“Same,” JJ agreed.

I stayed silent for a moment, then offered, “We could head back to the office and start building a profile…” They both looked at me. “I’m just saying.”

“You’re right,” Emily said as she stood, “Garcia wouldn’t want us to just sit around and mope. If she could, she’d be in her office right now, searching for who did this.”

“Yeah, but we don’t have any evidence,” JJ scoffed.

“That’s never stopped us before.”

We all looked at each other. We had an alias, we had the kind of gun he used, we knew what happened at the crime scene, Morgan and Reid could do a cognitive with Penelope to build a behavioral profile. To be honest, we actually had more than JJ was leading on. If we looked at this like it was any other case, and we started with victimology, we could make our way from there. And with Hotch and Rossi heading back to the office to meet with another tech analyst for help, we could honestly find the son of a bitch that did this to Garcia. If we just put our mind to it, we could do this. So we left.

Hotch and Rossi were already holed up in Garcia’s office with the new technical analyst that was going to help us by the time Emily, JJ, and I made it back to the office. We snuck by undetected, and we made our way into the boardroom where we started setting up shop. It was like Hotch expected that we would come back to start working the case because evidence photos were spread around the roundtable, and what little physical evidence and files they had were piled in a brown confidential box. I silently thanked Hotch for knowing us all well enough to have this ready for when we got there so that we could just dive right in.

I started by hanging up all of the photos on our board, using string to connect any similarities or clues that I spotted. Garcia lived in an apartment building that was built in the shape of a U around a simple courtyard with a cheap, rip-off, hadn’t-been-turned-on-in-a-decade fountain. Garcia had been led through that courtyard with her date, this James Colby Baylor guy, and all the way up to the front steps of her building. He got her comfortable, made her feel like she could let her guard down for just a moment while he complimented her and nearly made a move to kiss her. When she wasn’t prepared for it, he stepped towards the fountain like he was about to leave, then he turned around and shot her. Thinking that he had done what he needed, he ran away, leaving her to bleed out on the steps.

Emily froze when she saw me hang up the photo of the pool of Garcia’s blood that had still been on the steps when the cops started casing the scene.

“Just remember she’s okay,” I said. She nodded and turned back to keep looking through the files. “Hopefully Hotch and Rossi can find something about James Colby Baylor soon because that’s our only lead so far.”

“How could a random mugger plan to use a revolver and leave no fingerprints at the scene? This all feels premeditated,” Emily said.

 I agreed with her. Things weren’t adding up. I mean, we knew that he wasn’t a mugger because he went on a date with Garcia, but Emily brought up a good point. This wasn’t a date gone wrong or something like that. Whoever did this, whatever his name really was, he chose Garcia on purpose. There was something else that was really going on with this guy and Garcia. Hopefully Morgan and Reid would be able to find out more while talking to her as the morphine wore off.

“Um…” JJ mumbled, staring out the windows of the board room. Emily and I looked up from the evidence. “What’s wrong with Hotch?”

I raised a brow before walking around the table to see what was going on. Hotch had just left Garcia’s office from the left, and he was storming out to the elevators in the hallway. His face was sour and stern as he pressed the floor level button and tried to avoid making eye contact with the three of us in the boardroom as we watched him. Something must have happened when they were in Garcia’s office, but I wasn’t sure what. I had never seen Hotch that angry with a teammate, or with anything at work, before. Whenever I made him really mad, he’d get like that, but I always knew that I had done it and he’d calm down after punishing me. But with someone at work? Especially Garcia? Something had to be very, very wrong.

“Internal Affairs just ended our involvement with the case,” Rossi explained as he entered the room through the back entrance from the break room. We all turned to face him. “Hotch had to alert them about a protected file that Garcia has on her computer.”

“What the hell?” Emily inquired.

“They think that Garcia could be a security risk?” I asked.

Rossi shrugged. “Hotch is headed to the hospital now to ask her about it, but… now that Internal Affairs is involved, we’ve been taken off the case and she’s been suspended.”

“That’s bullshit. Garcia would never—”

“I know,” Rossi nodded, “but we have our orders. When they come to take everything, you need to let them.”

“No way,” JJ insisted. “This is ours.”

“Not anymore.”

We all looked out the windows again to see an agent from Internal Affairs walking up the boardroom. I cringed as he made eye contact with us and actually tried to smile at us. They couldn’t actually believe that Penelope Garcia was a security risk. She was an imperative piece of our unit— and even more so with the Bureau. She loved her job; she loved the agency. Garcia wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize our family. She knew better. And Internal Affairs shouldn’t have been getting involved. I knew that Hotch had to call it in, but he should have waited until he could talk to us or Garcia.

When he came in, he got right to work with tearing down all of the photos I had practically just finished hanging up. As he did so, he explained who he was, why he was there, and how we could help. He instructed JJ and Emily to pack up all of the files and evidence that they had been looking through, and hand it over to him. I watched them hesitate, and they looked to Rossi for the order to not listen to I.A., but he wasn’t giving in. So Emily and JJ started doing as they were told— reluctantly, but they still ended up doing it.

“Is this really necessary?” Emily bit at him quietly.

The I.A. agent let out a disappointed sigh, “Yes, this is necessary.”

“A federal agent was just shot, and you’re choosing to investigate her rather than find the guy who nearly killed her,” JJ said as equally sour as Emily was.

With how things were going with Strauss and the close eye she was keeping on mine and Hotch’s behavior, I couldn’t afford to start an argument with Internal Affairs. As much as I would have loved to have given that guy a piece of my mind, if I overstepped in any way, he could have gone to Strauss, and I would get in trouble again. Strauss told me to be careful because she wouldn’t give me another chance again. While I usually wouldn’t listen to Strauss, she literally held my fate in her hands. For now, Emily and JJ would have to pick this fight alone, unfortunately.

“Look,” the agent gave in, “I am sorry that this has to happen like this, but it is happening. The best thing you can do is just cooperate.”

“We should at least be able to keep working on the case—”

“This is part of the case, Agent Prentiss. We need to know what it is that she’s involved in and if it has to do with why she was shot.”

“She’s not involved in anything,” JJ rolled her eyes.

“You’re sure of that?”

“Yes,” all three of us responded.

The I.A. agent chuckled to himself. “Do you know why it is that the FBI hired her?” We all exchanged a glance of confusion, which he took note of, so he smugly continued. “She tried to hack the FBI, but she was on our radar long before that. The Bureau keeps track of potential problems, and we dictate what to do with them once we have them. Sometimes it’s safer to utilize them rather than lock them in a box and throw away the key.”

“So she was hired because she was dangerous?” I laughed. Garcia wasn’t a danger. She was the furthest thing from that. Garcia couldn’t even hurt a fly, I was convinced. “That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not. There’s a lot you don’t know about your friend, Agent Greenaway. My suggestion is that you let the people who do know the whole truth do their jobs. It’ll make everything much easier.” He picked up the box of evidence that we had unpacked, and he repacked, and before we could argue anything else, he left.

I looked at Rossi, who was standing to the side, still silent, still trying to blend into the wall. JJ and Emily sat down at the roundtable, left with nothing to do. We had made our way to the office in the hopes of getting to help Garcia, but, of course, the Bureau wasn’t going to make things easy for us. They never made things easy. But now we had nothing to do, and we weren’t even at the hospital to pass time while waiting with Garcia.

Four days after we got that call about Garcia and we still had no new leads. We thought it would be an easy open and shut case because our witness was alive— thankfully— and we had the Unsub’s name. Yet, we were still falling short of finding any actual real answers, and being taken off of the case by Internal Affairs wasn’t exactly helping matters. Any information we did have, and any theories we had built since then were all based around memory, and would all be inadmissible in any case or court.

 Garcia had since been released from the hospital, and Morgan was about to take her home to keep an eye on her. After being sent home early from the office because we were taken off the case and our work hours were over at around four, Hotch and I took the evening to make up for the movies and hot chocolate night we didn’t get after the Feylinn case. I snuggled into Hotch’s clothes, and he got into a pair of pajama pants and a tight t-shirt— which really wasn’t doing any favors for me because I genuinely wanted to stay focused on the movie and not his arms and chest. I made hot chocolate again, this time we actually got around to drinking it, and Hotch just held me in his arms.

By the time we had gone through two movies (one of his choosing and one of mine), we were both exhausted. I thought about just sleeping on the couch, but he complained about being too cold and uncomfortable, so we slowly and groggily made our way upstairs to our room to fall asleep. As we got into bed, Hotch pulled the sheets and comforter up all the way to our chins, then he pulled me close to him so that we were spooning. I smiled to myself and kissed the inside of his left elbow because that was the one trapped under me.

And then his damn phone started ringing.

Hotch sighed in my ear, his arms releasing their hold around me as he turned over to grab his phone. I whined, trying to push my back up against his chest again to coax him back into cuddling me, but he ignored me long enough to answer the call. When I heard him hum a listening tone, he rested his chin on my shoulder and held me in his arms again. We didn’t have any ongoing cases, and with Internal Affairs all up in our business, we weren’t likely to get a new case. So it definitely wasn’t work. The real question was, who was calling so late?

“Morgan, you better have a damn good reason—” Hotch stopped in his tracks, and I could vaguely hear Morgan ranting about something on the other end. Within a startling instant, Hotch sat up, practically lifting me with him. After yawning and wiping the sleep out of my eyes, I pulled the sheet over my chest. “Okay, okay, okay,” Hotch said quickly, yet calmly, like he was trying to get Morgan to slow down. “We’ll be there in a few minutes. Call the rest of the team.” Hotch hung up the phone, and I looked at him. “Someone tried to get into Garcia’s place.”

I pushed the bedding off my body and raced to the closet. “What about the officer outside? And Morgan? Did he catch him?” I asked while throwing on some clothes.

Hotch joined me in the closet and started getting ready, too. “The officer on duty outside her apartment is dead, and Morgan couldn’t catch him in time.”

“Did he get a good look at the Unsub?”

“He says it’s definitely the guy who tried to kill Garcia.”

“Shit,” I mumbled under my breath. “They’re both okay?”

“They sound pretty shaken up, but I think they’ll be fine.”

I went back to the bedroom and grabbed my gun and credentials. Hotch came out of the closet, handing me a pair of shoes, and I thanked him quickly. He grabbed his things, too, and by the time I had my shoes on, we were ready to go. He held his hand out for me, waiting by the door for me to catch up. I took his hand, and he started pulling me downstairs, to the alarm— which I set— and then all the way out to the car. For the brief minute where we settled in our seats, got buckled, and Hotch started the car, we weren’t touching each other, but the moment he started backing out of the driveway, Hotch was holding my hand again.

I lifted his hand to my mouth and kissed his knuckles again. “I love you.”

I could tell that he needed the reassurance while navigating his way to Garcia’s apartment. She had only just gotten home, and we had finally decided to get some rest, and things went to shit again. I was sure that he felt somewhat responsible considering he turned her into I.A., which meant that she couldn’t go back to the office, so her only option was her apartment. But it wasn’t his fault. He had to know that. He didn’t do this. He couldn’t control this anymore than he could have controlled what happened the other night.

This was just another fluke. Our jobs were dangerous, and our lives could get crazy sometimes, but this was just one of those times where it seemed like things kept piling on and we couldn’t stop it. The good news, however, was that we could stop it. There was no way in hell now that we would let I.A. walk all over us and take us off this case. Even if it put mine and Hotch’s jobs in jeopardy again, we were going to find the guy who was doing this to Garcia, and we were going to put an end to it. Hotch just had to keep that in mind and keep his eye on the prize. This wasn’t his fault, and instead of blaming himself, he needed to put his focus into helping Garcia.

When we arrived at Garcia’s place, cops were already barricading off the street to make sure that only officials could get through. Hotch had to roll down his window as we approached and flash his badge at the officer standing by, and then we had to wait for them to move the barricade. Up ahead, it looked like Emily, Reid, JJ, and Rossi were already there, but Rossi was the only one still outside. Hotch parked us in the middle of the road, just in front of Garcia’s building, and Rossi came over to open my door like a true gentleman.

“They’re still barring us from the case,” he told us both as we got out of the car.

The three of us headed towards the courtyard where the lead detective was waiting. We passed the coroners who were bagging up the body of the cop who was killed by the Unsub while he was on duty to protect Garcia. I tried not to look over and think about how that could have been Morgan and Garcia, too.

“The Bureau says they don’t want you here,” the detective said.

“We’re just here to comfort a friend,” Hotch insisted, though we all saw through the lie.

“I don’t care what they say,” he admitted to us. “This guy killed one of us. Any help you can offer, I’ll take it.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“I’m sick of being behind this guy,” Rossi ranted. “We gotta end this.”

We all nodded and continued into the building so that we could see Garcia, and potentially talk to her and Morgan about what happened. When we entered her apartment, everyone was surrounding her, comforting her, trying to talk her through it. She was very clearly shaken. Between hugging her pillow close to her chest, resting her head on Morgan’s shoulder, and listening to everyone’s kind words, she looked like she was trying to calm down, but it would certainly take a while. Hotch immediately interrupted everyone by insisting that we take Garcia back to the hospital because that was where she would be safest, but she, of course, had to argue it.

“No, I want to stay here,” she insisted. “I’m starting to remember more. Maybe if I stay here, I’ll be able to remember all of it, and that can help you guys.”

I looked at Hotch. She was right. If her cognitives were finally starting to work at her house, in a familiar setting, then it might benefit us to keep her at home. As long as the whole team was with her, she’d be safe. We wanted to help her, right? Well, this was the best way to do it. There was no denying it. So Hotch gave in with a nod and let the team continue their questioning.

“Tell us about his car,” Reid encouraged, leaning forward in his seat. “You said it was a white, 4-door, American. What else?”

Garcia closed her eyes, took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “His seatbelt was buckled behind his back.”

My eyes widened slightly. Hotch and I exchanged a worried glance. There were only two kinds of people who sat with their seatbelts behind them: reckless people or police. For the most part, Hotch and I were pretty good about using our seatbelts, but if we were in the field and needed to jump out quickly, then we wouldn’t bother with them. If Garcia’s memory was correct, then there was a very good chance that the man who did this to her was a fed.

“Garcia,” Rossi said, sitting down in front of her, “You need to be straight with us right now.” He sounded angry and demanding—not at all as how I had seen him before. I figured that Hotch would be the one to finally snap at her because his fuse was always short, but Rossi surprised me. Garcia seemed taken aback, too, because she looked around to us for help. Rossi caught her with, “Don’t look at them, look at me.”

“I’m not hiding anything,” she said confidently and defensively.

“You got shot. Most people get shot for a reason. You’ve got a room full of people here who love you and are willing to believe that an FBI agent is trying to kill you. Now, I don’t know you all that well yet, so I’m going to need a little more convincing. We need to know everything you do on company time—which includes whatever the hell was on that file you secured.

“I—” Garcia hesitated, trying to look at Morgan, but Rossi wouldn’t let her. “It’s—It’s nothing—”

“Spit it out!”

“Rossi!” I yelled at him, but he held a silencing hand up at me.

“Tell us!”

“It’s nothing bad!” Garcia raised her voice, too, but out of fear rather than anger like the rest of us. “I counsel families of unsolved cases, and sometimes I’ll mark cases as imperative so they get reviewed faster.”

Hotch crossed his arms over his chest and said, “You’re not authorized to do that, Penelope.”

“I know,” she agreed while nodding and her voice shaking, “but I was just trying to help.”

“Yeah, but whoever was working those cases thinks you’re watching them now.”

“I just wanted to put pressure on them so that they don’t slide!”

“How many cases are we talking about?”

“I don’t know… Seven or eight, maybe? I would have to get into my system to know.”

“You can’t. You’re still suspended.”

“Wait a minute,” Morgan interrupted. “Garcia, you said that on your date, this guy was pressing you for information about your job—specifically if you were working murder cases.” Garcia nodded along. “Hotch, we’ve gotta look at those files. Whatever connecting piece there is in them, it has to be our Unsub.”

“We can’t do anything while Internal Affairs is watching us all at the office.”

“Yeah, but if we do it from here…”

Hotch sucked in a breath through his teeth while looking over at Rossi for a hint about what our next play should be. Honestly, it wasn’t a good idea and it probably wasn’t legal, but if Garcia could get into the system at home, find who the Unsub was, then get out before anyone could notice, it would do us some good. The only downside to all of this was that if Garcia did get caught, and considering Strauss’s tunnel vision on him and getting rid of him, she’d fire Hotch without hesitation. But, then again, it was still our best shot. Weighing the options, it could save Penelope’s life vs. Hotch losing his job. Unfortunately, the answer was fairly obvious.

Hotch released his crossed arms. “Alright. Dave, Y/N, JJ, and I will all go back to the office to maintain face and to keep I.A.’s focus on us. In the meantime, Morgan, Reid, and Prentiss, stay with Garcia. Don’t forget to log out of the damn system, understand?” Everyone nodded. He looked to me and Rossi, “Let’s go.”

When we walked into the BAU’s office, I spotted the Internal Affairs agent sitting at the table in the break area. He had cleared off everyone’s stuff, including the donuts Anderson brought in since everyone was going to have a late night, obviously; and he set up all of his work for his investigation into Garcia. It wasn’t right that he was there. I mean, they shouldn’t have launched an investigation into Garcia’s integrity while still searching for the person who shot her. There had to be priorities, right? Why was Internal Affairs taking a sealed file more seriously than an agent getting shot? It made my blood boil.

That being said, we knew we had to keep our cool. If we were going to buy Garcia and the others time, then we needed to proceed as usual. Hotch and Rossi went up to their offices on the balcony, while I stopped at my desk to grab some files. In the car, Hotch and I discussed potentially “reviewing some old cases” in his office, which really just meant that we were going to pretend like we were doing work while anxiously awaiting a call from the team with some news. If we just played this smart, we’d find the Unsub soon— since we were clearly the only ones who cared— and all would be forgiven. The investigation into Garcia and her work with the Bureau would ultimately turn out to be useless. She’d be reinstated soon, and things could just… go back to normal. But first we had to play this torturously long waiting game.

As I took my files from my desk in the bullpen up to Hotch’s office, I saw that the Internal Affairs agent stood from his seat in the break area to meet an officer at the front doors of the BAU. I furrowed my brows. They shook hands, greeted each other professionally, then headed over to Anderson’s desk where the tech analyst helping I.A. was sitting. I rolled my eyes, figuring it probably had to do with burying Penelope’s career rather than actually trying to save her. Assholes.

I stepped into Hotch’s office and closed the door behind me. He nodded towards one of the seats at his desk across from him, a silent gesture for me to get comfortable. As I sat down and put the files on his desk, Hotch tried to grab the top one, but I stopped him by putting my hand over his. We glared at each other shortly, a challenge to see who would let up first. Hotch wanted to work on some of my reports. Of course he did. But he already had a stack of his own, and we didn’t need a repeat of the Mulford case report. So he needed to work on his files, and I needed to work on mine. I get that he was just trying to help since he still felt somewhat responsible for my suspension, and me sub dropping the other day, and he felt like shit for going behind my back; but I wasn’t going to let him make it up to me by doing my work. Hell, he technically already made it up to me. How could he forget my reward the other day? Idiot.

“Come on,” he encouraged, trying to tug the file away from me. I narrowed my eyes and pulled against him. “Y/N.”

“Aaron.”

His glare strengthened. “I don’t want to look at my reports anymore. I’ve hit a wall with all of mine. Let me help you.”

I smacked his hand away playfully, managing to get a better grip on the file after he was caught off guard. I snatched the file and dropped it in my lap. “No.”

“No?”

I gulped. “We’re at work. Rules, Agent Hotchner. Remember our rules?”

He licked his teeth, a sign that he was getting angry and frustrated. “At some point, when this is over, and we’re back at home— where there are no rules, Agent Greenaway— I’m going to put you over my knee and show you what ‘no’ gets you.” He grabbed the next file on the top of my pile. “Don’t ever ask me about the rules again.” I cleared my throat as I looked down at the report I was holding. “What do you say?”

“Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir.”

“Good girl.”

“I’ve gotta stop locking that door behind me…” I whispered under my breath.

“What was that?”

