#meaning all OJ knew was work

[tuxxydo]

Yoooo did you just watch NOPE that is my favourite movie

oh no, i've seen it already DFBKNDFB. i just started thinking about the ending shot again cus it drives me up a wall.

like... if Peele wanted to show us that OJ was alive; why did he obscure him like this? At first, I was entertaining the idea that Jean Jacket actually killed him and Em is seeing his ghost (which is why their reunion is never shown. "Out Yonder" meaning OJ is "outside of the living world").

But NOW I'm entertaining the idea that the shot is a showing of OJ's ego death. Surviving Jean Jacket's onslaught has turned him into a spectacle. And unlike Emerald, he doesn't have a "personable" front to fall back on.

#a lot of OJ's lines are him talking about 'working' to some degree #and OJ definitely spent all his life on the ranch unlike Em #meaning all OJ knew was work #it's even evident in his name; Otis Jr Haywood #no unique name of his own; just another otis haywood #there's something there with OJ and individuality and capitalism #and how blk ppl have to give up themselves (individually) in order to get a seat at the table or any recognition for the prestige #and i just think of the current work climate and my coworkers and just... SIGH #THERE'S SOMETHING THERE #hey aliens it's me ur boy #tux's interrogation station

[thesecretcornerintheroom]

Pairing: Oj Hayward x Black female reader

Warnings: Rated R for sure 18+, Thigh ridding, praise kink (some fluff if you squint)

Word count: 3,234

The plot: Y/n is Friends with the Haywards and has a crush on Oj who decides to give her a riding lessons.

“What do you mean horses scare you?” Em as we walk into the house with groceries. She said, laughing and slamming the groceries down on the table. “Me and horses don’t get along. I was at a fair once and-“ Your words were Cut short. Hearing heavy footsteps coming down the steps, you saw Oj in one of his old hoodies, his sun-bleached blue jeans filled out very well by his thighs, and his cowboy boots…. The only thing missing is the hat. Oj came back into the Room, skin glistening from being in the sun. He grabbed a water bottle out of the grocery bag. ”I need you to help me wash some of the horses, and Lucky needs-“ I knew it was coming any time OJ needed help with the Ranch; Emerald always has something to do. I wonder what the excuse would be. “Wow, you know what? I would love to help, but I have a thing to do for a nice little date tonight. Can you help me? Yeah, it might make her get rid of her fear of horses,” Emerald said, running out the door.

Before you knew it, you were in the barn with your arms crossed, standing awkwardly to the side, looking at the horses from afar. “Come here,” was all you heard from Oj, who was now brushing the horse.” “Ain’t no need to be scared of them. Horses are like big dogs,” he said. Still brushing the horse, he noticed you were inching closer to him, and lucky, slowly but surely, he grabbed your arm and pulled you closer to him slowly, making sure not to scare you.“When I was a kid,” he said, touching your waist. You forgot how to think as he shifted himself behind you. You could feel his rough hands on your hips.his chest against your back as he slowly edged you forward to the horse. Your body was hyper-aware, aware of what was going on. Your body was stiff, but your legs were still working. “I had to help my dad give birth to one, and I was so nervous I was only like ten he said. His voice was rough due to his whispering. You could hear the twang in his voice, making goosebumps rise on your neck, as he slid his warm hand down your arm to wrap his hands around yours to inch towards the horse. “It was a mess. Emerald was crying cause she thought the horse was dying. My dad tried to stay calm because the horse would come in one of our worst storms in years. That same year, I lost my mom, and all I kept thinking was, what if the horse loses his mom?” He said, his voice burning, his body tense like he wanted to cry. “I ran upstairs, threw on my shoes and jacket, and ran downstairs. “Come on, Dad,” I said as we bolted to the barn to help the horse. “My hand was now touching the horse's nose, my eyes not breaking eye contact with the brown horse in front of me, who was very calm and still. “We helped the horse give birth, and we named it Lucky. You're petting Lucky right now,” said Oj. His voice was making the hair on my neck stand up. I could feel his lips brush my ear as they formed into a smile. He was causing me to gasp in surprise and turn to him. “Oj, that’s so sweet,” I said, hand trembling. I was too caught up in the moment to notice how close our face was. He nodded at the horse and backed away, leaving me some time alone with luck to pet and connect with him. It’s safe to say I’m not scared of horses anymore.