My eyes shot wide. I hadn’t realized that I said it aloud. I had been thinking about how every time I closed his office door behind me, leaving the two of us to speak privately, Hotch always seemed to forget that we were at work, and he let his dominant personality take over. It wasn’t like I didn’t enjoy it. I loved it. But he was literally the one who made the rules in the first place, and yet he seemed to be the worst about upholding them. I tried my best because I didn’t want the professional or personal consequences that would come with talking out of turn, but Hotch seemed to lose his filter when we were alone. It might’ve been due to the superior aspect that came with his job. Hotch liked having control over me. He liked telling me what to do in the bedroom, around the house, in the field, and in moments like these when we were alone and could speak freely. Being my boss probably allowed him to maintain that excitement of controlling me without being obvious. But being alone with me while at work, it was like a big stirring pot of all the things he loved about our relationship, and he just couldn’t seem to hold himself back.

That was why closing the door was always a bad idea. It gave him the privacy to demand things of me, to talk dirty to me, to tease me endlessly because he knew we were at work, and he knew that we had our rules. Every time he toyed with me like this, it made me want him to the point that I’d jump on him if the blinds on his windows overseeing the bullpen weren’t open. He knew that about me. He knew that I’d get on my knees for him under his desk if he asked me to. But he also knew that the two of us were being extremely cautious since Strauss was watching us like a hawk. He knew that he could torture me privately like this, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. That was the fun of the game. That was what excited him most.

But if I just left the door open… What could he do? Nothing. That was why I thought it, but I hadn’t meant to say it aloud. When Hotch caught me, he knew what I meant, and I knew that I was digging myself into a hole that I could only escape once he punished me for it. He had been playing around with the “no” thing because I practically baited him, but my little slip up wasn’t a game. When he once had enough self-restraint to not flat out start sliding into dom space yet, he was now entirely Sir. I was screwed. Once this case was over, I was sure that I wasn’t going to be let off the bed for… well… until the next case would call us in.

“Sir—”

“Not another word from you,” he said gruffly, looking down at the file he grabbed.

The self-discipline it took to not go over to the windows, close the blinds, then punish me then and there was killing him, I could see it. He had practically involuntarily slid into dom space, and it was going to take him forever to calm down. I almost wanted to apologize, but I had been given my command. With how deep into it I already was, there was no point in pushing back. While I would’ve been bratty about it in the past, just because I could, I knew that we really needed to focus on Penelope. It was fun to forget about reality from time to time. We liked spending a few minutes forgetting about everything going on around us. It was hard being in our field without taking a moment to remember who we were and how much we loved each other. People probably wouldn’t understand our dynamic. They would look down on it and turn their noses up at how we could act like this between talking about work and focusing on cases. But it was hard to take everything seriously all the time. If we didn’t appreciate who we were when things got too dark, then we’d lose our minds.

My phone started ringing. Talk about saved by the bell. I scrambled for it nervously, acutely aware that Hotch was paying attention to my floundering, despite how his eyes were focused on the report. I took a look at the caller ID, Morgan, before answering quickly.

“Sunshine, I need you to listen very carefully,” he said in a panic before we could greet one another. I continued to stay silent, waiting for what he had to say. “The Unsub’s in the BAU. He’s the deputy sheriff that’s standing next to the I.A. agent at Anderson’s desk.” My eyes shot wide. “Stop— Stop reacting.” My face fell flat. “Do you see him?”

I didn’t have to look over to see who Morgan was talking about. When I had been walking up to Hotch’s office, I saw the officer, and originally thought nothing of it. But now he was in the middle of the FBI. “I got him,” I answered calmly. Hotch looked up at me. He was trying to get a read on what was happening. “What do you want us to do?”

“Don’t approach him. Don’t let him know we’re onto him. We profiled him, and he’s a classic narcissist with a hero homicide complex—”

“And he’s spiraling?”

Morgan hummed an agreement. I swallowed hard, still trying to keep my cool.

If he was spiraling, that meant that he was going to go down shooting. The profile of Unsubs with hero homicide complexes included that they were sociopaths that didn’t even care about their own wellbeing if they knew that they were approaching the end. If Morgan was right— which, I trusted that he was— then our Unsub was going to take as many people as possible down with him if he even got a whiff of us closing in on him. Taking him down was going to be hard, especially since he was an armed, trained officer. It didn’t matter that nearly everyone down in the bullpen had guns. If he took even one person hostage, we were screwed.

“I’ll tell Hotch. Thanks.”

“Be careful.”

“Yeah.” I hung up the phone and cautiously put it in my pocket. “Deputy in the bullpen,” I told Hotch.

He glanced out of the corner of his eye, clocking who I was referencing. “They’re sure?” I nodded. “What’s the profile?”

“Hero homicide.”

Hotch let out a quiet breath. “Okay. I’ll get Dave. I want you to go down the ramp just out front, not the one to the side. Go through the bullpen to get to your desk, grab your things, and try to make your way to the doors like you’re waiting for us to join you there. We’re going to surround him quietly and carefully. Understood?” I nodded again. “Go.”

I pushed myself out of my seat and started calmly walking out of Hotch’s office. He was just behind me, opening the door for me like a true gentleman. As I stepped down the ramp just ahead, Hotch took a sharp turn to the left to walk on the balcony. The deputy in the bullpen, along with the Internal Affairs agent and tech analyst, were focused on the computer in front of them. They were too busy to even notice how the office was moving around them… How I was watching them out the corner of my eye.

As I grabbed my purse from under my desk, Rossi opened his office door in response to Hotch knocking politely. They exchanged a few whispers, glancing down in the bullpen to look at the deputy and me. I nodded vaguely, a signal that I knew the plan and I was going to make my move. After taking note of Hotch’s lingering stare, I nervously bit my lip and took a brave step towards the doors. My eyes shifted to the deputy instinctively. When we made eye contact by accident, I cursed under my breath, and kept trying to move, my hands free and ready to reach for my weapon on my hip whenever.

I glanced over my shoulder quickly, noting that Rossi and Hotch had split up to take opposite corners of the room. My eyes met Hotch’s again, and I tried to look for a signal, knowing that I couldn’t make it any further without raising suspicions. The plan was for me to head to the doors, but he already knew. If I stepped any closer, the deputy would probably take the I.A. agent or the analyst hostage, or he would just start shooting without warning. But the signal I needed from Hotch didn’t come. He couldn’t give it yet. The three of us still needed to move into a better position.

“Well, thank you for coming in, Deputy,” the Internal Affairs agent smiled up at the officer.

Whatever it was they had been doing on Anderson’s computer, they were done. Maybe this would work itself out. If the deputy left, we could arrest him down in the parking lot where there weren’t innocent agents Hotch was responsible for in harm’s way. This could actually go well. All of our fretting could have possibly been for nothing, if we were lucky.

“Thank you for hearing me out. I’m sorry about all of this,” the deputy responded in kind.

“Oh, that’s no worries. We’re just happy to help—”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Before we knew it, the deputy reached out, locking the I.A. agent in a choke hold. Just as Hotch, Rossi, and I unholstered our weapons, the deputy pointed the barrel of his gun at the agent’s head. Everyone, including the analyst sitting just in front of them, fell to the ground, trying to find cover under the desks. He got smart, pressing his back against the corner by the glass doors before I could get there. From where Hotch, Rossi, and I were all standing around the office, none of us could get a clear shot. I mean, if we wanted to take the I.A. agent down with the deputy, then, sure, we could make the shot. But we weren’t going to do that. Our only plan of action now was to diffuse the tension— though, it was probably going to be useless if we were relying on the team’s profile. However, we still had to try.

Out of all of us, Rossi was the best negotiator. Hell, he wrote the interrogation and negotiation how-to books for the FBI. In the Academy, we studied his tactics, and we studied his reports. If anyone could get through to the deputy, our best shot was Rossi. We all knew it.

“Don’t do it,” Rossi shook his head. I adjusted my grip on my gun as the deputy wavered. “You’re a cop. You know how this is going to go down unless you drop the gun.”

“I’ll take my chances,” the deputy spat.

“You’re standing in the middle of the FBI… What chances do you have?”

“You think that I’m afraid of the FBI?”

“No,” Rossi shook his head. “You’re afraid of being forgotten, and afraid of being remembered as the villain. You want to be the hero; I know you do. But if you kill that man there, you won’t be the hero. If you kill him, you’ll be locked away and forgotten. It’s your choice. You write the ending. You decide if you’re the hero or villain tonight.”

The deputy chuckled. “They told me you guys were the best minds in the FBI; But that’s the best you have? Pathetic.”

Hotch looked over at me, then to the door over my shoulder, before looking back at me. I raised a brow, wondering what he was thinking. His eyes shifted to my other shoulder, almost like he was telling me to move that way, away from the doors. I took the hint and slowly started backing up. The deputy took notice of my retreat, but he still didn’t make a move or say anything about it.

The thing I knew, a gunshot rang. The glass doors to the BAU shattered as a bullet penetrated them and fired right into the deputy’s head. Since he had been caught off guard by the shot to the back of his head, he didn’t have a chance to press his finger down on the trigger. As his body fell to the ground, his gun flew over by my feet. I quickly knelt down, picked up the weapon, and tucked it in the back of my pants waistband for safe keeping.

JJ stepped in through the doorway of broken glass. Her hands were shaking as she holstered her weapon, the same one she used to shoot the deputy in the back of the head. Everyone started slowly getting up off the floor while Hotch and Rossi moved in. We knew that there was no chance that the deputy was alive, but we all wanted to see it with our own eyes. This was the guy who killed our Penelope Garcia, after all. We needed the reassurance that he was really gone.

“You okay?” I asked JJ, holstering my own weapon, too. She nodded shortly, still staring down at the body. “You sure?” She nodded again, but this time more vaguely, like she was unsure of her answer. “You did good.” I patted her shoulder.

“It’s what he gets for shooting Penelope…” she whispered under her breath. “No one hurts the people we love and gets away with it.”

I nodded and looked over at Hotch. He was staring at me while talking to Rossi. My forehead creased slightly as my eyes softened into a pout. His did the same for the slightest moment. “I love you,” I mouthed to him.

“I love you, too,” he mouthed back when no one was looking.

#Criminal Minds #criminal minds fanfic #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #criminal minds smut #criminal minds imagine #aaron hotchner #Aaron Hotch Hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfic #aaron hotchner fanfiction #aaron hotchner imagine

[wonderland-in-bloom]

kingyo-chan...literally

[second year boys]

HEEEEEEY GUYS!!!! (i promise requests will be opened soon) so this is going to be something a little bit different! as many of you know, i usually write reader inserts but today i decided to be writing something with just the boys for the sake of fueling my satisfaction of interactions with the boys, and idk i felt like writing something for myself today~ and i have a smol question....are y’all okay w/ chara x chara? like yaoi/bl/shounen ai bla bla (although a is still kinda confused who she ships who with lol) i’ll also happily take requests of a canon chara x canon chara (if y’all are comfortable w/ it of course) :))

this oneshot will consist of the second years: riddle, ruggie, the octavinelle trio, the scarabia duo, and silver! and i’ll be labeling this oneshot in my masterlist as twst boys!

anyways hope you guys enjoy this -3-

♡

“LISTEN up you dogs!” a very familiar scream pierced the air and made its way into all of the student’s ears. divus crewel officially started class. today was quite a special occasion as the whole second years had a conjoined alchemy class. azul was thrilled, after all it was his best and most liked subject, thus he was just beyond excited. he wondered what kind of task professor crewel would give them that day. “today we’ll be focusing on a potion which can transform those who drink it into mermen.” 

some of the octavinelle students cheered, including the octavinelle trio. “yay!!! maybe we can use this to bring some of the students down back to our home hmm?” floyd cheered. “indeed, floyd. it will certainly be interesting.” jade added. “however!” professor crewel’s voice boomed again. “i will be picking your partners.” groans could be heard around the room. “damn it! i can’t be with you then jamil.” kalim whined. jamil awkwardly chuckled but thought to himself, thank god. riddle was panicking to himself and fidgeting immensely. please don’t let me be stuck with floyd. please don’t let me be stuck with floyd. please don’t let me be stuck with floyd. PLEASE ANYTHING BUT THAT! professor crewel took out the list of names written on parchment paper. he cleared his throat and this was when riddle started to feel even more anxious. “jamil viper and azul ashengrotto.” jamil sighed in relief. he didn’t have to be in such a hassle. azul just smirked. jamil was a clever person, and they wouldn’t have any problems working together. 

“jade leech and kalim al-asim.” kalim cheered. “pleasure working with ya, jade!” jade just smiled. “of course. the pleasure is mine.” yes it was rather a chaotic pair...but at least it wasn’t going to be that disastrous. “ruggie bucchi and silver.” ruggie sighed. he didn’t exactly have a problem with silver but they weren’t that well acquainted either. he was just thankful he didn’t get someone problematic or chaotic. riddle sunk in his chair. he knew exactly what this meant. professor crewel went through all the names of the students, and riddle knew that everyone had a pair. and all that was left....was floyd. “floyd leech and riddle rosehearts.” riddle slammed his head on the table, causing a student beside him to jump in shock. “why out of all people...why?!” he muttered to himself. he soon felt an arm slung around his shoulders. “yaaaaay! it looks like we’re a pair kingyo-chan!” please kill me now.

“fufufu, it seems as if riddle-kun and floyd are a pair.” azul chuckled as he stared at the two. jamil was already up and ready and lit the flame to the cauldron. the two of them knew it was going to be easy peasy. “i hope nothing bad goes wrong.” jamil just sighed as azul started to read out the instructions for the potion. “ah kalim-san, please be careful.” kalim jumped back from the lit up flame below the cauldron. “phew! almost got burnt there.” jamil’s ears twitched and furrowed his eyebrows as his furiously threw the ingredients into the cauldron. “it’ll be alright, jamil-kun.” azul assured him. “hopefully.” he mumbled to himself as he started to stir the concoction. 

“ah, one fish tail please silver-san.” ruggie and silver did surprisingly well. ruggie just read the instructions out loud while silver just followed in pursuit and did everything ruggie said. surprisingly, they worked well together compared to the other pairs. “do i stir now?” ruggie shook his head. “it says here to wait for thirty seconds.” they were actually functioning properly. who would guess? as ruggie was about to stop the stopwatch, his ears perked up as he heard a shriek from beside him. “WAAAA~I THOUGHT YOU SAID LIZARD’S TAIL?!”  kalim was panicking as he put in the wrong ingredient into the cauldron. jade was trying his best to calm him down but also not lose his shit. “kalim-san, it’ll be alright. we’ll just conjure another batch after this.” jamil heard all of this from where he stood and gripped the wooden stirrer so tight it was almost crushed under his grip. “i do not trust anyone else to be his partner. not even myself at times.” he was basically just a tired mom at this point. poor jamil. 

meanwhile over at floyd and riddle’s cauldron, it was quiet. awkwardly quiet. by the power of the queen of hearts, please don’t let anything bad happen. riddle kept to himself and stirred the potion. “ne, ne, kingyo-chan~ aren’t you excited to try this potion out?” riddle gulped. “it’s against the protocols for students to be trying out the potions without official permission from the professor. besides, we better be careful to not get in contact with the potion, or else...” floyd pouted as he started to pour the concoction into a vial. at first he carefully eyed which one but eventually got bored and distracted from his task. he didn’t even look at where he was pouring the potion until he heard a gasp from beside him. riddle was covered in their potion. “uh oh...” there was a poof of red colored smoke. when the smoke cleared, floyd looked down to see...a small red goldfish flopping on the floor. “k...kingyo...chan?” he scooped up the little goldfish in his arms. it continued to flop around. 

“but the potion was supposed to make you into a merman...not an actual goldfish...” floyd wondered to himself as he stared at the small fish in his hands. riddle wasn’t able to speak but he was thinking to himself how much he needed water. if he could speak, he would scream at floyd and demand to put him in water. he was a fish after all. but alas he wasn’t able to and just continued flopping around. “what happened here...OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT?!” azul came over to see what happened and his jaw dropped when he saw the goldfish in floyd’s hands. “riddle-kun....is now a kingyo.” azul panicked. “JAMIL-KUN GET SOME WATER IN A LARGE BEAKER. NOW.” jamil heard the panic and worry in azul’s voice and rushed. 

he ran, water occasionally spilling out of the beaker but he managed to make it in time for azul to scoop up ‘riddle’ from floyd’s arms and into the beaker. he was able to swim around now and breathe. phew. he was safe. “HOW ON EARTH DID THIS HAPPEN?!” azul screamed slightly, getting attention from the other students. “oya oya, floyd what did you do?” jade sighed as he saw the commotion. “WAAAAAH! IS THAT RIDDLE-KUN?!” kalim gasped as he tried to get a better look at the goldfish in the beaker held by jamil. “KALIM! OI! CAREFUL!” jamil scolded him as he tried to steadily hold the beaker. professor crewel stepped closer to the incident. he scolded floyd for being so irresponsible and not careful, but also riddle for not watching what floyd was doing. in the end, he just told azul and jamil to quickly come up with an antidote to reverse the mess. meanwhile ruggie and silver were watching from afar. 

“shishishishi, i wonder what they got wrong.” silver took a closer look from where the two of them were standing. he glanced at their cauldron. floyd and riddle’s potion was raspberry in color, while silver and ruggie’s were a mauve color. the instructions stated that the mauve color was how the final potion should be. he then remembered how the color was a raspberry-like color before they added the fish tail. “ah. they forgot the fish tail.” ruggie thought about it for a while before he snapped his fingers. “of course! good analysis silver-san!” 

“sheesh, what is with everyone else and the fish tail. such an easy task to do but everyone apparently messes it up. shishishsi what an interesting day today is.” 

♡

yours truly wants to make a comic w/ astra and le boys but haduh the dedication isn’t there ;-;

love, a♕

#twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland oneshots #twisted wonderland imagines #night raven college #heartslabyul #savanaclaw #octavinelle #scarabia #diasomnia #riddle rosehearts #ruggie bucchi #azul ashengrotto #floyd leech #jade leech #silver #kalim al asim #jamil viper #night raven college second years #a♕-chan is still biased to first years lolol

[olicitysecretsanta]

Convergence

For @swiftletinthecloud 

Hello! We have never met or spoken before, but I am so happy to have you as my giftee because now we have! I was so happy about your response to my anon ask about what kinds of fic you like, because so many of your interests are also mine. It was actually a problem because I had too many interesting ideas for fic that were inspired by your suggestions. Now I just have more fic to write, I guess. 

Anyway, I decided to write this idea for you because it was the SHORTEST of all the ideas I had. You can see how well that turned out. What is below is 2 out of 3 total chapters. The last chapter still needs editing, so your gift will be fully complete when I post this to AO3. Until then, please enjoy these first two chapters of season 1 alternate canon!

Much love, @allimariexf

Title: Convergence

Warnings: No warnings apply

Relationship: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak

Tags: Arrow season 1, alternate canon AU, episode tag 1x21 (The Undertaking)

Chapter 1

Oliver Queen moved like a panther through the underground casino, a sleek and beautiful predator at home among the understated opulence. His eyes strayed around the room, a careless smirk masking his close assessment of the security.

Two pit bosses, a floorman, and six armed guards, two of which flanked a hallway that must lead to Dominic Alonzo’s office. If he was going to get in there, he needed to come up with a distraction.

His mind went back to the document he’d found saved on his computer. Like all the previous messages he’d gotten over the past seven months, it took the form of a simple text file, saved prominently on the desktop of his computer in the foundry.

December 12, 2012: Harold Backman deposits $2 million to Cayman Fidelity on behalf of Dominic Alonzo, known kidnapper.

Also December 12: Walter Steele goes missing.

Coincidence? I don’t think so. 

I know I normally don’t agree with your “shoot first, ask questions later” policy, but I’m willing to give you a pass on Alonzo. He seems like just the kind of low-life someone would pay to kidnap Mr. Steele. How many arrows do you think you’d need to put in Alonzo before he gave up Mr. Steele’s location - probably a lot, right?

Never mind, forget I said that. Alonzo’s private records are offline - likely stored in his office in his base of operations, an underground casino with basically its own private army. Not the best odds, even for you. But I have a plan that doesn’t involve arrows or any other pointy objects, so sit tight and I’ll contact you tomorrow. 

The corners of his lips lifted at the memory. The anonymous hacker who’d been helping him certainly had a way with words, and in their months together she’d often surprised him with her uncannily insightful observations. But if she honestly thought he’d sit back and wait when they finally had a solid lead on finding Walter, maybe she didn’t know him as well as he sometimes suspected. Not when Walter had been missing for almost five months and the likelihood of him being found alive decreased every day. Not with the recorded evidence John Diggle had collected that seemed to confirm his mother had something to do with Walter’s disappearance - and that it was all connected to the List. 

Oliver was tired of waiting for answers. This was something he could do. It just so happened that this time, he needed a bespoke suit of Italian wool, rather than green leather in order to do it.

Eyes tracking the movement of the guards, Oliver positioned himself at a well-situated roulette table. Several wealthy patrons crowded around the dealer, including an elegant brunette who instantly met his gaze. 

“You’re Oliver Queen,” she purred, reaching out with graceful fingers to draw him toward her. Slipping easily into the role, he let his eyes travel down her body as she trailed her hand down his arm. 

Choosing not to answer with words, he winked and held out his dice for her to blow on. It was enough to maintain the part he was playing, and in another life he would have taken her up on the unspoken invitation written in every line of her body. But as his eyes slid down her lithe frame, he barely saw her. Instead, he was seeking something else, some spark of her. 

Huli jing. 

His anonymous hacker ally. 

His thoughts turned to her, as they had increasingly done over the past several months. Who was she, in her normal life? Where was she, what was she doing? When he mingled among the residents of Starling City by day, could she be right next to him, without either of them realizing it? Like always, the possibility sent a thrill of excitement through him.

Part of him was acutely aware that it was futile, even ridiculous, to entertain those thoughts, but as long as they only existed on the fringes of his mind, he indulged them. His life was his mission, and there was no room for anything else, but there was no harm in letting his mind play with the idea of her in his downtime. Not when there was no chance they could ever meet. So when he put in his appearances at Verdant, when he met up with Thea at her favorite cafe, when he picked up his mom from Queen consolidated, he allowed himself to wonder. And if his eyes caught on long red hair, a charming smile, or a long length of exposed thigh, he’d mentally compare the woman in front of him with his mental picture of her. But none of them ever had her unique, undefinable spark. And somehow, by comparison, every woman he saw seemed somehow less because they were not her.

She had contacted him for the first time seven months ago, though “contacted” hardly felt like the right term. He’d arrived at the foundry and booted up his computer one night only to find the entire system had been upgraded, and simple text document saved to the desktop:

I’m truly stunned that no one managed to trace the redistribution of Adam Hunt’s funds back to you. No one else, I mean. 

Now that I mention it, I’m even more surprised you managed to steal that $40 million in the first place. Your system looks like it’s from the 80s.

(And not the good part of the 80s, like Madonna and legwarmers, to be clear.) I maybe spruced things up a little bit while I was in there. Seeing a network that poorly set up hurts me in my soul. Seriously it was like you left a crying infant on my doorstep, except it was like a 30 year old baby and it wasn’t my doorstep, because I was the one who kind of broke into your house. But my point is, you have a severely neglected computer setup, and I guess my maternal instinct kicked in. So to speak.

Oliver had barely finished reading the note before he’d ransacked the bunker, searching for evidence of a breach. When he found none, he read the note several more times, seeking hidden clues as to what the infiltrator knew, what they wanted. The program he used to take Adam Hunt’s money was something he’d taken from ARGUS, and no one should have been able to track it. Deeply alarmed, he read the note again and again. Not until the sixth time did he finally consider the playful tone of the note might be sincere, and only then did it occur to him that there might not be a threat buried in the message at all.  

He remained on heightened alert for several days after that, but only on principle. The improvements she’d made (and she was a she, he was sure) to his system made his ARGUS programs run faster, and while using compromised equipment was normally a risk he would never take, his gut told him there was no danger. For reasons he didn’t examine, he found himself rereading the note, until he had it memorized word for word. 

When he didn’t hear from her for three weeks, he told himself the sense of disappointment he felt was only because lingering questions felt too much like unfinished business. Not because he was intrigued by the hacker. Not because her note had made him smile the way no one had since he’d returned from the island. 

He was starting to think of the incident as an amusing, but ultimately harmless one-time stunt when one night, after an afternoon of failing to get data off of Floyd Lawton’s computer and an evening taking his frustration out on a slum lord, he returned to the foundry and discovered a large data dump open on his computer - along with another note. 

Blueprints to the Exchange Building, where the Unidac Industries auction is scheduled to take place. Gonna be a pretty target-rich environment. For the person who is trying to eliminate bidders in the auction via assassination, I mean. Which, to be clear, someone IS trying to do, according to the SCPD’s unreleased records. Anyway, do with this information as you wish. (Not “as you wish,” as in code for “I love you.” Obviously, I don’t even know you. Though from the captured video footage of you, I can say with confidence that you can really wear a pair of leather pants. Anyway, speaking of Westley, the papers are calling you “the vigilante” or “the hood,” but maybe you should consider adopting Dread Pirate Roberts. A name that inspires fear, so that you don’t have to do so much arrowing in order to get your point across. You should consider it. Good luck with the auction.

Oliver huffed out his nose, struck by her abrupt topic changes and her particular, rambly way of putting things before it even occurred to him to wonder how she’d managed to pull any information off Lawton’s damaged laptop. Or question whether she had any ulterior motive in doing so.

It was unusual for him to trust anyone so quickly, especially someone he knew virtually nothing about. But somehow, he did, and when her tip about Lawton proved sound, he found he wasn’t surprised at all. 

After that he began to seek out her help, adopting her habit of communicating via text document saved to his computer. With each tip she left him, she proved herself invaluable to bringing down another of the city’s worst offenders. He could tell that she was brave, fearless even, and before he knew it, they had developed a rapport. And while it wasn’t exactly a partnership, it worked. 

If I’m the the Dread Pirate Roberts, who are you? He asked finally, against the advice of the inner voice that cautioned him that the more he knew about her, the harder it would be to one day give her up.

But in answer, all she said was, You can call me Huli jing.

The Dark Archer, Ted Gaynor, Count Vertigo, Ken Williams, and the list went on. The notes came more frequently, and Oliver found himself looking forward to them, the first thing he’d check for every night. Even having never been there, she filled the dark, dank foundry basement with a bright presence that was just as tangible as John Diggle’s reliable support. 

What do you think keeps these bad guys up at night? Probably not worrying about that one time they accidentally stared at a man for two full minutes while they were busy trying to figure out what the Cylons’ plan really was. They said they had “a Plan,” like capital P PLAN, you know? Anyway, despite what that guy probably thought, I was NOT creeping on him. But to my point, now that I think of it these criminals probably just close their eyes and get a full 8 hours every night. Sometimes it really sucks to have a conscience.

As the months wore on, he learned that she wielded a formidable intelligence, a sharp sense of humor, an unerring sense of justice, and, somehow, an unshakeable confidence in his mission. In him. She became a voice in his head that he couldn’t tune out. And he found, more and more, that he didn’t want to.

Anyway, while I’m at it, did you ever think about not killing some of these thugs? Look, I get it - they’re taking shots at you and you’re just trying to stay alive, but on the other hand, they’re just hired guns and you’re…you know. You. All I’m saying is, with your aim - which I have seen evidence of, so please don’t start with the false modesty - you could just as easily be shooting these guys in the hand or leg or something, you know? Anyway. Just a thought.

Before he realized it, she had come to haunt his thoughts. When he was wrestling with a problem, he found himself playing out imaginary conversations with her, unerringly channeling her firm conviction and steady support. 

He didn’t even know what she looked like, but he couldn’t get her out of his head. Sometimes he thought he was half in love with her. No; that was ridiculous. It was the fantasy, the not knowing, that fascinated him. The idea that she could be anyone. He told himself didn’t want to know who she really was, because there was no way the reality could live up to the fantasy he’d built up in his mind.

A rough voice, intentionally pitched to grab his attention, cut into his reverie. “Is that Oliver Queen?” 

“No, couldn’t be,” came a loud, theatrical reply, drawing closer toward him. 

“Why not?” the first voice asked from somewhere right behind him. Oliver turned his head to present the speakers with a careless smirk.

“Because Oliver Queen wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this,” the second man sneered, pressing a gun against his back.

The gun cocked. “Well then I guess he has a death wish.”

So much for blending in, he thought as they dragged him toward the back hallway.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Felicity stilled her frantic movements to free herself from the ties that were cutting into her wrists as the door abruptly opened and a man was pushed inside. She tried not to gape as her captor stepped in behind him and roughly zip-tied his hands behind his back, exactly as he had done to Felicity not ten minutes before. 

Despite her situation, she couldn’t stop the flow of words that spilled out of her mouth when she saw who had joined her. “Oh, great. It’s you.” The newcomer whipped his head up and she locked gazes with a pair of striking blue eyes. 

Strangely, the first thought that crossed her mind was that if she had known her curiosity about the hood was going to lead to crossing paths with Oliver Queen, she would never have tried to solve the mystery of Adam Hunt’s $40 million in the first place.

Though to be fair, her interest in the Hood pre-dated the article that mentioned Hunt’s missing money, so she couldn’t entirely blame her entanglement with the vigilante on her compulsive need to unravel knotty mysteries. And it wasn’t just the allure of a dark and brooding man who could pull off leather, either. Something about his single-minded dedication and passion, at the risk to his own freedom and safety, was simply irresistible. 

It was curiosity that first led her to him. Maybe boredom. Her job was monotonous and unchallenging, something she’d sought out after her brief brush with hacktivism had backfired so spectacularly. When she first read about the Hood, she dismissed him as some whacko loose canon. But she followed the story - and the police reports - for lack of anything better to do. But when she read that Adam Hunt claimed the Hood had stolen $40 million, Felicity was intrigued. A crazy person couldn’t - wouldn’t - pull something like that off. So she hacked into Hunt’s accounts, following the trail back to a program that emptied the money and redistributed it to Hunt’s victims. It was shockingly easy, like following a flashing neon sign, and she was legitimately stunned that the police hadn’t managed to do the same. They also had no idea that the missing money had been returned to its rightful owners. On impulse, she erased the digital evidence. 

She could have left it at that, but the mystery was too compelling. She told herself she just wanted to make sure she hadn’t just enabled a psycho or terrorist to do even more psychotic and terrifying things, but the truth was, the fact that he’d quietly returned Hunt’s victims’ money to them cast him in an entirely unexpected light. She needed to know more.

She found that his system was alarmingly, disturbingly unprotected. And primitive. Really, it wasn’t even tolerable for the tiny amount of poking around and passive monitoring that she planned to do. Which is why she discreetly updated speed and capacity as much as she could without added hardware, then added a few dozen security protocols, because anything less was begging the police to come find him. 

Then she established several monitoring programs and alerts, and waited. Just a few weeks later, she got an alert that an unprotected device had been plugged in - a quick remote in revealed that it was one of those Tuff laptops, with a damaged system. It was clear that the Hood hadn’t been able to access the drive, but Felicity was curious, so she remotely cloned the data and opened it on her own system. When she discovered the blueprints of the Exchange Building on the drive, she remembered that the Unidac auction was shortly going to be held there, which naturally reminded her of recent news that one of bidders, James Holder of Holder Group, had recently been murdered. Which naturally then led to a little bit of unsanctioned poking around the SCPD’s internal files, and before she knew it the she found herself composing a message to the Hood before she’d even consciously decided to get involved.

After all, she didn’t actually want to be involved. She was just an IT girl, and she intended to keep a low profile. But the possibility that she could help prevent another murder weighed on her conscience, so she left a message pointing him in the right direction, hoping her suspicions were false. 

When she heard about the shooting at the auction, she poured herself a glass of wine - well, a bottle, really - and gave herself a talk. It wasn’t that she wasn’t glad she’d helped prevent an even greater catastrophe, because she was. It was just that the reality of the situation finally hit her, and she was faced with a choice.

Get involved, take a stance, use her powers in the real world again? She’d been down this road, she’d seen what her interference was capable of. She’d played with fire and hadn’t just gotten burned; she’d burned down her entire world - and Cooper’s. 

But the Hood wasn’t Cooper. He wasn’t innocent. He wasn’t naive to the forces he was playing with. She wasn’t sure what he was. He’d killed, and he would kill again, she was sure. 

But as much as she couldn’t condone the killing, she also couldn’t ignore the good that he’d done, and she realized she already didn’t have a choice. Something was happening in her city, the signs were all around her, and choosing to do nothing would only make her complicit. 

From then on, she kept tabs on the Hood’s activities, always leaving documents on his desktop explaining, briefly, what he needed to know. It wasn’t long until he began leaving notes of his own.

Through unspoken agreement, they never asked each other personal questions, but between the lines, she gained a sense of the man he was. Compassionate. Loyal. Selfless.  

When Oliver Queen was arrested as the suspected Hood, Felicity instantly dismissed the idea. She knew about the arresting officer’s personal grudge against Oliver Queen, which explained why he pursued him like a dog with a bone. But Felicity knew it was impossible; she knew what kind of person Oliver Queen was, and there was no overlap with the kind of person the vigilante was.

Aside from that, she purposely avoided speculating about who the Hood could be. If she had wanted to know, she could have found out easily enough, but she didn’t want to know. She told herself it didn’t matter; that the work he was doing was what was important. She didn’t want to put a face to the hood, because then she would begin to worry about him.

More than she already did, that is. Despite not knowing his name, she felt a connection with him that sometimes felt stronger for their mutual anonymity. His notes were always brief, especially compared to hers, but she learned to read what he didn’t say. And when he was repeatedly crucified in the media while his quietly heroic actions went unnoticed, he never complained, never faltered in his mission. He never even acknowledged the subtle tones of praise layered into her notes. She would almost suspect him of being a robot if it weren’t for the clear passion that underscored every action.

So when Walter Steele gave her the notebook that turned out to be filled with names that correlated with the criminals the vigilante was confronting, she didn’t say anything. There was too much she still didn’t know about the notebook to risk jeopardizing their relationship over it. Because if there was one thing she did know, it was that she trusted him. 

When Mr. Steele went missing, however, she had to break her silence. Without giving away details that could expose her own identity, she presented him with digital evidence of Moira Queen’s involvement of the events that likely got her husband kidnapped, and asked him for help. 

Which was how she now found herself in this hideously decorated criminal lair staring into the supremely beautiful face of Oliver Queen.

Chapter 2

“Oh great. It’s you.”

Oliver looked up at the sarcastic words being spoken by a stunning blonde. Even as he was roughly manhandled, his hands being zip-tied behind his back, he couldn’t help but be a little offended at her tone. “Excuse me?” Beautiful women treating him like some kind of disease was something he’d never experienced before, and while he wasn’t the same person he used to be, he had to admit his ego took a hit.

She stared at him silently, eyes flashing with undisguised contempt, until after Dominic Alonzo’s minion had left the room.

“Oliver Queen?” she finally answered distastefully, tilting her head at him in an exaggerated motion, as if his name was explanation enough. “Entitled billionaire and general asshole?” 

Her stomach swooped as his eyes searched her face. Disturbingly, and contrary to the cool attitude she was projecting, Felicity found his presence a little overwhelming, not quite matching the plastic and glossy picture presented by the tabloids. Rather than being some kind of smarmy Trust Fund Ken, in person he was exquisitely human. Felicity had always suspected she was immune to the appeal of a man in a suit, but on him, the tapered line from broad shoulder to narrow waist suggested an essential masculinity that awoke a deeply primal response she’d never experienced before. In contrast to the brutal strength of his body, his eyes were startlingly expressive; his chiseled jaw was complemented by soft, sensual lips. In short, he was utterly, unfairly beautiful in a way that affected her immediately, physically, and urgently. 

“Wow, okay,” Oliver scoffed, unaware of her internal struggle. “Most people lead with ‘Are you okay, Mr. Queen?’ ‘How did you survive all those years alone, Mr. Queen?’ ‘What does it feel like to be the only survivor in an accident that killed your father, Mr. Queen?’” He spoke harshly, wielding the crude words like a club. While he usually found the subject too intrusive to mention to anyone, let alone complete strangers, something about this woman’s fiery disdain was really getting under his skin, and extreme measures were called for.

Felicity smiled insincerely, holding on to her irritation like a shield from the confusing wave of sympathy that, along with his sheer attractiveness, threatened to undo her. This man slept with his girlfriend’s sister, she firmly reminded herself. “Well, I’m sorry, but my concern didn’t really seem necessary, given the fact that you seem utterly unaffected by what you went through. I caught your appearance at the opening of Queen Consolidated’s Applied Sciences building,” she added witheringly. “You seemed perfectly okay. Or at least as okay as you ever were.” 

Oliver crossed his arms, bothered by her words even though the image she described was the exact public persona he’d been purposefully crafting. For reasons he couldn’t explain, he couldn’t stand the idea that this woman found him so completely and vehemently offensive. Shaking his head, he tried a different tack. “Have we met before? Have I done something to offend you?” There was something compelling and almost familiar about her, but he was pretty sure he would remember if they’d met.

She scoffed dismissively. “No, definitely not.”

“Well, you sure have a lot of opinions about me for someone who doesn’t know me.” His eyes ran over her again, trying to figure out why she seemed so familiar. She was undeniably beautiful, with delicate features animated by a streak of passion that was not characteristic of the type of woman he’d have gone for before the island.

“Oh, I know all about you, Oliver Queen. If it’s on the internet, I can find it. Not -” her eyes flew to the ceiling as she turned pink, “not that I’ve looked into you!” Her sudden lack of composure was completely unexpected and disarming, and Oliver was intrigued and charmed by the new side of Felicity it revealed. And, if he was being honest, gratified by the suggestion that maybe she was not as immune to him as he originally thought. “It’s just that I work for your company,” she continued, straightening her shoulders and meeting his eyes again as sarcasm crept back into her tone, “and it’s a little hard to avoid hearing about all your little…adventures and mishaps.” 

“Hmm,” he answered, covering the dismay he felt at hearing her refer to his past actions when he suddenly, illogically, wanted her to know that he wasn’t that person anymore. “You work for Queen Consolidated?”

“Yeah, I do.” She pinned him with a fierce look. “But don’t go getting any weird ideas. I don’t work for you.” 

Felicity rolled her eyes to illustrate how distasteful she found that idea, and to cover up the effect his nearness was having on her. This was Oliver Queen, Frat Boy Extraordinaire, Professional Heartbreaker. She should not be flattered by any interest he showed to her. Anyway, he was probably just talking to her because there was no one else to talk to, as they were both literally imprisoned together. Speaking of, she needed to stop being distracted by Oliver Queen’s whole overwhelmingness, and start figuring out a way out of her handcuffs so she could carry out her plan to infiltrate Dominic Alonzo’s computer. She was lucky that when they caught her counting cards they brought her here, at least. Though she would have preferred that she hadn’t gotten caught at all, so she could have found her way here without the zip-tie cuffs, as she had planned. But dammit, she was new to this. She didn’t know anything about going undercover in an underground casino. As evidenced by the very great misfortune of finding herself trapped with Oliver Queen, of all people. Well, at least his presence solved one problem. “So anyway, how is it that Oliver Queen ends up handcuffed in the back of an underground casino?” she asked, deliberately toning down her attitude in the hopes that he’d prove cooperative.

“I could ask you the same thing, Miss…” he trailed off in question, a clear indication that she should fill in her name, as he tried to figure out how to respond. 

The truth was certainly not an option. Even if he could trust her with his secret - and for some inexplicable reason, he did feel generally inclined to trust her - doing so would put her at risk. He couldn’t even tell her a half-truth. Sure, the whole city at this point knew that his step-father was missing, possibly kidnapped, probably dead, but there was no good reason why Oliver Queen would be investigating that. Or that he should have figured out that Alonzo was the person who had him kidnapped. 

Felicity met his eyes warily, aware that she didn’t have an acceptable explanation for being there either, and they came to a silent agreement not to press each other for information. For now. “Felicity Smoak,” she supplied.

He smiled. She stared back, refusing to be charmed, even though she detected a hint of dimple.

Needing to get him to stop smiling at her, because she was much more susceptible than she wanted him to know, she hastened on, “It’s good that you’re here, actually, because you can help me.” 

Oliver raised his eyebrows. “Help you?” Help her do what? He didn’t expect his co-hostage to have any sort of plan; rather, he was busy trying to figure out how he could convince her to stay calm, and possibly hide in a closet, while he dislocated his thumb, got out of the zip-ties, searched through the office, and then called the police to come rescue them. 

It wasn’t an ideal plan; he considered all the variables, all the things that could go wrong. Getting made definitely hadn’t been part of his plan. He’d hoped to sneak in the back without being noticed, not get thrown there with the attention of Alonzo and his thugs. And Felicity proved an even bigger problem. While he could easily hold himself back and take a beating if necessary, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to do the same if they threatened her; and if it came to a fight, he wasn’t sure how he was going to preserve his secret. 

“Help me get out of these zip-ties,” Felicity answered, taking a deliberate step toward Oliver. Her heart was pounding at what she was about to suggest, but she schooled her expression to appear nonchalant, annoyed by the necessity, even. Not flustered. And definitely, definitely not turned on by the prospect. She took a deep breath. “I need you to get the knife out of my bra.” 

Oliver blinked. No words could have been more unexpected coming from her mouth. “What?” 

She rolled her eyes to distract from the fact that she was blushing. Eyes firmly locked on the ceiling, she elaborated, “There is a pocketknife in my bra and we can use it to cut our binds.”

Oliver stared at her in wonder, steadfastly ignoring the primal thrill that ran through him at her suggestion. It seemed he had severely underestimated Felicity Smoak. His mind was racing with questions, but the one that he blurted out was “Why do you have a pocketknife in your bra?”

“Mr. Queen!” she flared, exasperated nerves causing her to meet his gaze. “Do you want to get out of here or not?”

Oliver’s mind was suddenly reeling with images of what she was proposing. In an instinctual stalling tactic, he said the first words that came to him. “Mr. Queen was my father.”

Felicity gaped at him.

Oliver shook his head at himself, saying nothing as he attempted to get his head on straight. He considered her plan rationally. Aside from the question of why it was so important to Felicity that she get out of her cuffs, and the mystery of what she planned to do once she was free of them, the fact of the matter was that going along with her plan would free him to search the office without having to dislocate his thumb. Deciding to continue their no-questions truce, he nodded. “Okay. But…,” he trailed off, throat dry as he looked looking down into unexpectedly near wide blue eyes.

Felicity was pretty sure they were both imagining what he was about to do. “Yeah,” she exhaled, suddenly very aware of the cadence of his breaths, his intoxicatingly masculine scent. Throughout the course of their discussion, he had moved closer to her, and now his expressive eyes fixed on her, waiting. “You won’t be able to see what you’re doing, but if you’re standing, I can kneel behind you and you can kind of…feel around.” 

Oliver’s eyes widened as she spoke, her matter-of-fact words making the situation more real. More shocking. It wasn’t that he hadn’t done more with women he’d known for less time in much less dire circumstances, but something about touching Felicity in these circumstances felt wrong, like a violation, and he suddenly, irrationally found himself wanting to get to know her first, and to tell her about himself, about the real him.  He briefly reconsidered his original plan of dislocating his thumb. 

Mortified by Oliver’s reaction to her words, Felicity tried to cut the tension. “I mean, I know it’s not ideal, but I figure it’s gotta be better than the alternative.”

Caught up, Oliver automatically asked, “What’s the alternative?”

Her eyes dropped involuntarily to his lips and she swayed a little toward him as she whispered, “Using your mouth.” But when her eyes flicked up to meet his, neither of them were laughing. 

Oliver’s mouth fell open in surprise, his gaze dropping to the deep vee of her bodice, before dragging back up to her face. The action pulled him even closer toward her, and a rush of heat washed over him as he fully took her in for the first time. The red chiffon dress clung to her curves, outlining a deeply feminine, lush  body. She was a study in contradictions, watching him through darkly-lashed eyes that were somehow both innocent and knowing; her face lightly dusted with freckles that contrasted alluringly with a sinfully soft mouth. She watched him with dilated pupils and parted lips, and his cock twitched in response. 

But then reality crashed back in on him as she interrupted, “Not that I’m suggesting anything! I’m not coming on to you or anything.”

Oliver blinked, trying to regain control by reminding himself where they were and why. Catching her gaze, he nodded in an attempt to reassure her. Hoping that she didn’t pick up on just how affected he himself was. 

Felicity took a deep, centering breath. It didn’t make any sense that Oliver Queen was having this effect on her. He was just some shallow billionaire, a douchebag womanizer. None of it made any sense. When he looked at her, it was like he saw her. And as much as she told herself it was impossible, it looked as if he wanted her. No. She had to be projecting. And she didn’t want him to want her, anyway. Sure, he was gorgeous. So, so masculine and touchable he smelled so good, with an essential manliness that was softened by those eyes…but no. He was still Oliver Queen, and the fact that she was so attracted to him only explained why so many women had given in to his appeal, despite the long list of reasons to avoid him. She might have judged those women in the past, but now she could not. 

She squared her shoulders, trying to clear the attraction from her mind and prepare for what had to happen next. “So, okay?” She chanced a look in his direction, not quite meeting his eyes. 

Oliver nodded, and Felicity took refuge in remembering her mission. After all, she was here to help the Hood, and she could not have her sudden weakness to very handsome men - or rather, one specific very handsome man - getting in the way of that. 

“All right, just turn a little to your right,” she directed hoarsely, nodding encouragingly as he complied. “Okay, stop there. I’ll position myself so you should be able to locate the knife relatively easily.” She lowered herself to the ground behind him as she was speaking, her voice only slightly wavering with the awareness that Oliver Queen was about to feel her up. “It’s on the left side,” she rambled, masking her response to the feeling of his surprisingly rough fingers dipping below her bodice, carrying on as if this were normal, as if she were directing someone to the library, as if Oliver Queen’s very large hands weren’t currently sliding along the sides of her breasts…her words tapered off and she bit her bottom lip, concentrating on not moaning out loud because oh god, his fingers brushed against her nipple and her body responded as if he was tugging on a string tied directly to her thrumming core. 

Oliver squeezed his eyes shut, trying to be quick, methodical, and clinical, but he had felt enough breasts in his life to know that Felicity Smoak’s were a rarity. As much as he tried to stay on task,he found himself getting distracted, unable to stop the picture that drifted through his mind. Perfect breasts, not large, but extremely full; firm but very soft, with tight nipples that his fingertips couldn’t help brushing over repeatedly as he wedged his large hand into the tight space of her bodice. Tight, very sensitive nipples, he corrected unhelpfully, judging by the way she gasped softly in response to his inadvertent touches. As her voice trailed off, he remained aware of the soft catching of her breath, and even with his back to her, he he felt completely in tune with her, much more intimately than if they had only been having sex. Finally, his fingers touched upon warm metal, and even though the entire encounter lasted less than fifteen seconds, he was out of breath as he withdrew the pocketknife and turned to meet her eyes. His dick was rock hard, and the look she returned him said she was equally affected. 

She was staring up at him, speechless, so he took the lead, flipping open the knife and directing her in a soft voice, “Turn around. I’ll cut your ties.”

Felicity nodded silently, turning so that they were back to back and trusting that he wouldn’t cut her as he twisted around to line her zip-ties up with the blade. “Okay,” he told her when the knife was in position, “try an up and down sawing motion,” and they easily and wordlessly fell into a rhythm that quickly parted the plastic around her wrists. 

“Oh thank god,” she exhaled as her hands came free. She instantly started rubbing her wrists, then silently turned to take the knife. 

Oliver felt her warm hand close around his wrists, steadying him as she positioned the blade against his ties. He took a steadying breath as she freed him. “I probably shouldn’t do this,” she commented, “since my plan is to maintain the illusion that we’re still tied up and that would be easier to do if you actually were still tied up, but I have to admit that I’ll feel safer if your hands are free.” With a final tug, the plastic came apart, but she didn’t release his hands immediately. Inexplicably, her words inflated him with a disproportionate sense of pride and purpose. He liked that she felt safe with him, that even without knowing his alternate identity, and despite her pre-existing opinion of Oliver Queen, she somehow trusted him. He was struck with an acute desire to be worthy of that trust, and a deep yearning to prove to her that it was not misplaced. 

After a long moment, Felicity dropped his hands, taking large step backward in a move designed to decrease the tension. Truthfully, she was a little impressed by Oliver Queen. He was a lot more gentle, sensitive, and thoughtful than she would have thought.  She had expected him to be obnoxious, entitled, and immature, the type of person who, finding himself in this situation, would either panic or make a joke of the whole thing. Either way, she’d have expected him to be throwing his money around trying to save himself, not quietly and calmly following her lead. And no way would she have predicted he was capable of being so respectful of her body. Probably more respectful of her body than she was being of his. Not that she had forced him to feel her up…but she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t enjoyed it. Fleetingly, she wondered if it counted as sexual harassment to get turned on when a man was merely trying to locate a knife in your bra so you could escape a kidnapping situation. 

For his part, Oliver’s admiration for Felicity was growing exponentially. She was much more resourceful and level headed than he would have expected anyone to be in her situation. From the moment she opened her mouth, she’d already proven herself smarter and more sensible than most people in his experience - she had a cautious,  strategic manner that he was unused to in other people. 

“So now what?” he asked, caught up in the intelligence in her eyes, the mystery of her presence. Even though he was the one with a plan and she was technically just an inconvenience, he momentarily set that aside because he just wanted to know. He wanted to know what she was planning to do. He wanted to know her. “You mentioned you have a plan, one that requires your hands be free,” he prodded, hoping she would fill in some pieces of the puzzle.

“That’s for me to know,” she countered playfully, holding his gaze as she reached into her bra, pulling something else out, “and you to find out.”

His eyes widened and dropped to her chest before snapping back up, unsure if she meant anything by it. Again, it was the last thing he expected. And again, it set his heart racing. 

“Or, I mean, not to find out. There will be no finding out, from you. Just stay there and look pretty.” Her eyes grew rounder. “Not that you’re pretty, it’s just an expression. Just sit there.” She backed away until she ran into the desk, and then she dropped to the ground and started feeling around underneath it.

He watched her with amused eyes, interested in her actions and utterly captivated by her. “I’m not pretty?” he pressed, curious to know how she would react.

Her head popped up from the other side of the desk, sending him an exasperated look. “No! I mean, yes! Very pretty like, really very attractive, objectively speaking I mean, I’m not coming on to you. It’s science; you’re scientifically pretty.” Her head disappeared again beneath the desk.

Oliver stood up, drawn to her, until he was leaning over the desk looking down at her ass protruding from under the desk. “Scientifically pretty?”

Felicity visibly startled, then took a deep breath, then carefully, and with as much dignity as possible, crawled backwards and rose out from under the desk, smoothing down her hair. She arched her brow at him. “Don’t tell me you’re one of these anti-science climate change denier people.”

Oliver guffawed, unable to come up with a fitting response. She was unlike anyone he’d ever come across. Instead of answering, he watched as she sat herself at the desk and instantly penetrated the password protection, diving with singular focus directly into the files on Alonzo’s computer. “What are you doing?” he asked after a moment, fascinated by her actions. He knew time was precious, that he should be taking the opportunity to riffle through drawers, search filing cabinets, etc., but rather than pursue his mission, he couldn’t help but pull at the loose thread that was Felicity Smoak. 

She lifted distracted eyes to him, giving the distinct impression that he had yanked her out of a very deep concentration, despite the fact that it had only been twenty seconds since she’d sat down. He expected her to crack another joke, but instead she blinked and said seriously, “It’s better you don’t know,” before returning her attention to the computer. 

Surprised, Oliver slipped off the desk he’d been casually leaning against, the hair raising on the back of his neck; her words were like a warning, almost ominous. Who was she? Why was she here? What was she involved in? Habits shaped over the past five years forced him to question her motives: honest people rarely found themselves involved with guys like Dominic Alonzo; he had to consider that Felicity might not be as innocent as she seemed; he had to wonder if she might even be on the list. But as soon as the thought surfaced, he dismissed it. His five years away had also taught him to trust his instincts, and every single part of him was shouting at him to trust her. 

“Okay,” she announced a few seconds later, “I need you to come here and keep an eye on this feed.” 

Oliver stepped up beside her to where she was pointing at CCTV footage in a corner of the computer monitor. “What is that?”

“Security feed, showing the corridor just outside. This way we can know ahead of time if anyone’s coming.” Her eyes returned to the screen, where she was still methodically searching through the computer’s files.

“Felicity,” Oliver said firmly, coming to a decision even as his eyes obediently remained glued on the feed. 

“Hmm?”

Oliver took a deep breath, his racing mind rapidly drawing conclusions that he couldn’t quite believe were true. But every objection he came up with was easily disproved; rather, every detail about her only seemed to confirm the picture that was forming in his mind. 

Huli jing.

“Felicity,” he repeated, and this time the name felt familiar on his tongue, like he had been saying it his whole life, like he had been born to say it. “You need to tell me why you’re here.” 

He knew. There was no denying it; when she spoke, it was with the voice he’d been hearing in his head for seven months. When she smiled, it was with the unique humor that had amused him like nothing else had been able to do since returning from the island. And when she looked at him, it was with eyes that perceived all the things he didn’t say. It was her. But he needed to hear her say it.

“Oliver, look,” she began, unexpectedly turning to meet his eyes. He was nearly flattened by the look of sincere regret and conviction in her eyes. “I’m sorry about before, what I said.”

His eyebrows draw together in confusion. 

“When I said you hadn’t changed. I was wrong. The person the tabloids make you out to be - that’s not who you are. And I’m sorry I misjudged you.”

Oliver’s lips parted in surprise. “That’s not -”

“No, it is necessary,” she pressed, misunderstanding what he was going to say. “I made assumptions, and they were completely unfair.” Over his protests, she continued, “I don’t know what you did out there to piss off the casino bosses, but I’m really sorry you’re caught up in this. Please,” she emphasized, “just believe me when I tell you that the less you know, the safer you’ll be.” She reached out a hand but started to pull it back before it made contact with his chest, and he caught it between his own before she could fully withdraw.

“Felicity.” He fixed her with a steady, knowing look, and he heard her breath catch, and felt her pulse pick up under his fingers. “I need to ask you something.”

Felicity’s eyes widened at his sudden, inexplicable intensity and focus. She had no idea Oliver Queen was capable of such depth and sincerity. His large hands were cradling her, his thumb soothing over her wrist, and she had long ago surrendered to that penetrating look in his eyes. “What?” she breathed, not knowing what Oliver Queen could tell her that required so much intensity and passion, but suddenly very much wanting to find out.

His words were the last thing she expected to hear. “Are you here because of the Hood?”

Her stomach dropped. “What?”

Before he could respond, he caught sight of someone on the security feed walking up the hallway. “Someone’s coming!”

She turned to the feed, then instantly went to the computer and, with a blur of hands on the keyboard, logged off and put the monitor to sleep. There was no time for anything else, so without thinking any further, Oliver reached around her body, pressing her wrists together behind her in an approximation of being handcuffed, secured his own hands behind his back, then pressed his mouth to hers in an urgent kiss.  

Felicity gasped in surprise, and he instinctively used the opportunity to deepen the kiss, coaxing her lips open, his tongue seeking hers. After a stunned moment, she responded with ardor, the passion exploding like a match to dry tinder. 

Kissing her was like putting the last piece of the puzzle in place. 

For seven months, he had been drawn to the woman with intriguingly contradictory parts: a dizzyingly sharp partner who amused and irritated and charmed and inspired him. 

For seven months, the more space he allowed her in his mission, the wider the empty hole that only she could fill had become in his life. He hadn’t allowed himself to acknowledge it, but meeting her face to face meant he could no longer deny how he felt about her.  He had been drawn to her since he saw her, his body seeking any excuse to touch hers. Everything about her provoked and challenged and called to him; her passion, her intelligence, her humor, her bravery, and the glimpses of vulnerability. 

She was the woman he’d been waiting for, and if the way she was responding to him was any indication, she’d been waiting for him too. 

He bore down on her, covering her with his body, and it was everything he could do to keep his hands behind his back. The need to touch her is like electricity in his veins, and he forgot everything but the urgent need to be close to her.  

“What’s going on?” The voice broke into the moment like a bucket of cold water. 

Oliver’s lips released Felicity’s reluctantly, and she met his eyes as she pulled back. Her pupils were nearly black, her lips parted and swollen, and the sight sent a jolt through his body to his already throbbing dick. 

“Oliver Queen, you really can’t control yourself, can you?” asked Dominic Alonzo, striding into the room. “I’d almost be impressed if you weren’t such a pain in my ass.”

Oliver glanced once more at Felicity, and the last thought he had before turning his attention to Alonzo was that she looked utterly shell-shocked.

…to be continued…

#arrow #olicity #olicity secret santa #goodbye olicity #submission

[bigfan-fanfic]

Making Bad Look Good Part 2

A second part! Featuring... Two-Face, Deathstroke, Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, Mad Hatter, Hush, Zsasz, Klarion the Witch Boy, and the Court of Owls!

I got a ton of requests for these, and you’ve all been so helpful! This one’s for you!

Making Bad Look Good part 2 - a.k.a. another 6 Degrees of Evil Bacon

Warning: Long post ahead.

Two-Face - Harvey Dent

You met Two-Face back when he was District Attorney for Gotham.

He was no “Ce-SEAL-Your-Fate” Horton from Central City, but he was doing a bang-up job putting criminals behind bars, cracking their insanity pleas.

So you went to meet him after a case where he got the Penguin sentenced to Blackgate instead of Arkham.

Sure, he’ll probably escape, but the precedent the case sets is important.

“Mr. Wayne! To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Just came to meet our amazing new D.A.”

You make small talk, until you decide to ask him to lunch to congratulate him on the case.

He grins. “Okay. But we’ll flip a coin for the check. Heads, you pay. Tails, my treat.”

You shrug.

He flips a strange coin that he tells you is his lucky charm.

It comes up heads, on the side that looks like it’s been corroded.

You smirk. “That’s a double-headed coin, isn’t it?”

He laughs. “Yup. Most people don’t get it so quick.”

He shakes your hand and offers to pay anyway since you were such a good sport.

After he becomes Two-Face, it’s this moment you choose to remember...

Deathstroke and Deadshot - Slade Wilson and Floyd Lawton

There have been quite a few times when you were targeted by an assassin or two.

But that particular time, you were the prize for a competition between them.

Slade and Lawton had been hired to take you out, but only the actual killer would get the other half of the payment.

So one day, Deadshot is setting up the hit, angling a crazy shot to hit you through the back of the skull and bamboozle all ballistics tests. You come into range, and he shoots -

-only to see you get shoved out of the way by the eyepatch-ed Slade Wilson.

Bruce wants to sequester you in the Batcave, but instead, you tell him to set up a meeting as Batman.

It’s fun to throw money at problems.

On a rooftop, the Bat behind you, you offer Slade and Lawton double the total for your contract to give you the name of their employer and void the hit.

It’s technically against whatever assassin code there is, but you know, money tends to grease the wheels of any machine.

Deadshot takes the money and tells you it was some crackpot billionaire trying to get at Bruce. He also chuckles and says that he’s available if you ever have more money to throw and a grudge for him to carry out.

Deathstroke also takes the money and nods at you before leaving.

And while Slade comes back to torment you and your sons time and again, Floyd is actually quite pleasant. You sometimes hire him when you need security, which he calls easy money, and from that point, your husband almost never encounters him on the job...

Harley Quinn - Dr. Harleen Frances Quinzel

“Paging Dr. Quinzel. Dr. Quinzel, to the front desk.”

You and some other Gotham big shots were invited to Arkham for a publicity tour. Reporters are there, too, including Clark, so you feel pretty safe.

A surprisingly young woman comes to play tour guide, her hair in slight pigtails.

“Hello, I’m Dr. Quinzel. Currently I’m junior psychologist here at Arkham Asylum.” She has a bit of a New York accent, though you can tell she’s worked hard to soften it.

One reporter asks just how “junior” she is, and she gives an indulgent chuckle. “Yes, I graduated med school early, so I’m a bit young for a specialized doctor. But I’m also one of the only medical professionals still willing to work at Arkham, so I think that’s what counts, right?”

The tour goes well enough, until you raise your hand. “You’re the psychologist in charge of the Joker, right?”

Dr. Quinzel smiles in a strange way. “Yes, that I am.”

You frown. “And do you think, as a junior psychologist, you’re adequately prepared for him?”

“I know that I am a medical professional, Mr. Wayne, and I am certainly qualified to examine my patients.”

But Dr. Quinzel, just for a moment, looks fractured, torn. Like there’s some sort of internal war raging in her soul. But it gets absorbed in her too-wide smile.

You put it down to nerves about meeting the press, and let it go.

You always wonder if there was something you could’ve done for the woman, prevented it from all going wrong, prevented her from becoming Harley Quinn...

Poison Ivy - Dr. Pamela Isley

Pamela was going to college at about the same time you were. 

You weren’t friends, exactly, although you did both share a class in Professor Crane’s Intro Psych course (an elective for both of you).

There were a lot of rumors about her. You chose not to engage in the gossip, especially as it was a lot about her sleeping with her Biology professor for a better grade.

You had to do a project with her for your final grade, and she invited you to her apartment to work on it together.

It was full of plants. She mentions it before you have a chance to even think about bringing them up. 

“They’re my babies.” she jokes. “So much easier to take care of than pets.”

You smile. “All the oxygen probably helps you work better, right?”

She nods. “Yeah. Yeah, it does.”

She talks about how she’s going to be a botanist when she graduates, and she’s going to work for the EPA. She’s very self-interested, but genuine, and you have fun while working on the project.

But only a few weeks after you turn in the project, she disappears. Rumors abound about how she ran off with the Bio professor. Some say they were having an affair. Others are kinder and say they’re on a botanical conservation mission in some swamp somewhere.

Either way, you never see Pamela again.

At least, until Poison Ivy shows up in town...

(Side note: Drew Barrymore as Poison Ivy? Thoughts?)

Mr. Freeze - Dr. Victor Fries

Fries shows up one day out of nowhere

Just shooting with that cold gun.

He attacks a gala event for the Wayne Foundation and holds it up for jewelry and the cash being raised for the underprivileged of Gotham..

You glare at him. “You know you’re just taking money right out of the pocket of needy kids, right?”

“It’s for a good cause.” He says darkly.

“And what cause would that be?”

He sneers at you. “Disease research, mainly.”

The phrase surprises you.

Later, Bruce is doing research at the Batcave. “He goes by Mr. Freeze. Born: Victor Fries. Wife Nora suffers from Stage Four of a rare pneumonia-like condition known as MacGregor Syndrome. He had her cryogenically frozen, and now it seems like he’s turned to crime to fund his research into a cure.”

You hesitate. “Well... is there something we can do to help him?”

“Help him? May I remind you that he held hundreds of people hostage?”

“Well...” you shrug. “I just figure that maybe he wouldn’t be so... crime-y if his wife was being taken care of. I don’t know what I’d do if I was so close to losing you.”

Bruce softens slightly. “Look, Freeze committed a crime - several crimes, and he has to go to jail. But if it makes you feel better, we can have Wayne Enterprise’s medical division look into studying her disease. Judging from what I see here, MacGregor Syndrome has similarities with many other diseases. It might be a key in finding lots more cures.”

You smile and hug him. “Lead with that. Tell Fries that we’re willing to do that.”

Of course, Fries’ future crimes are due to the cost of maintaining his portable cryogenic suit, but you hear a lot less about it than you expect, especially since Nora is being taken care of...

Mad Hatter - Jervis Tetch

You were meeting a couple of old school friends at a tea parlor one day. It’s nice to escape the stress of your life and reminisce.

Roland and Alicia are a cute couple, and they tell you they have a baby on the way.

But the day is marred by a strange incident in which a small man in a top hat and tails (tuxedo tails) comes up to your table and starts babbling at Alicia, calling her “Alice” and trying to touch her blond hair, despite her attempts to shove him away..

Roland gets angry and punches the man, but before he can go any further, you pull him back.

The strange man glances at you. “The Dormouse...” he mutters, and walks away.

“What a creep.” Alicia shudders.

You’ve already figured it out. The man is deluded, thinking he’s the Mad Hatter, and he seems to be trying to fit everything into his Wonderland-inspired delusions. You tell Bruce about this, and he immediately agrees that Alicia is in danger.

You go to their hotel room to see them, warn them, but Roland answers the door wearing a bowler hat and Alicia is nowhere to be found.

Roland attacks you, knocking you out and kidnapping you.

Thankfully Bruce has been watching as Batman and follows.

You wake up tied to a chair around a tea table. Alicia is tied to another chair in an Alice-in-Wonderland costume, looking terrified. 

Jervis Tetch reveals himself and points out his minions, enslaved with his mind control headwear.

“Very spiffy, if I do say so myself.” you say cheerily. “Quite the milliner you are, my good sir.” (Alicia looks at you like you’re crazy)

Jervis loves the flattery, and it distracts him long enough for Batman to smash through the glass ceiling and knock the hat off his head, disabling the control.

Sure, no one was hurt much, but needless to say you would have to visit Alicia and Roland in the future instead of ever having them come to Gotham...

Hush - Dr. Tommy Elliot

“We’re having lunch with an old friend of mine.” Bruce announces.

You raise an eyebrow. “Wait a minute. Why don’t I know who this is? We have pretty much all the same old friends. I mean, we were together, like, all the time.”

“You remember Tommy, right?”

“Tommy? No, Tommy doesn’t ring a bell, hon.”

Bruce sighs, and you laugh. This is as animated as you’ve seen him in a while. “Come on, Tommy Elliot! Back when we were little! We used to play Robin Hood together in the park, and you two always fought over who got to be the Sheriff of Nottingham?”

“Yeah, nope. No memory of that.”

He sighs, but you go with him anyway. It hits you when you see the man at the restaurant. He was that kid! His parents were friends with Bruce’s parents. They had almost died in an accident when Bruce’s dad saved them.

He’d always try to play this strategy game thing with you and Bruce. It was only two players, and while he’d always beat Bruce (your husband wasn’t always the tactician he was now), he’d get really frustrated playing against you.

Tommy liked to try and get inside your head to beat you, figure out what you were going to do and then planning for it.

But you could tell what he was doing, and kept doing random moves you wouldn’t normally play, throwing him off and winning.

You didn’t like him much, and you kinda got the feeling he didn’t like Bruce that much either.

“Oh. That Tommy.”

Bruce looks at your worried face. “What’s wrong? If you really don’t want to, we can cancel.”

“Oh, hush. We’re already here. Least we can do is have a nice lunch...”

Zsasz - Victor Zsasz

It’s never a good sign when a payphone rings. So many bad reasons...

Not the least of which is that barely anyone even uses payphones anymore.

Let alone to call another payphone. I mean, how does that even work?

So it startles you when you’re walking Gotham (during the day, of course), and a payphone rings. No one else is around to answer it. 

You start to walk away, and then the next payphone rings when you reach it.

The other guy near it jumps like fifty feet in the air, but then goes to answer it.

He looks scared. “It’s... it’s for you.”

You sigh and take the phone

“Ignoring my calls? Naughty...”

“Um... wrong number. This is a payphone, not, uh, whoever you were calling.���

“This isn’t Y/N Wayne?”

“Yeah, no, it isn’t. May I ask who’s calling, though?”

“I know it’s you, Y/N. You don’t know me. Yet.”

“Look, I know Halloween’s coming up, but I’m not in the mood for Scream right now, okay?”

“This isn’t a scary movie, it’s real. My name is Zsasz.”

“Z- zsa... okay, how is that spelled?”

“Z. S. A. S. Z.”

“Oh, that’s beautiful. If you don’t mind me asking, is that Polish?”

“...What?”

“Sorry, I have to run, but it was nice talking to you!”

You run home and immediately tell Bruce you talked to Zsasz. Luckily you were running a trace with your phone - a little extra Tim developed for you. Within the hour, Batman has Zsasz in custody, saving the poor people he had kidnapped to add to his tally...

Klarion the Witch Boy

“Oh, hello! Who are you, little guy?”

The orange tabby glares at you with utter hate. It flicks its tail, but surprisingly, comes closer and curls around your legs.

It allows you to pick it up, and it purrs.

“Teekl! My word!” a boy comes running up to you, wearing a tailored suit and a newsboy cap. 

The boy snatches the tabby from you and pets it, despite how it looks like it wants to go back to you. “What were you doing with Teekl?”

“That’s its name? He’s a cute little guy. Uh, he just wandered in front of me and basically asked me to pet him.”

The boy glares at the cat. “You TALKED to him?”

The cat looks at him and rolls its eyes.

“Um, who are you, kid?”

He looks at you incredulously. “Seriously, mortal? You haven’t heard of me? I am Klarion! Klarion the Witch Boy! And this is my familiar, Teekl.”

You nod seriously. “Good for you, kid.”

He seems about to throw a tantrum, so you wave and leave the boy dumbfounded...

The Court of Owls

“Beware the Court of Owls, that watches all the time,

Ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch, behind granite and lime.

They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed,

Speak not a whispered word of them

Or they’ll send the Talon for your head...”

“That’s a stupid poem. It doesn’t even keep time.”

“It’s free verse.”

“Yeah, free ‘cause no one would pay for it.”

You and Bruce were only kids when you heard the old rhyme. Bruce was trying to scare you as a Halloween season joke, but it wasn’t working.

“Come on, Y/N! At least pretend to play along!”

Thomas Wayne enters the living room, and pretends to scold Bruce. “Now, Bruce, be hospitable to your guest. What’s the argument about?”

You smirk. “Bruce says that there’s a Court of Owls who eat limes and put talons on people’s heads.”

Thomas hunches down, making a spooky face. “Well, Y/N, it’s an old Gotham story. It’s a very bad thing that Bruce told you. You’ll have to be very careful now.”

He looks dead serious, and now you’re scared. “Really? What should I do, Mr. Wayne?”

He puts a hand on your shoulder. “You’ll have to be a very good kid all your life, Y/N. Never go out after dark without your parents’ permission. Don’t ever cheat on a test. Don’t lie. And if you ever see someone in an Owl mask, look the other way and forget you saw it.”

He grins, dropping the facade. “I’m sorry, Y/N, I just couldn’t help it. Hope I didn’t scare you too badly.”

Being a stubborn child, you insist he didn’t. After all, you’re old enough not to be scared by that stuff anymore.

But on the way home, after your parents pick you up, you notice something.

A tall figure in an alley, wearing a stylized white Owl mask.

You quickly look away, trying to put it out of your head, mumbling the rhyme to yourself.

“Beware the Court of Owls...”

You forget about this until far later in life, after you, as Y/N Wayne, have become an enemy of the dreaded Court...

#batdad reader #male reader #batman x male reader #batman headcanons #dc headcanons #headcanon

[michaelarmstrongmusic-blog]

Jeff Lynne & ELO

I can’t remember the first time I heard ELO. My dad had a greatest hits album on vinyl, so I suspect it was one Sunday afternoon when he would treat my brother & I to some selected tracks from his vast collection. My dad isn’t the slightest bit musical, but he loves his music. Moreover, in those days, he loved his stereo and it held pride of place in the living room. He lived his teenage years through the 1960s and I think a lot of that generation valued their hi-fi equipment and record collection. A far cry from these days where kids listening to music they haven’t paid for on mp3s on tiny headphones or computer speakers. But that’s a different subject.

In 1981 my brother came home with a copy of the new album, TIME’. We’d been hearing ‘Hold On Tight’ on the radio and loved it. He played that album over and over. Although I didn’t realise it at the time, this album was the first step in Jeff slimming down the line-up, laying off the strings, and eventually becoming a one man band. Although it’s not perhaps recognised as one of the classic ELO albums, I still love it to this day.

By the time ‘Balance Of Power’ came out in 1986 I was music-obsessed. I had learnt to play the guitar, was teaching myself to play the piano, and had begun writing & recording my own music. I had a Tascam 4-track tape machine and was bouncing down tracks endlessly so I could add more harmonies and get that sound. Jeff was the ultimate role model for me. He played everything bar the drums on the new album, wrote all the songs and produced it. I considered myself a 12 year old Jeff.

To add to this was the mystery surrounding the man himself. By the time I was on board, Jeff didn’t appear in newspapers & magazines. ELO didn’t perform on Top Of The Pops - the songs were played and danced to by Legs & Co, there was no sign of any band. All there seemed to be was an image of a beard, big curly hair and the dark glasses. This guy was cool and it was about to get even better...

I’m a musician and a songwriter and therefore I’m a Beatles fan. Who couldn’t be? By the age of eleven I had every album and had read most of the books on them (and there are a lot). I was and remain to this day an expert on the subject. When I heard that Jeff was working with George Harrison on a new album I was overcome with excitement & anticipation. When I heard ‘Got My Mind Set On You’ I probably cried. It was the perfect pop song and dripped in Jeff’s production topped of with George’s unique voice and a great video to accompany it. The album ‘Cloud 9′ didn’t leave the turntable for several months.

So, by this stage I’m really developing as a songwriter and searching out different music to soak up and explore to help me make the next stage of the journey and improve my skills. Inevitably I’m introduced to Bob Dylan and, like the many other discoveries I’d made up to that point, I immerse myself in his music and culture. To then find out that a supergroup was to be born including Jeff Lynne, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty (I didn’t know who he was at the time) and Roy Orbison was Biblical in it’s proportions. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. ‘Traveling Wilbury's Vol.1′ did not disappoint. It is a thing of beauty.

And there started the ‘Production Years’. Jeff was a much in-demand producer and sometimes co-writer and delivered some of the greatest music there has been. Many of the artists he worked with and albums he worked on will be the subject of future blogs so I will not expand on this for now. What did remain however, and for many years, was the mystery of Jeff. In the intervening period I has seen all the surviving Beatles perform live. I’d seen Dylan on countless occasions, I’d seen The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Supertramp, James Taylor, Pink Floyd and almost all my other heroes and influences. I honestly believed that I would never see Jeff...

I was in the Radio 2 VIP enclosure (perks of the job my friends) on 14th September 2014 at Hyde Park when Jeff Lynne’s ELO took to the stage. It was a moment. It was the moment. It had finally come. It was a celebration and it was a joy. Earlier in the day I had been introduced to Jeff’s PR guy by my manager who told him what a huge fan I was. “Have you spoken to him yet?” he asked. Spoken to him! What? I tried to keep my cool as he led us to the back stage area where we were stopped by security who said I didn’t have the correct pass. “Sorry” said the PR “I thought you had backstage passes too. Never mind, maybe next time.” So close yet so far...

The concert at Hyde Park sparked off a whole new chapter of Jeff’s incredible career. A new album ‘Alone In The Universe’ was to be followed by a World Tour. I was fortunate enough to be invited to the two small warm up gigs in London where I watched Jeff and the band perform so many hits to an audience of just a few hundred. They remain amongst the greatest gigs I have ever seen.

You can hear Jeff’s influence in my music and my production. On the new album #LookingForTheWorld there are one or two tracks in particular which pay homage to the enormous legacy he has given us. Although I haven’t met him yet, a close friend of mine did work with him on a track in the 1990′s. He said he was great and very down to earth. After the session they all went out for a curry and upon finishing his Madras and taking a swig from his bottle of ale, Jeff muttered the immortal words...”There’s only 3 things you need in life. Beer, birds and Beatles”. A man after my own heart.

#michaelarmstrong #lookingfortheworld #jefflynne #elo #electric light orchestra #jeff lynne #bob dylan #george harrison #the beatles #tom petty #musicproducer #musicproduction

[its-moments-like-this]

My Blackness.  Is this self hate?

Prejudice against my own people

For the majority of my life, I have had to deal//struggle with what it means to be biracial. How it looks, and what it implies for my life in this country (USA.) A country that would much rather have me check a singular box (those of you who are also like me understand what I’m talking about.) Still have not figured that out yet, but I am learning daily.

Being raised by my single white mother, I never had a chance to experience my black culture aside from the R&B music she loved to listen to. It wasn’t until I was about the age of 5 or 6 that started to spend time with my black side of the family.

You can read a little more in-depth telling of my story and struggle with being biracial here.

For the longest time, I have had to fight to be seen as a person of color. That I do “belong at the table” so to speak… or rather that “I am invited to the cookout.” Because of this inward desire to be seen as who I am, I have long suppressed all self-reflection on my own biases and prejudices, because I can not be prejudiced against my own self or people... right?

Then everything happened this past summer with Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and then George Floyd (as well as many others) unjustly losing their lives. Then Black Lives Matter taking to the streets in protest. I felt more than ever the need to post, spread awareness, and “educate” others. Yet, a part of me felt I had to do those things to (again) prove my black-ness (all the while subconsciously denying thoughts of myself having prejudices.) But as days went by these thoughts began to surface and stir in my mind as I read post after post and watched the news.

After months of wrestling with my thoughts and one long honest conversation with my then-girlfriend now fiancé, Micha, I have come to a realization. I am prejudiced against my own people. The causes and situations where it shows itself are not often or deliberate but happen all the same. I was so disappointed in myself and that had taken so long to come to grips with this reality.

Micha prompted the question on that same phone call as to why I think those prejudices exist in the first place. I thought for a bit and the first two conclusions came pretty quickly, childhood bullies and family harassment. The third, however, never came to mind before, but when it came into my head (which I can only attribute to God working) it completely clicked, I had “culture shock” trauma.

Childhood bullies came to my mind pretty easily as I had been bullied most of my time in grade school. While my oppressors came in various races and genders, I remember the cruelest, happened to almost always be of African American descent. They have become such permanent figures in my brain I can remember them each by name. I have always been an easy person to mess with. Despite my efforts to show indifference, it is always obvious when I am uncomfortable or hurting.

I remember during 6th grade, a kid named Deeshawn told me on the bus ride home from school, he was going to fight me when I got off the bus (for what reason I still don’t know) as the other kids cheered him on. I remember ashamedly running home from the bus stop praying I was fast enough to get inside the house to grab my BB gun as some means of protecting myself (I admit it was not a well-thought-out plan.)

Another time in 8th-grade gym class Marquis decided to make me his personal target of a dodgeball game, many hard hits to my gut, face, and crotch, my body not athletic enough to avoid his throws.

For almost my entire sophomore year a football player named Kameryn decided he would refer to me as “Flat Top” based on how one side of my head is a little misshapen, an effect of me being born prematurely. (While it was something I had gotten used to over the years, I was still self-conscious about it.) It took the help of my best friend and school faculty to get him to stop his torment.

In an effort to not go on for days, I will spare you accounts of every bully encounter. These situations isolated might not have resulted in too much, aside from your general childhood trauma. However, I’m convinced they have affected how I perceive anyone who marks a similar resemblance to them, in particular, black men.

To say my family life growing up was complex would be an understatement. While there are no doubt people who have had it rougher, I would still like to believe mine was not all rainbows and butterflies.

Switching from being an only child one week to being the middle child of six the next and as the sole biracial child took a toll in the early years. While my siblings and I did play, joke, and have fun, I was still vastly different from them and they made sure I knew that. I was constantly made fun of and beaten-up on by my older sister and two younger brothers. Sibling squabbles are a pretty normal concept for those who have siblings, it’s something you learn to grow with and even love. However, I was a softy when I was young (a mommas boy if you will) and I did not have a bone of violence in my body. Often coined the “good one” of the bunch. I also had an inability to defend myself well against my siblings which resulted in the aforementioned treatment. This had a negative effect on my mental health, for the most part unbeknownst to me until I reached adulthood.

Another big difference between my siblings and myself was our lifestyles. Each of my siblings at some point in their childhood grew up in less than favorable conditions whether it be living in the ghetto or off food stamps at least for a little bit. While I had not truly felt what it was to go without, if my mother was nothing else, she was a fighter. We were middle class and had a brief stint of needing government assistance but again I never felt the effects of that. 

Something else that only furthered the divide between my siblings and me was culture. Music, style, slang, and the like were worlds different from my own at the time of our meeting. One specific memory I will forever have is all six of us kids eating cereal at the table. Kevin commenting for me to “stop smacking.”  Initially, I did not even realize he was talking to me until he said it again with more force and demand. To which I just stared at him while chewing my cereal a little slower than before, completely confused as to what he meant. Only to have him finally yell moments later, “Stop chewing with your mouth open.” My immediate internal response being “Ooooh” and quickly shut my mouth. The language barrier is something that continued to stifle my relationships with my family until I eventually (slowly) caught on (something I now know as “code-switching.”)

The differences between my siblings and I could not be further apart. I was always the odd one out in every scenario because of that and I would be lying if I said I didn’t hold at least a little resentment. The lifestyle and culture they grew up in was just life for them so why would there be any conscious that I might not understand any of it, especially as kids. If the responsibility fell on anyone aside from myself, it should have been my father who helped me understand… but that is a conversation for another time.

Lastly is the issue of culture shock trauma. A lot of this has to do with my previous paragraph and how I grew up. Before the age of five, I don’t have many memories of my father, he was there in some capacity during the early years but I do not recall seeing him often enough. For a few years, the only “interaction” I remember having with him was when he would send me birthday or Christmas presents. Another being when my mother would put him on the phone to get me to behave (these phone interactions I now realize made me associate fear with his voice.) My mom and I moved from Ohio to Indiana in 2000 just before I was to start 1st grade. We moved to be closer to both sides of my family including my father himself. I remember the day my mom told me I would be spending some time with my dad and his new family, just recently remarried to wife #2 Shannon mother to Kevin (older), Keeshawn (younger), and Mercedez (younger.)

Probably an important thing to note, Kevin, Keesahwn, and I technically share no blood relation but because we have grown up together we consider ourselves no less than blood.  Of those three Mercedez and I share our father. Also while we are on it, my older sister Destiny and other younger brother Eric share our father but each has a different mother from myself or the other three aforementioned. #complex

I was thrown into staying with my father and his new family for what felt like years but in reality, was only for the summer. I remember that day so vividly. I remember they met us at a family member’s house. I got into my dad’s Ford Expedition, seeing Keeshawn directly in front of me with Mercedez in her car seat next to him and Kevin in the seat behind. I offered them some Skittles my mom had bought me just 30 minutes earlier at Lowe’s. I remember that summer how different everything about their lives was from my own and how I felt so entirely out of place. I remember how I was forced to eat everything on my plate before I could get up from the table or drink anything. I remember how I had a panic attack from losing a sock because I got anxious about losing anything of my own while I was there. I remember how I was not allowed to call my mom and how my dad would tell her to stop calling. I remember crying… a lot. I remember there was one night a month after being there my mom got to take me to a fair for the evening and we played games and ate super sugary fair food. Then the feeling of absolute dread when she told me I had to go back later that night. I begged and begged to stay with her. I remember as punishment for whenever we did something wrong we would have to do this T-pose thing where we keep our arms up and out for minutes (but felt like hours.) I remember whenever we were in public and misbehaved we got a hard swat to the back of our hand. I remember learning all the slang my siblings spoke and feeling so scared and confused when I did not understand what was being said around or to me. I remember going to our all-black southern baptist church being the only, not entirely black person there. I remember how we would often go without breakfast and sometimes lunch. I remember being in a perpetual state of grief because Shannon seemed so mean and angry all the time. I remember how my Dad forced us to call Shannon “Mom” and how much of a gut punch it was because I disliked Shannon a lot, and equating her to someone I loved so dearly felt wrong. I remember how I never actually got to spend one on one time with my father ever. I remember how for the most part during a lot of this my father was not ever around. I remember Kevin acting viscerally toward us because he was always forced to babysit us younger kids. I remember how I never wanted to be there and always wanted to go home when I was. I remember how I felt like I would never actually belong there and no one told me otherwise.

All of these differences are cultural but drastic compared to what I was familiar with, with just my mother. I was thrown into them without hesitation or a moment to acclimate. I went from being raised as an only child by a single white woman to the aforementioned being my life for the rest of that summer then rotating weekends and following summers until I was 18. I can only define these experiences as culture shock trauma. However, if I have missed the mark and that is not a depiction of culture shock trauma I am genuinely not sure what is.

Now, all of those experiences might sound grim and maybe even abusive but, I would boil it down to simple cultural differences. The eating all the food thing comes from Shannon (rightfully so) not wanting to make another meal for me or my brother’s picky asses when she spent an hour or more on the one in front of us. The whole drink thing because if we drank a bunch before eating we would think we were “full” and would not eat. The T-pose because let’s be honest the belt would have been far worse and she was saving us haha. Shannon was not necessarily mean she was just tough, because black women have to be, and dealing with three, four, five, or six kids (depending on which combo of us were there) is exhausting to do on your own so patience was thin - a true expression of tough love. And while time with my siblings was rough it was not all bad. Some of the other stuff was just reality, outside of everyone’s control and not anyone’s fault. Now the stuff involving my dad was not and is still not okay and I’m dealing with that.

All of these things affected my young and growing mind and I assume warped for better or worse my outlook on life and black folks. In more ways than one these things traumatized me.  They took the base of what I had grown to know and understand and flipped it upside down for better or worse. But now I am forced to question myself whenever I tense up as a group of black men or teens pass me by. Whenever I’m in the “not so nice” part of town why do I lock my car doors if someone is strolling by my car without thinking. Why do I look over my shoulder when walking down the street in the evening as I hear the boom of the bass coming from a strolling vehicle. Why do I get nervous and skittish if a black stranger approaches me on the street?

My journey in understanding myself (and my people) and ultimately loving myself (and my people) as I am (as they are) still has a long way to go. Considering I’m only uncovering these prejudicial truths at the age of 25 and why I have them in the first place, it is safe to say I have work I must continue to do for myself. But I’m optimistic for the future and everything it holds.

PS - - I am sure my outlooks and conclusions are far form perfect and in some areas miss the mark. If you think so please let me know, but please do so in the mindset that I am working to face my prejudices head on, I am in no way denying they exist. Be honest and blunt, but be gentle.

#self #love #selflove #Biracial #I AM BIRACIAL #black #white #blackandwhite #culture #mental health #childhood trauma #truama

[lapsa-lapsa]

Rob James-Collier: Oh, You Handsome Devil!

As Downton Abbey's hot gay villain, Rob James-Collier finds love -- and redemption.

BY

AARON HICKLIN

THU, 2013-01-03 09:04

Photography by David Bailey

Styling by Julian Ganio

Last March, when The New Yorker’s Ian Crouch declared an “epidemic of Downton Abbey fever,” he wasn’t wrong. The show has been nothing short of a phenomenon, a runaway success for dowdy old PBS, far outpacing in ratings that other popular period drama, Mad Men. It’s a classic tale of love and fortune with a fundamental mystery at its core, namely: How can something this schlocky be this good? Maybe it has something to do with its formula, equal parts high class to high camp (yes, Dame Maggie Smith, we’re looking at you); or its bucolic English setting; or, more likely, its blatant appeal to our closeted hankering for a butler fully versed in the art of decanting vintage port. After all is said and done, who has not wished that they, too, could be in the position to declare, like the Dowager Countess with her imperious mix of disdain and perplexity, “What is a week-end?”

Indeed, what is a weekend without Downton Abbey to cozy up with on Sunday nights? And here it is, back again to keep winter from the door—season 3, and with it the Roaring Twenties to blow away the agony of war and the insult of rationing. Expect flappers and the Charleston, and a Marcel wave or two.

Let me come clean: I haven’t seen a preview of season 3 -- in my home that would be cheating; it’s what we still call appointment TV -- but I have it on great authority that this is the season in which that villainous gay footman-turned-valet, Thomas Barrow, experiences the tender love that his poor, neglected heart so craves and needs. It’s about time. His dalliance with the Duke of Crowborough in the opening episode of season 1 turned out to be a tease. He ended season 2 in the arms of the Dowager Countess, twirling around the dance floor at the Christmas party like a neuter content to spend his prime escorting ladies of a certain age to the ball.

We should have known that creator and writer Julian Fellowes would not disappoint. Season 3 is where it all changes for young Thomas. And for us, too. Although there clearly were gay men in Edwardian England, they’ve been in scant supply on television. There was, of course, Sebastian and Charles in Brideshead Revisited, whose “naughtiness [was] high on the catalogue of grave sins,” as Evelyn Waugh wrote, but they merely hinted at what happened when the lights were off. Thomas promises to go somewhat further. It’s what makes Downton Abbey feel, well, modern.

No one, of course, is more excited by this turn of events than Rob James-Collier, the actor who secured the role of Thomas with the understanding that it was a one-season deal. “My agent said, ‘Listen, you’ve got the part that everyone in town wants—he’s a villain, he’s a great role, the only bad thing is that he dies at the end of the first series,’ ” recalls James-Collier. But Thomas clicked with the audience, and his on-screen chemistry with his maid counterpart, O’Brien (a wonderfully surly Siobhan Finneran), was irresistible. “I gave it 110 percent, and after the first couple of episodes, Liz, the producer, came to me and said, ‘We want you to stay on. Will you?’ And I was, like, ‘Fuck, yeah.’ ”

We are in Bloomsbury, London, sitting in a tiny French patisserie hardly big enough to contain James-Collier’s boundless energy. When he walks in, he immediately begins by quoting lines from articles of mine that he’s found online. It’s discombobulating. Research is my job. At another point, he puts me on the phone with a friend summoned to serve as a character reference. I feel like a luckless audience member at a comedy show, plucked from the front row as a volunteer for a gag. When I accidentally insert a “Smith” into his surname (it’s that damn hyphenate), he is gleeful as hell. “Aaron has got my name wrong, and he’s now floundering, trying to think of it,” he dictates into my recorder.

That double-barreled name, incidentally, was not his choice. He grew up in Salford, near Manchester, as plain Rob Collier, and might have stayed that way had actors union Equity not intervened to avoid confusion with another Rob Collier. “I said, ‘Can I have Rob James Collier, and they said, ‘Yeah, if you hyphenate it,’ and I said, ‘Well, can I have Rob-James Collier?’ and they said -- and this is true -- ‘No, you have to hyphenate the James and the Collier.’ ” He wasn’t happy. In England, hyphenated surnames are for posh people. “I was, like, ‘That sounds like someone from the aristocracy, as if I’m being somebody I’m not.’ But they insisted,” he recalls ruefully. In Britain, still today, there’s little more disreputable than the man or woman who puts on the airs and graces of the upper class.

I went to school with boys like James-Collier. You probably did, too. They are the entertainers and comedians, who laugh at their own pratfalls. What they lack in confidence they make up for in banter. It’s no surprise to hear that James-Collier is the joker on set, and the one with the loudest mouth. “Most actors are really shy and insular creatures,” he explains. “I’ve just always been a dick.” He remembers his first day at acting class (he found it by consulting the Yellow Pages), and realizing that he’d liberated himself. “We were doing these warm-up exercises, running around doing crazy things with our voices, and, rather than feeling stupid, I just felt that I’d come home,” he says. He was working as a marketing assistant at the time, “listening to Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon -- great album, bad album to listen to if you’re in a rut, ticking away the hours that make up a dull day.” Watching Ricky Gervais’s masterwork, The Office, compounded his sense of futility. “It was my office,” he says. “I thought, I can’t do this for the rest of my life, surely?”

Oddly, that is the same dilemma facing Thomas Barrow, shackled to servitude as a footman at Downton Abbey, always looking for an opportunity to elevate his station in life -- and failing. His pitiful efforts to establish a black market in rationed goods during season 2 spoke volumes about the limitations confronting Britain’s working class in the Edwardian era. It’s moments like those that save Downton Abbey from being merely an exercise in sumptuous costume porn.

If you grew up in Britain, as I did, the world of Downton Abbey is a familiar one, conjured in an endless parade of finely wrought television shows, which we send across the oceans like telegraphs from our gilded past. Some of them, like 1981’s 11-hour miniseries, Brideshead Revisited, which introduced Jeremy Irons to the world, or 1995’s six-episode serialization of Pride and Prejudice, which did the same for Colin Firth, strike gold. Few, however, receive quite the rapturous reception of Downton Abbey. The reason, perhaps, is fairly simple: Although Downton wears the clothes (and production values) of quality drama, it has the soul of a soap opera. As my boyfriend likes to say, it’s very efficient, meaning that things happen at lightning speed. Resolutions come thick and swift, which is all part of the pleasure.

Fellowes himself takes credit for modernizing the format by borrowing his style from U.S. shows like The West Wing, but it’s also that the concerns of the show are discernibly our concerns, albeit in Edwardian costume. For James-Collier, “Downton Abbey is a workplace like any other. You’re going to get cliques of people who don’t like each other -- Thomas and O’Brien versus Bates and Anna -- and you’re going to get people who really love doing their jobs and people who are bitter and feel they’re just a number. It’s about relationships in the workplace environment, and people can identify with that because the same problems and political conflicts you have in work today were relevant back then.”

Coincidentally or otherwise, almost all the actors who play servants in Downton Abbey got their start in English soap operas -- gritty exercises in social realism, fully rooted in working-class culture. The oldest of those shows, Coronation Street -- set in Manchester -- has run continuously for 52 years, and nurtured generations of acting talent. James-Collier arrived on the series in 2006, as  “loveable rogue” Liam Connor, and stayed for two years before deciding he wanted to take on a different kind of challenge.

“It’s a great, brilliant show, but you have to make a decision,” he says. “I’m not knocking anyone for going that way [of soap operas] -- you can get security, and God knows we need that, but I think you’re limited then in terms of your options as an actor.” After Coronation Street, he was out of work for 15 months, waiting for the right thing to come along. “I watched people who had left these kinds of shows and had seen what happened,” he says. “So I knew you had to literally put the shutters down and just pray and hope that something would come along, and when the wolves were near the door, Downton Abbey came.”

James-Collier has joked that his character’s sexuality became so muted in season 2 that he called up Fellowes and asked, “Am I still gay?” Yes, it turns out. In season 3, we get to see Thomas outed in a powerful sequence of episodes that James-Collier considers the best acting of his career. “It’s the series where we really comes to grips with Thomas’s sexuality and the impact being gay must have had on him, in Edwardian times,” he says. “If you’re including a gay character, there’s an onus and responsibility to at least show what the impact of the time will be on him, and of him on that time. Thankfully we’ve done that, and I’m so proud that I’ve been used to tell that tale.”

A confrontation between Thomas and the butler, Mr. Carson, proves to be a high point, and one that confers uncommon dignity on the footman. “It’s a lovely, beautiful moment,” says James-Collier, clearly delighted by the opportunity to redeem his character. “If you were gay in those times, the fact that you’re even functioning, how you’re not completely fucked up by that, is beyond me.”

Although not gay in real life, he says he has empathy for misfits and outsiders, perhaps because of his own atypical route to acting. Even now it’s clear that he can’t quite believe that he’s earned his place as an actor. He recalls sitting opposite Maggie Smith during the first read-through (“a proper pinch-yourself moment”) and feeling that everything out of his mouth sounded like wooden splinters. It can’t be easy playing the least lovable character on the show. When she arrived on set, guest star Shirley MacLaine greeted him with the words, “It’s you -- the evil one! Why are you so evil?” The answers, apparently, are all in season 3. “With O’Brien and Thomas, you’ve got these two forces, and it’s a kind of paradox -- they work for this great house that keeps them off the streets and from starving, and yet they absolutely despise the system they’re in, because there’s no other option,” he says. “In a weird way Thomas wants to bring down the system, but if he did he’d be putting himself out of a job and a home.”

As he was talking, I remembered something: My own grandmother, now 92, had started her working life “in service” as they say, at the age of 14, still a child herself. That would have been in the 1930s -- the same era as Julian Fellowes other big country–house hit, Gosford Park, for which he won a best original screenplay Oscar in 2002. At the time my grandmother went into service, her father was ill and her mother was struggling to hold things together. “It was an awful wrench to leave my sisters and brothers at home, but it was one less pair of shoes under the table,” she explains when I ask about her experiences. My grandmother, a country girl, didn’t work in the big house (as one of her sisters did), but for a doctor’s family, where she was excruciatingly lonely.

“I think that’s the reason I got married so young -- to get out of it,” she says. “I did all the cooking and all the cleaning, and had one half day off a week, and a whole day off once a month.”

“No weekends, then?” I ask.

“Oh, there were no weekends,” she says, conjuring Maggie Smith’s glorious bafflement in season 1. It is to Downton Abbey’s credit that this stark double meaning isn’t entirely lost on the audience, or that the disparity between those upstairs and those downstairs isn’t varnished into oblivion. It’s left to us to imagine how people of O’Brien’s resourcefulness or Thomas’s ambition would fare in our own age, but one thing’s certain—they wouldn’t be spending their weekends polishing the silver.

https://www.out.com/entertainment/television/2013/01/03/rob-james-collier-downton-abbey

#robert james collier #thomas barrow #downton abbey #interview

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Extraction (15/16)

Summary: Intelligence Agent Belle French has been given her most challenging assignment yet – one that will provide her agency with absolutely vital information on a practically untouchable arms dealer.

In addition to all the usual dangers any assignment carries, Belle also faces the edifying task of convincing Rum Gold to return to help the agency one last time. Agent Gold left the world of international espionage years ago, after an assignment went terribly wrong and ended in his imprisonment and torture, and he vowed never to return, but the agency cannot complete their mission without him…

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Read the previous chapters here on AO3.

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Fifteen

Belle couldn’t quite believe that it was over. She was still having trouble processing the fact that not only was she still alive, but that everyone else involved in the case was still alive, and that she was back home a free woman and not rotting somewhere underground in an Avalon prison. Even more astonishing was the fact that Regina was safe and sound as well. Graham was recovering well from his injuries and was back in the safehouse, and although Mal’s message about Daniel had been guarded, Belle got the impression that he was well on the way to making a full recovery as well. They had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat; so much had happened in so few seconds to turn the tables, and now here they were.

Blue, needless to say, was absolutely furious.

“Honestly,” Emma moaned from her desk in the bullpen, laying down her pen and paperwork and resting her head on the desk with a groan. “You’d think that she’d be happy that none of us are dead, at least.”

“Emma, you’ve read the Foresight file,” Belle pointed out. “You know how little respect for human life Blue has. It’s all about the intelligence. Now that Cora’s dead, there’s nothing to be gained. The entire assignment was a huge waste of time and resources in her eyes, and Cora’s now unable to answer for her crimes or stand trial.”

“But she’ll never cause any more trouble again!” Emma exclaimed. “I don’t understand how she can’t think that this is a good thing. If everything had gone off without a hitch and we’d extracted Regina as we’d planned and got all the information out of her during debrief, then it could still have taken years for us actually to bring down Cora, even with the inside source.” She paused, finally lifting her head off her paperwork and detaching the post-it note that had become adhered to her cheek. “I mean, I understand that it’s always bad when lives are lost during an assignment, be they our own people or the other side. I know that we strive to do everything with the minimum of bloodshed, but really, sometimes these things are the only way. Even with Regina’s evidence I don’t think that we could have broken Cora. I think that killing her was the only way to do it.”

“I think it’s more that the decision was taken out of Blue’s hands that’s making her so angry.” Belle leaned back in her chair, chewing on the end of her pen as she pondered. It was not unheard of for the agency to order assassinations of marks, but there was a separate team dedicated to those kinds of assignments, the ‘cleaners’ who got all the messy jobs. As it was, the agency had not made that decision. It had been made for them, by a terrified young woman in fear of both her own life and the lives of people she cared about. “And I think that she wanted to get Zelena grilled on some of her torture and interrogation methods so that we can get the human rights lawyers involved. Or use them ourselves, that’s possible.”

Emma glanced over to Blue’s office, the other woman was talking on the phone and looking her usual calm, unruffled self. “More likely, if you ask me,” she muttered darkly. “We completed our objective. We extracted Regina. Why we have to go through so much debrief for an assignment that succeeded…” She threw her squashy duck stress reliever at the wall; it bounced off and hit Blue’s office window, and their superior gave Emma a filthy look. Emma, for her part, merely rolled her eyes and went to retrieve the duck, whilst David Nolan tried and failed to stop himself from bursting out laughing.

“Shut up,” Emma snapped. “Or I’ll throw Floyd at you.”

David did not stop laughing, and he soon found himself under attack from a small duck. It was at that point that Blue finished her phone call and came out of her office.

“Swan! Nolan! You’re in the middle of a complex debrief and I need those reports before the end of the day! There’s no time for you to be acting like children!”

Emma just glowered, going back to her desk and making a show of spreading out all her papers in front of her. Blue’s nostrils flared and she turned to go back into her office.

“French!”

Belle rolled her eyes, suppressed a sigh and gathered up the operation file, following Blue into the claustrophobic room that served as her office. The door had barely swung shut when there came an almighty commotion from outside the bullpen, and the entire team turned in the direction of the door as the raised voices came ever closer.

“Sir, really, you can’t go…” someone was saying frantically, to which a wonderfully familiar Scottish brogue replied.

“Until they lockdown my security access I can go wherever I damn well please.”

Blue went rather pale. “Why does Gold still have security access?” she asked faintly of no-one in particular.

“Because we’re still in debrief,” Belle replied sweetly. “He’s still got access whilst you’re still asking him for reports.”

Blue gave a long-suffering sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose, going to sit back behind her desk. Belle saw her pop a couple of aspirin, and she smiled. The bitch deserved whatever was coming her way, headache included.

There was the electronic clunk of the bullpen door unlocking, and it slammed open with ferocious force. Gold was standing in the frame, sharp suited, cane in one hand, plastic wallet of paperwork clenched almost beyond recognition in the other, and the sight he presented was one of beautifully incandescent rage. It was like the moment in a film where the presumed-dead hero picks himself up and comes striding in to save the day. The junior officer hovering in the door behind him decided it was best to cut her losses and she scampered away. If Gold had clearance to be in this bullpen then she wasn’t going to stop him using it, and she wasn’t going to cross Blue if at all possible.

“Fae!” Gold growled. “Fae, you’d bloody better be in here!”

He strode into the room, a larger than life figure despite his small stature, the healing wounds on his face and neck just lending ever more gravitas and strength to his appearance, and Belle side-stepped to allow him into Blue’s office, closing the door behind them to give the illusion of privacy, although knowing Gold as she did, she was certain that in the confrontation to come, the others outside would be able to hear exactly what was going on.

He slammed the wallet down on the desk and pushed it towards Blue, looming over her across the polished wood. Blue’s hand inched across her desk towards her phone and Gold swept the receiver off his desk with the handle of his cane. For a moment, Belle’s hand twitched, almost going to her service weapon. Gold was fuming, a state that she hadn’t seen him in before, and in that moment, he looked downright dangerous. When he spoke at last, his voice was a sharp whisper, hissed through his teeth.

“You told me she was mine.”

Blue looked from the plastic wallet to Gold, her cool, emotionless eyes meeting his impassioned ones.

“Yes,” she said coldly. “I did.”

Gold took a step back, not sitting down but no longer the looming, predatory figure that he had been before, and Belle’s hand relaxed. He leaned heavily on his cane, as if that initial burst of anger had taken it out of him and he no longer had the will to fight furiously in the face of Blue’s immoveable steel.

“You told me that she was mine because you knew that I would drop everything and go to her,” he growled. “You knew that after what you did to my son, I would jump at the chance to make sure that nothing happened to my daughter. You used me, Blue. You used my son against me before and you used him against me again now!”

“I did what I had to do to make you accept the assignment,” Blue replied. “And nothing you can bluster and shout and threaten me with will make me regret what I did. Although the assignment could have been completed a lot more cleanly,” here she looked at Belle, “it achieved its aim, one that would not have been achieved without your co-operation. Of course I manipulated you. I had a job to do, and in a line of work such as ours, we cannot afford to let emotions get in the way of that. I would have thought that was a lesson you would have learned well after your last assignment in Avalon. Wasn’t it your tender feelings for Cora Mills that got you into this entire mess in the first place?”

“Don’t try to pretend that wasn’t your idea, Blue,” Gold snarled, and he smacked his fist against the plastic wallet again. “You told me that she was mine, you sent me out there to what was almost my death on false pretences. You knew.”

Belle came closer to the table and saw the top sheet of the paperwork in the crumpled wallet. It was Regina’s medical notes from the House, including DNA. It was there in damning black and white; Regina and Gold were not related by blood.

Gold gave a harsh bark of laughter. “You’re a first class bitch, Fae, but then you always were. As long as you get what you want, it doesn’t matter who you screw over.”

“We’re in international intelligence,” Blue replied levelly. “Screwing people over is our job.”

“We don’t screw over our own,” Gold snapped. “We don’t leave our own agents in the hands of sadistic psychopaths for two fucking years because it’s not convenient for us to have them back. We don’t take away everything that one of our own has left and then use that loss to make them do the one thing they promised they would never do again, to send them back to the place that took so much away from them, to send them out to die under false pretences. We don’t do that to our own people.”

Blue’s hard expression was unwavering in the face of Gold’s ire. “We do what we have to in the name of national security,” she said. “Anything that we have to.”

“You and your godforsaken greater good.” Gold picked his security access card out of his jacket pocket and tossed it onto the desk; it skittered across and fell into Blue’s lap. “Since you’ll have my access revoked as soon as I’m out of the building after this little stunt, you might as well have it. I’m done, Fae. Done with your lies, done with you trying to rip me and my family apart in the name of international security. But you’re going to do one thing for me. One last little favour after everything that I’ve done for you.”

“What might that be?” Blue asked.

“Bae. You’re going to give me Bae’s files.”

“They’re locked down, Gold. You can’t just walk out of here with them.”

“I’m not intending to. But I’ll keep reminding you, until you give me what I want. As I’m sure you’ll remember from those good old days, I can be very persuasive.”

He turned on his heel, and gave Belle a polite nod. “Agent French, perhaps you would care to escort me from the building.”

“I would be glad to, Agent Gold.”

“French, get back here!” Blue snapped as Belle left her office, gathering up her coat and handbag from her desk and locking up her workstation.

“I’m cashing in my overtime,” Belle called over her shoulder as she swiped Gold out of the bullpen.

Once they were in the elevator going down to the entrance, Gold sagged, leaning heavily on his cane and the lift wall, flexing his bad ankle. The beating he’d taken in Avalon had aggravated old wounds best left unopened, and Belle could tell that the display of force in Blue’s office had really taken it out of him.

“She’s going to make your life hell for this,” he said, looking up at Belle from his slumped position. “Nobody walks out on Fae Blue.”

“It was worth whatever she throws at me,” Belle said.

“I don’t really know what it’s achieved,” Gold said. “Other than the determination to get Bae’s files by any means necessary. It’s information that should have been released to me before, so there’s no reason why I can’t have it now. She’ll try and fudge it in some way, but she’ll have to give up in the end. Patience is a virtue.”

They reached reception and Belle swiped him out of the building entirely, stepping out into the November afternoon after him.

“So what happens now?” she asked him.

“Now I go back to Scotland, and try to forget that all this ever happened.” Gold sighed. “But before then, I have a package to collect, and I was wondering if you would care to accompany me.”

Belle raised an eyebrow. “What kind of package?”

“Regina’s debrief is complete,” Gold replied. “I’m going to collect her from the House and take her home.”

Belle smiled. “In that case, I would love to come.”

They made the drive to the House in silence for the most part, but as they were pulling up to the gates and Belle was showing her credentials to the security guard, she felt that she had to ask the question that had been burning at the back of her mind throughout the journey, ever since the revelation of Regina’s true parentage.

“Did you suspect that Regina wasn’t yours at any point?” she asked as they continued up the driveway towards the complex.

Gold shook his head. “No. Not even when Cora was taunting me. I knew that she just wanted to get under my skin and rile me, and I thought that she was just saying it for my reaction. To be honest, I think it would have been quite hard for her to tell whose child Regina was; I don’t think she knew herself unless she’d got her hands on DNA results. It was only after we got back here that the slight doubt started to creep into my mind. I know what Blue’s like, and I know that this information would have been gold dust to her, no pun intended. All of a sudden, once I was back here, it struck me just how convenient it was that she’d got her hands on this intel just at the time when she needed it. I hadn’t questioned it at the time because I’d always suspected Regina was mine. She just played all the right cards and I played right into her hands, like I always do.” Gold sighed, flexing his fingers on the steering wheel as they crept up the drive. “There’s something about Blue that’s always been able to get under my skin, even before everything happened twenty years ago. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t have anyone of her own that she cares about like we care about our loved ones. She doesn’t understand the ferocity of the bonds that we share. She’s married to the service and always has been. It’s not a choice that I can criticise; that’s what she wants to do. But I do think that it affects the way she views other people’s relationships, as if love and companionship is somehow beneath her.”

Belle nodded, she could understand exactly where he was coming from. They reached the House carpark and Gold looked up at the magnificent building with a sigh.

“With any luck, this will be the last time that I see the place. It’s a shame. There are some good memories here in among all the bad ones.”

“Granny said that you and Mal were quite the team when it came to making trouble whilst you were training,” Belle said.

“Oh, we ran her absolutely ragged.” Gold chuckled. “Sometimes she couldn’t believe that we were grown adults rather than teenagers. You’d never think it to look at us now, of course, both the picture of respectability.”

It wasn’t respectability as such, more just the fact that life had caught up with them. After everything that had happened over the past twenty years, neither Mal nor Gold looked like they had been pranksters in their younger days, but sometimes, when Gold smiled, Belle could see the traces of the man that he had once been fight their way through to the surface. He smiled more readily now, she noticed as they moved around the House building to the entrance. Handing in his security clearance and cutting his ties with Blue and the service seemed to have done him the world of good and taken a weight off his mind.

Ruby greeted them as they entered the House. When they had first arrived back with Regina, bruised and battered and barely having made it, the other woman had been unable to let go of Belle for about five minutes, so glad to see her alive and well after everything that had happened.

“It’s all quiet on the western front,” she said. “Mal’s been sending us regular direct updates in addition to the reports she’s sending to Blue. She says that everything’s normal, the police bought the story of Cora’s death and are sweeping the whole thing under the rug. Although everyone over there knew that she was involved in some very suspect activities, they don’t exactly want to advertise it. They’ve got some people sniffing around about Regina’s absence, but nothing they can’t handle. The inquisitors have finished, she was perfectly co-operative and they don’t think that there’s anything more to be gained from mining her for more information now that Cora is out of the picture; her network will have gone underground, but the Avalon office will be ready to pounce on them when they do emerge. Considering what happened, I’d say that it was a very successful assignment, but no doubt Blue feels differently. I’m amazed she let you out of the office, to be honest.”

Belle snorted. She knew that she’d get so much flack when she returned later, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Some things were more important.

“She’s through here.”

Ruby led them out into the quad, a central courtyard that the sprawling house complex was built around, with the main stately home as its front façade and other more modern extensions covering the other three sides. The space was made into a small garden so that those who were under lockdown in the house and not able to leave the building could still enjoy the sunshine and fresh air. Regina was sitting on a bench, her rucksack at her feet. The dye had long since washed out of her hair and it curled around her face where Belle had cut it. She smiled when she saw the two agents coming towards her.

“Ruby says I’m free,” she said. “I guess you’re my escort out of here.”

“That we are.” Gold crossed the quad and sat down beside her. “How’ve they been treating you?”

“Good. I’m not going to lie, I was half-expecting thumbscrews and waterboarding, but we just talked. It’ll be nice to get out of here though, it’s a lovely building but I’m used to the open air. Stupid really, the thing I miss most about home is my horse.” She grinned and turned to Gold. “Mal sent me a message this morning, Daniel’s doing well and they’re going to get him moved over here at the end of next week.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

There was a long pause then, and Belle felt a little awkward, like a third wheel hovering by the doors, and she feigned interest in her phone. This was a moment between two people who had built such a close bond over so few days without really knowing each other, and who had just had the rug pulled out from under their feet.

“Regina,” Gold began presently, his voice gentle, “I’m not quite sure of the most delicate way to put this, but you’ve got to know that I’m not your father.”

Regina nodded. “I know. I’ve always known. Ever since Mama told me about you and I started suspecting that you were, she set the record straight.”

“If you knew, why did you want me to be the one to come and get you?” Gold asked. There was a little edge in his voice now, a hint of steel at the idea that Regina had used his feelings for her in the same way that Blue had.

“Because you were the only person I knew who’d gone up against Cora.”

“I lost,” Gold pointed out. “If you were looking for a stellar example of intelligence operations, that wasn’t one.”

“I don’t mean it like that. I don’t really know what I mean. I mean, she’d screwed you over just like she kept screwing me over. I kind of felt like we were kindred spirits, in a way. And I know it’s stupid but I’d always thought of you more as a father figure than my actual father. I never met either of you, but you were always the one I had in mind when I imagined someone coming to rescue me from the nightmare I was living. My real father was dead, I knew that there was nothing he could do. But you were still out there, you still had the same kind of feelings towards Cora as I did… I felt certain that if anyone would help and want to get some kind of revenge on her, you would.”

There was a long pause, and Gold’s hand closed over Regina’s on the bench beside him.

“The blood of the covenant runs thicker than the water of the womb,” he said. “I don’t regret coming to get you, Regina. I never will. And I promise that I will continue to keep you safe. And Daniel when he gets here, although I’m sure he can do a better job of protecting you than I can. Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

Regina picked up her bag and they both got to their feet, coming back towards Belle.

“I’ll stay here a while,” she said, conscious of the fact that she really needed to leave the two of them alone together to get themselves sorted out and work out where their strange little friendship was going. “Ruby can give me a lift back to HQ later.”

This was it, the parting of the ways. She shook hands with Regina, who took a pointed look between the two of them and ducked inside the house to give them some time alone.

“Thank you for everything, Belle,” Gold said. “I could not have hoped for a better, more resilient or more caring partner than you.”

He shook her hand, pressing his lips against her cheek in a gesture of farewell. For a long moment, looking into his eyes as they broke apart, Belle wondered what he was thinking, if he wanted to kiss her as badly as she wanted to kiss him.

“You’re very welcome,” she said eventually.

There was another moment of silence screaming with unsaid words, and then Gold gave her a wan smile and moved into the house. Belle remained standing in the doorway, her fingers pressed against her cheek, feeling the memory of his lips there.

#rumbelle fic #rumbelle #Spies!AU #Regina Mills #Fic: Extraction

[nfl2sevensummits]

Joe Kelly: Former first round draft pick and teammate of mine, Joe Kelly speaks up about Black Lives Matter. Very powerful convo including former Head Coach Jim Mora on the pod. Joe details what it has been like to be black in America.

155: Joe Kelly: Former NFL Linebacker and  and All-Star Player, gives his take on the murder of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter response, his own experiences with racial profiling as an African American professional athlete, and the systemic biases that need to change. 

  Joe Kelly 

Host Mark Pattison met Joe Kelly at the University of Washington. Since then, Joe Kelly has had an 11-year NFL career with the Cincinnati Bengals, New York Jets, Los Angeles Raiders, Los Angeles Rams, Green Bay Packers, and Philadelphia Eagles. But Jim’s success on the field didn’t protect him from racial discrimination off of the field as an African American man. “This isn’t something that is new for the African American community. It is just now that it is being taped. If we can go back to what half of America thought was very controversial with Colin Kaepernick taking a knee. We as African Americans understood it was never about the flag. That is a discussion that needs to be had as well because it wasn’t about disrespecting the flag, disrespecting the national anthem. His focus was on what you saw in Minneapolis 7 days ago with Mr. Floyd. We are talking about the things that we as African Americans deal with, regardless of your financial status. Still, when you walk out of that door, you are black. When you come out of that locker room, you’re black. When you cash that $1 million check, you’re black.”

  On this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, we talk with Joe Kelly about how history keeps repeating itself with racial oppression and what Joe Kelly has experienced with his own eyes. “In my own neighborhoods, I didn’t really have that problem growing up. But it wasn’t until I got to the NFL and I was making money that I started personally dealing with being racially profiled, being stopped and not getting a ticket, but having a gun put to my head. That happened to me 6-7 times. I never got a ticket. But I fit the description. So, what we’re talking about here, regardless of what Mr. Floyd did 10 minutes prior to the video. For 9 minutes, for 9 minutes the police had their knee on his neck and basically murdered the guy. But this isn’t anything new to us.”  

  What You Will Learn:

Joe highlights the economic inequities that exist against African Americans. “When you talk about generational wealth, the African American community has never really been allowed, for years, to be able to be put in that category because they weren’t initially allowed to own homes and the banks wouldn't allow them or loan money to them to buy the homes. They started businesses. They couldn’t get loans to start businesses. So, you always stay at a point where you are always below the poverty level.” 

Equality and change takes people of all races. “This thing has galvanized. Even with the Civil Rights movement we had pockets of the United States, cities. There are countries. We have countries right now, and you have 50% of the people out there protesting are caucasian. So, when we made the changes in the Civil Rights, it wasn’t just because of us protesting and rioting, because at the end of the day we didn’t have power with the politicians. We had to get out there and vote. You have to vote for people that are going to change policies.”

There has been a long-wronging history of police brutality against African Americans. “Here, being a first-round pick, being racially profiled and having guns put to my head at routine stops. We’re trying to let everybody understand that plight of police brutality, and they don’t have to have a reason. You’ve seen the caucasian kid that went in and murdered wonderful African Americans in South Carolina. When they caught him, they eventually got Burger King for him. He wasn’t thrown to the grown. He wasn’t brutally maimed.” 

Joe Kelly explains white privilege and how he has had to carry himself out in public in order to deal with it safely. “White Americans need to understand, not just White Supremacy because those are people way on the right, white privilege. You know, there is white privilege. Me being an African American man, I’ve been in the elevator, being the only African American in the elevator and I have to purposely make other people, other white people on the elevator feel comfortable because I don’t want them to think that I’m this angry black man and that they have to worry about getting robbed. That is ingrained.” 

Black Lives Matter is about African Americans having equal opportunities, equal legal and justice treatment, and equal economic equity. “Understand that when we say Black Lives Matter, we’re not saying that your life doesn't matter, my life is more important than yours. We want to be equal. We’re not hollering because we want to be superior to you. We’ve been trying to fight for 400 years to say that we are your equal. We want to have equal access to housing. We want to have equal access to jobs. What we’re talking about here is being able to open up a business, getting a bank loan, the judicial system. Talking about black-on-black crime, when black folks kill black folks, they go to jail for a long time. It is working in that aspect. But it is not working when a black person is killed at the hands of a police officer.” 

  Unequal Education Systems 

There is a huge disparity between schools in poverty-stricken black inner city neighborhoods and wealthy white neighborhoods. “When you are growing up with an educational system that is so inferior to a school that is probably five minutes away. Those kids have better teachers. They have better resources. They have better extra-curricular activities. Where here, kids are coming to school in inner city areas, they come to school hungry. My kids, I’ve been doing group homes since I retired and my kids go to school and the books they bring home. They had this book in the 80s when I was in school. It starts there. It starts with the educational system, getting to some point where it is fair.” 

  Change is Needed  

During this episode of Finding Your Summit Podcast, the discussion with Joe Kelly also delves into the importance of true racial change and unity around this issue. “The African American community can in no way do this by ourselves systemically. This has been part of our society since the beginning, before slavery. It isn’t changing overnight. You would think after Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights that we wouldn’t be discussing what happened to Floyd. That should be so far from reality. But that is our reality.”

  Links to Additional Resources:

Mark Pattison: markpattisonnfl.com

Emilia’s Everest for the Epilepsy Foundation: markpattisonnfl.com/philanthropy-wb/

Joe Kelly’s website for K.E.L.L.Y. Youth Services: kellyyouthservices.com

Check out this episode!

[makeuptips10-blog]

Celebrity Couples Who Follow Vegan Diets Together

New Post has been published on https://www.claritymakeupartistry.com/celebrity-couples-who-follow-vegan-diets-together/

Celebrity Couples Who Follow Vegan Diets Together

There’s no doubt that the vegan movement is sweeping Hollywood. Celebrities, such as Alicia Silverstone and Natalie Portman, are using their star power to push the needle forward as some of Hollywood’s most vocal vegan activists. But not all of these plant-loving stars are on their own. There are many celebrity couples where both partners swear by an animal-free diet and lifestyle.

To give you a look at which stars’ homes are meatless and free of animal products, we’ve rounded up TK celebrity couples who are vegan. Some of these couples might surprise you, while others, like Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth, have been preaching the vegan lifestyle for years now. Check out which fan-favorite Hollywood couples are completely plant-based ahead.

Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth

Presley Ann/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images.

In 2014, Cyrus went vegan. She explained to Paper magazine that she went plant-based after her dog, Floyd, was mauled by a coyote, which led her to stop using animal products immediately. Since then, Cyrus has also raised her pig as vegan and gotten a sunflower tattoo (the logo of The Vegan Society) on her arm to celebrate her vegan lifestyle. “I realized these are intelligent animals,” she said on an episode of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

A year later, in 2015, Cyrus’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, Liam Hemsworth, followed in her vegan footsteps. He told Men’s Journal that his decision was inspired by him learning more about the abuse that went into producing meat and other animal products. “My own health, and after all the information I gathered about the mistreatment of animals, I couldn’t continue to eat meat. The more I was aware of, the harder and harder it was to do,” Hemsworth said.

Hemsworth also said that he was inspired to go vegan because of his Hunger Games costar, Woody Harrelson, who has been on the plant-based diet for more than 30 years. “I have a lot of friends who are vegan. Woody Harrelson was actually one of the original reasons I became vegan, because he’s been vegan for, I don’t know, 30 years or something. So, with the facts I was gathering, and then just how I was physically feeling, I felt like I had to do something different, so I adopted this vegan-diet lifestyle,” Hemsworth said.

Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi

Christopher Polk/Getty Images for People’s Choice Awards.

In 2008, DeGeneres revealed on her talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, that she became vegan after watching the documentary Earthlings. “I’ve always called myself an animal lover. And yet I ate them,” DeGeneres told Yahoo in 2012. “Someone mentioned, ‘If you knew what chicken looked like or you knew how chicken was made, you’d never eat it again. Something snapped.”

DeGeneres’s wife, Portia de Rossi, went vegan around the same time when the couple moved to a farm in California and became closer with animals. “I always thought going vegan would be difficult, but I genuinely don’t crave meat or cheese. And I feel happier, like I’m contributing to making the world a less violent place,” de Rossi told O magazine.

However, DeGeneres’s vegan journey hasn’t been without its ups and downs. At a press conference for Finding Dory in 2016, DeGeneres revealed that she started eating fish—though, she admits, that she doesn’t do it often. “When we did Nemo I was eating fish and then I became a vegan for most of those years. And then I just recently started eating fish,” she said. “I rarely eat fish. I don’t really enjoy eating fish.”

It’s unclear what DeGeneres’s diet is like today, but her comments suggest that she isn’t a fan of eating fish and might be doing so for dietary reasons.

Gisele Bündchen and Tom Brady

Matt Winkelmeyer/MG18/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue.

Along with cutting out white sugar and MSG from her family’s diet, Bündchen also makes sure that her family eats vegan, which includes dishes such as veggie sushi and quinoa bowls. The model told People in 2017 that her family has been eating a plant-based diet for years. “We all love it. It’s not only good for our health and makes us feel good, but it is also good for the planet!” Bündchen said.

In addition to her two children, Vivian and Benjamin, the model’s husband, Tom Brady, also eats vegan. In 2017, the Bleacher Report reported that Brady eats vegan most of the year, which he credits to his performance on the football field. However, unlike his wife, Brady isn’t a full-time vegan. The site added that the athlete does eat lean meat in the winter.

Beyoncé and Jay-Z

Larry Busacca/PW18/Getty Images for Parkwood Entertainment.

Bey and Jay-Z made headlines in 2013 when they announced on social media that they were starting a 22-day vegan challenge, which includes 22 days of vegan-delivery service meals. Bey immediately saw the results, which included more energy, better sleep and glowing skin. “At first it’s the little things I noticed: I had more energy,” Bey told The New York Times. “The benefits of a plant-based diet need to be known. We should spend more time loving ourselves, which means taking better care of ourselves with good nutrition and making healthier food choices.”

Though the couple’s vegan diet didn’t last forever, Bey went vegan again in 2018 in preparation for her performance at Coachella. The singer instagrammed a picture of her meal—avocado toast with red peppers and onions—from 22 Days Nutrition, the same vegan delivery service she used years ago, which she and Jay-Z partnered with. It’s unclear if Bey and Jay are full-time vegans now, but with vegan delivery meals at their reach, why not?

Kat Von D and Leafar Seyer

Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Kat von D Beauty.

Both Kat Von D and her husband, musician Leafar Seyer, are vegans. The makeup mogul took to her Facebook in 2015 to reveal that she’s been vegan for several years and dis-spell several myths about vegans. “Science and research confirms that you don’t need meat to be healthy at all, in fact statistics point to quite the opposite. No, your hair won’t fall out – mines healthy and shiny as hell,” she wrote. “No, your skin doesn’t turn yellow or gray – mine’s never looked as healthy as it does now. No, if you eat right, you won’t get all skinny and weak – I have plenty of boobs and ass, and I’M HYPER AS FUCK!”

Along with her animal-free makeup brand, Kat Von D Beauty, Von D also launched a lipstick shade called “Hilda,” which donates part of its proceeds to the Farm Sanctuary, a nonprofit that advocates for animal rights. when Von D and Seyer married in the 2018, the couple also had a vegan red velvet wedding cake and plant-based catering, as well as cruelty-free outfits. The couple teased in September 2018 that they were producing a vegan documentary.

Alicia Silverstone and Christopher Jarecki

Michael Buckner/Getty Images.

Silverstone is one of the most outspoken celebrity vegans. The actor, who wrote a vegan cookbook titled The Kind Diet in 2011, also raises a vegan family, including her son Bear and her separated husband, musician Christopher Jarecki. “People are starting to realize that it’s not just a fad,” Silverstone told Food & Wine. “I feel like it is becoming more common in our culture too, with fun and trendy plant-based restaurants popping up all over the country and even in airports. The great thing about some of these restaurants is that most of the people who choose to eat there aren’t even vegan, they just know it tastes delicious and leaves them feeling good.”

Source: http://stylecaster.com/celeb-couples-vegan/

[chevd-blog]

My Top 100 Favorite Albums of All Time (Part 7: 5 - 1)

Here they are, finally: my five absolute favorite albums ever!

5. De-Loused in the Comatorium – The Mars Volta (2003)

              I received De-Loused in the Comatorium as a present for my 20th birthday, shortly after getting my copy of Frances the Mute. From the day I received it, I listened to it on nearly a daily basis for the next two years. Understand, I never do that with one specific album. It was just so uncommonly good that I couldn’t stop myself from going back for more. And even though I no longer listen to it as frequently, it is still just as good as I remember it. This is the album that I most heavily associate with my time at Ringling College, and with working on projects for my computer animation classes. And believe me, I spent a lot of time on those projects—somewhere in the vicinity of 10 to 15 hours a day, 7 days a week. So to say I quickly became intimately familiar with this album is a bit of an understatement.

              De-Loused is a conceptual ode to the band's fallen friend, artist Julio Venegas, who is rendered in the album's narrative as the protagonist, Cerpin Taxt. In short: Cerpin ingests rat poison and falls into a coma, during which he goes on an epic journey of self-discovery in his own mind, with the denizens of his mental landscape being all his own artistic creations. In the end, Cerpin wakes up in his hospital bed in the real world, but his desire to return to his own mental kingdom ultimately drives him to jump from a freeway overpass. Of course, all of this is tricky to discern from the actual lyrics: the Mars Volta's lyrics are notorious for being oblique and abstract, which listeners could easily mistake for being nonsensical if they aren't paying attention and reading between the lines. (Fortunately, sometime after receiving the album, I was able to procure a .pdf of the album's concept in short story format, released by Gold Standard Laboratories; while the writing style was similar, it went a long way toward making the album's lyrics more coherent. And explaining who or what "Moatilliatta" was.)

              But of course, while the enigmatic lyrics did hold their own sort of fascination with me, the thing that really hooked me was the musicality. The Mars Volta offered up an eclectic blend of punk, progressive and Latin rock, and De-Loused was the album that got the formula juuuust right—a smoothie of influences ranging from Santana to the Smiths to Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd. The intro, "Son et Lumiere", serves as a metaphorical ambulance siren as Cerpin's story begins in situ, then segues into "Inertiatic ESP", with its frenetic waltzing pace, its vintage 70s electric piano riff, and Cedric Bixler-Zavala's repeated wails of "Now I'm lost". As the story progresses to "Drunkship of Lanterns", guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez layers cavernous surf rock licks atop a chugging Latin rhythm, resulting in a track that simultaneously feels haunted and vivified. One of my personal favorites, "Eriatarka", is damn near tantamount to sonic nitrous oxide, with a lilting dreamy melody that never fails to put me into a state of bliss. The album's longest song, "Cicatriz ESP", comes next, starting with a steady rhythm that falls into a serene subterranean pool before exploding into a full-on Latin jazz jam; it was this song that first showed me the true magic behind a well-executed jam session. "This Apparatus Must Be Unearthed" is where the band's post-hardcore roots show through the clearest—a chaotic, fast-paced song that could just as easily have been one of At the Drive-In's more hard-edged offerings, save for its narrative connections to this album. (Also, quick aside: something about the way Cedric's voice sounds while singing "Anonymous, avenge my name" always gives me goosebumps.) And I could go on and on. Ultimately, despite me having some memories and associations tied to it, the main reason De-Loused ended up in my top 5 is simply because of its sheer musicality, which is really impressive. Subsequent Mars Volta albums always made me feel excited, but none of them ever topped this one.

Prime cuts: "Inertiatic ESP", "Drunkship of Lanterns", "Eriatarka", "Cicatriz ESP"

4. Fear of a Blank Planet – Porcupine Tree (2007)

              I have cited several albums on this list as being here chiefly because of associations between them and my move to Canada. If that has gotten redundant or boring, well—I apologize, but it was unavoidable. People have big, important, special moments in their lives, and for me, that was one of the biggest, most important, and special-est in mine. It should probably be pretty predictable, then, that my top five contains a few of these, and that they would be the most prominent examples for me. Fear of a Blank Planet falls into this category. This was the second Porcupine Tree album I obtained, after In Absentia. At the time, it was their most recent album, having come out less than nine months earlier. During my first semester at ECUAD, when I had not yet moved my car up from Florida, I have distinct memories of listening to this album in the mornings while walking by the waterfront along False Creek to my classes on Granville Island, with the beautiful downtown Vancouver skyline on the other side of the water. "Anesthetize", being around 17 minutes long, used to go quite a way toward getting me to my destination.

              Later, as I came into my own as a fine artist, Fear of a Blank Planet became (along with Riverside's Anno Domini High Definition, as mentioned earlier) a major point of inspiration for my work. One of the most polished works to come out of my time at Emily Carr, and the one that may have been most predictive of my later trajectory as an artist, was a large two-panel painting which I called "Blank Planet", as an homage. The album was a perfect summation of my thematic focus on the prevalence of technology in the 21st Century. If the title seems familiar, it's because it was itself a bit of an appropriation from Public Enemy's 1990 recording Fear of a Black Planet; as Steven Wilson has explained, the album's main drive is addressing the major current issues of technology and alienation, in the same way that Public Enemy had addressed the issue of race relations. In Porcupine Tree's case, the songs specifically describe the experience of younger Millennials, who have come of age never knowing a world without the internet, Ritalin, and constant media bombardment.

              The truly astounding thing here is just how palpable the apathy is throughout the entire album, while at the same time being very emotionally affecting. It all begins with the fantastic 9-minute title track, told through the eyes of a detached bipolar adolescent whose claims include "XBox is a god to me", and "my mother is a bitch, my father gave up ever trying to talk to me". The next track, "My Ashes", is a slower, softer song that draws lyrically on the Bret Easton Ellis novel Lunar Park. But of course, it's the aforementioned "Anesthetize", which contains a stellar guest solo from none other than Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson, which truly dominates the album, and demonstrates Porcupine Tree's continued foray into heavy metal. The guest appearances continue with "Way Out of Here", as King Crimson's Robert Fripp contributes ambient soundscapes while the album's tone grows noticeably darker. Finally, the album ends with the electronic droning of "Sleep Together", which I can only describe as resembling what it might sound like if Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails collaborated on a cover of Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir". All in all, while In Absentia receives the lion's share of the recognition from Porcupine Tree's discography, it is Fear of a Blank Planet which is my pick for my absolute favorite of their albums.

Prime cuts: "Fear of a Blank Planet", "Anesthetize", "Way Out of Here", "Sleep Together"

3. Silent Alarm – Bloc Party (2005)

              So what memory of mine can top moving to Canada? Well, the answer is simple: those first few trips to British Columbia, where I got to meet my friend Laurie in person after over two years of communicating exclusively online. She was one of the biggest reasons I was able to survive my time at Ringling without breaking under the pressure. Through all of the project deadlines and disappointments and the otherwise lacking social life, I always had her, encouraging me to keep going. While the two of us ultimately settled into a very happy and very close platonic relationship, at the time, I have to admit, I was quite infatuated with her. Why wouldn't I be? There was an incident once, during a moment of weakness, where I was considering suicide, and she stopped me by calling my house in Florida at 4 AM. Nobody, save for my parents, had ever cared about me in such a way. And so, in December of 2006, when I finally got the opportunity to visit her and spend time with her, of course I was excited. We chatted in my hotel room, and she showed me her neighborhood, and drove me around Vancouver in her old Pontiac Sunfire. And I remember vividly what was playing on her stereo: her copy of Silent Alarm Remixed. That was my first exposure to Bloc Party.

              When I returned to Florida after that first trip, I bought the original version of the album, and it ended up in heavy rotation in my own car stereo for that final semester at Ringling. Admittedly, as I've already mentioned, my first trip to BC did not go quite as smoothly as I had hoped—partially because of the culture shock, and partially because she didn't quite feel the same about me as I did about her. But we remained close friends, and I was willing to try again. When I returned for two weeks the following summer, after my time at Ringling had come to an end, the experience was incredible. No, beyond incredible—they were two of the most important and special weeks in my entire life. That was the trip that finally convinced me to actually commit to moving there. And I suppose Silent Alarm came to symbolize the whole thing for me; it was a new experience for me, one that had been completely unknown, and which represented a new sensibility that didn't really seem to fit my old life in Florida. I was 21, and as "Banquet" put it, I was "becoming adult".

              What makes Silent Alarm all the more impressive, beyond just its great significance to me as the background music of the most seismic shift in my life, is its sheer vitality. For a debut album, it really was as tight as it could possibly be. The chemistry of Kele Okereke's thickly-accented Londoner vocals, Russell Lissack's guitar, Gordon Moakes's bass, and Matt Tong's frenetic drumming resulted in an album that felt unusually charged with electricity. Songs like "Banquet", "Helicopter", and "Like Eating Glass" took a page from the punk playbook without getting mired in the usual trappings of punk. I still can recall that Laurie's favorite was the final track, "Compliments", a sparse, gently humming song that ended the album on a very laidback vibe. When I made the remark about diminishing returns with Bloc Party (waaay back when I was talking about #90 on my list, the band's album Four), this is the point from which they were always subsequently diminishing. This is the high-water mark. And in all fairness to the band—it's kind of difficult not to fall into that pattern when your starting point is already so exceptional and vibrant.

Prime cuts: "Banquet", "Helicopter", "Like Eating Glass", "The Price of Gas"

2. Lateralus – Tool (2001)

              Lateralus was not my first Tool album. That distinction belongs to their first full-length album, Undertow. But Lateralus was the first one to really speak to me from an elevated plane, even before Ænima. Undertow brought the heaviness— I think of it almost as a lead weight in sonic form— but it honestly didn't sound a whole lot like the progressive mainstay that Tool eventually became, and which I came to love dearly. Early on, as I've already said, no band was quite as fundamental in my musical tastes becoming what they are as Tool was. And this is the album where they really came into their own. If Undertow was a lead weight, Lateralus was a clarifying light.

              On the strength of the single "Schism" and its delightfully perplexing music video featuring contortionists in blue-grey body paint, I bought Lateralus the day it was released: May 15, 2001. I was 15 years old. For some time, I nicknamed it the "rain album", because (I kid you not) for the first several months, whenever I would listen to it, by some strange coincidence, it always seemed to bring a storm shortly afterward. I loved everything about it. From the amazing Alex Grey anatomical transparencies in the liner notes, to the strange time signatures and the mystifying lyrics— it grabbed hold of my soul in a way that no other recording has, before or since. From the opening of "The Grudge" to the very last notes of "Triad", and even the bizarre Art Bell radio-show-prank-phone-call-from-Area-51 which constitutes "Faaip De Oiad", Lateralus is an intensely spiritual experience for me. This is my Bible, my Bhagavad Gita. And it has served me well over the years, through the creation of artwork, and studying for exams, and unpleasant dental procedures. (No, seriously, I highly recommend trying this album while pumped full of nitrous oxide. There's nothing like it.)

              "Schism" might be what brings you to the show here, but the two-track suite "Parabol/Parabola" is what keeps you listening, with its poignant message about living in the present and not taking the precious gift of life for granted. The album's closing trilogy of "Disposition/Reflection/Triad" offer another high point, with the second song being the main focus. "Reflection" is not only the longest track on the album, but one of its most divinely beautiful as well, with its Hindustani-influenced drumming and sarangi accented by an electronic drone. But of course, the main centerpiece of the album is the title track, "Lateralus", often cited as one of the greatest metal songs of the 21st Century so far. At nearly nine and a half minutes long, the song's true brilliance lies in its vocal delivery and time signature both being structured around the Fibonacci sequence; the lyrics about "spiraling out" are somehow all the more meaningful when woven into a tapestry whose very fabric is literally the arithmetic behind spirals. For someone like me, who absolutely cannot exist without thoughtful, cerebral music, this is the album that I hold as the gold standard for everything else.

Prime cuts: "Schism", "Parabol/Parabola", "Lateralus", "Reflection"

1. Grace for Drowning – Steven Wilson (2011)

              And then there was one. Of course the list ends right back where it began back at #100, with a Steven Wilson solo album. His second solo effort is probably not the most popular choice out of his body of work, but I don't care. In my view, it's criminally underrated. It's absolutely, hands down, my favorite album of all time. No additional thought required.

              So what's so damn special about Grace for Drowning, that I rank it above even Lateralus? Well, the simple quantity of music is a good place to start. Grace for Drowning is a two-disk set; the first disk contains the majority of the album's tracks, while the second disk is dominated by the monstrous 23-minute behemoth titled "Raider II", as well as a few smaller compositions like "Index" and "Track One". Around the time of the release of Grace for Drowning, Wilson had caused a bit of a stir by mentioning his boredom with continuing to pursue Porcupine Tree's previous heavy metal style, and his unabashed admission that he was listening to much more freeform jazz than hard rock. For some listeners of Porcupine Tree, this was discouraging, particularly because it seemed to telegraph that Steven Wilson really might be serious about being done with his old band. However, in listening to Grace for Drowning, I simply cannot mourn for Porcupine Tree, because Wilson's solo music is every bit as masterfully composed, with quite a bit more freedom to really experiment with new styles without the pressure of preconceived expectations. The end result was not something that pandered to fans, but instead a tremendously courageous and seductive blend of jazz jams and prog rock, with flute and sax sections provided by longtime PT collaborator Theo Travis. It was a true piece of artwork, made all the more miraculous by its emergence amidst a 2010s pop music landscape that is incredibly hostile to such heady endeavors. (*cough* Dubstep. *cough*)

              But then, beneath the veneer of long jam sessions and rock guitars, at his heart, Wilson is a master craftsman of pop as well. "Deform to Form a Star" demonstrates this well, as do "No Part of Me" and "Postcard", a sentimental melody that reeks so much of self-deprecating despondency that it might as well be my personal anthem. Meanwhile, Wilson's penchant for creating eerie and subtly unsettling music shines through on "Remainder the Black Dog" and the instrumental "Sectarian", where dramatic choral arrangements and Travis's diabolical saxophone produce some of the album's most stunning moments of tension. "Index" keeps the tension intact on the second disk, with its lyrical content detailing a fastidious collector whose obsession with adding to his collection ventures dangerously close to creepy and stalker-ish.

              And then, "Raider II" comes on, and all of the unspoken menace that has been slowly building and bubbling under the surface erupts into full effect. How could it not, in an epic song inspired by Dennis Rader, the notorious Kansan serial killer more commonly known as the BTK Strangler? The intro begins with a simple piano passage on the low end, with a clarinet joining in to add some treble; in between, there are long pauses for several seconds at a time, where it could be said that Wilson is playing the anxious silence itself like an instrument. The vocals begin quietly at around a minute and a half into the song, with the intro going quiet one last time before exploding with full fury just before the three-minute mark. The next four minutes cycle through the verses, a few unexpected death growls, and a beautiful flute solo from Travis. Then there's another short lyrical passage, before the unhinged guitar solo, which segues into a smooth saxophone solo. At eleven minutes in, the guitars return with a vengeance, and then recede again into the reverb, leaving a disquieting stillness in their wake. Out of the silence the song catches its second wind and emerges again with a jangly guitar melody, over which Wilson evokes disturbing metaphors for the serial killer's mentality: "A cat among the crows, I'm raider / The butcher and his prose". Finally, the song winds down with a chaotic ensemble, its ever-increasing tempo finally culminating in a single sustained blast of disorder, with two minutes of slow bass and guitar to pad the ending. And after such a harrowing rollercoaster ride, the album ends gently on the palate cleanser, "Like Dust I Have Cleared from My Eye".

              In summary, Grace for Drowning is my favorite album, probably because of the wide emotional range it exemplifies. There are parts of the album that are peaceful and delicate, parts that are achingly sad and wistful, parts that are laidback and mellow, and of course, parts that are incredibly dark and sinister. There is ample expressive complexity and splendor here, for those who can appreciate it. And there is heaviness here, too, in a way that doesn't rely on the metal clichés of Wilson's past. Overall, a phenomenal album, and one that likely won't soon see a challenger for its title as my favorite of all time.

Prime cuts: "No Part of Me", "Postcard", "Remainder the Black Dog", "Raider II"… fuck it, the entire album.

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