“Y/N, y/n, you okay? You looked spaced out,” said Emerald, who handed me a drink. Emerald had made her a special drink she called “the lucky” because whenever she makes it, someone “gets lucky and does it.” (It is just strawberry lemonade and rum). “So when you gonna tell my brother you like him so he can get a life she said, Now sitting down beside me on the floor,” causing me to choke on the drink causing me to stop on my words. “What made you say that,” I said now with a sting in my throat and watery eyes. “I saw it in your eyes the first time we met, and also, you didn’t fall for my flirting,” causing me to giggle. “You are so full of yourself, and I don’t think I will say anything. He's quiet and reserved. I’m loud and bubbly. I wouldn’t wanna make him uncomfortable,” I said, sipping the sweet drink that had a bite. “My brother has been like that my whole life, but I'll say he has to tolerate me. I'm his sister. But my brother, don't just deal with anybody,” she said, sipping her drink. Causing me to listen intensely.” What do you mean by that-”

“What you all pick” said OJ, interrupting our conversation. Oj had on one of his t-shirts and some shorts and sat on the floor beside me. “ Jeepers Creepers, y/n never seen it,” said Emerald, stuffing popcorn in her mouth. “Really, but you don’t like scary movies, “said OJ, looking at y/n. He looked you in your eyes, confused. “I’ll be fine you said, handing your cup to him so he could have a sip. Oj is not a drinker. You’ve only seen him drink beer every blue moon. But you noticed if you hand him any drink you were drinking, he’ll take a sip, or if your eating food and you offer him a piece, he’ll eat it and then rate it, which you find hilarious. “Hmmm, 7/10,” he said, sipping the drink. “Excuse me!! My drink is a 10/10, and You wouldn't know cause you haven’t felt the magic of the lucky special,” causing me to giggle and him to sigh.

We watched the TV. At first, you were watching Jeeper Creepers, the two weeks of siblings running away from the human bug, the truck being scarier, and following the siblings; before you knew it, your eyes were heavy. You could hear Emerald snoring beside you. “You sleepy,” said Oj. “Yeah, I should be heading home. You said, starting to get up.” It’s late, you can stay here, take my bed. I’ll put Emerald in Dad’s old room, and I’ll give you something to sleep in. “Okay, I said, not fighting with him. My eyes were heavy, and I would rather feel a warm bed than be on the road for 20 minutes to get home.

Oj turned the Tv off. We left the popcorn and snacks downstairs. Oj carried Emerald to his dad's room. Once he placed Emerald in bed, we went to his room. You noticed his room was reasonably clean; nothing was out of place. You saw paperwork on the desk, the bed, The plaid comforter. “Here u go,” He said, handing me one of his old faded shirts and a pair of boxers. Thank you. I said, yawning. I went into the bathroom to change. I looked at myself for a minute in the mirror. This will probably be my first and last time in one of his shirts. It was white and had a faded logo of the ranch name on it. It was a little baggy on you. It fell loosely to your thighs. His boxer shorts were too big and kept falling off your hips, so you decided not to wear them. You noticed Oj putting some clothes back in his drawer, his shoulders and back muscles tensing. “Thank you,” you said just standing there, causing Oj to turn around. “Mhm,” he said after staring at you longer than usual and returning to his drawer. “You know you can tell me what you’re thinking,” y/n said, her drink and the sleepy feeling getting to her. “I get you don’t get much to say. I wish I were more like you sometimes, but if you ever have anything you want to say, I’ll listen”. Oj looked at you with a look of confusion. “I know. Listening has always been my strong suit. Growing up on this ranch, I had to listen to orders and take instructions, and with a sister like mine, I had no choice but to listen, he said. Before I knew It, I sat on his bed, legs crossed, and we talked without interruptions. We talked about his childhood, his dealing with the loss of his dad, and how sudden. that was. The room was filled with conversation, head nods, laughter, and engagement. “Okay,” you said so what’s your type you ask curiously. His eyes looked at the floor like he was thinking, then he looked at me. His eyes focused on me, and he stared at me awhile. “I don't have one,” his voice said. His voice was deep, which caused me to shiver internally. His words said one thing, but his eyes said something else. So you dont like what Emerald type I said, joking. I'm convinced that Emerald didn’t even know her type. If they were easy on the eyes and had a pulse, that was enough. ”I like what catches my eye,” he said, his eyes drifting away. “Why don’t you ever go on double dates with Emerald.” He asked, confused. “Dating has never been my thing. I love hanging out with friends and family, and I don’t particularly appreciate having to pretend I’m something I’m not till I’m comfortable with the person.” I was talking, thinking about all the bad dates I've been on or having to have a can-do spirit personality when the date was boring. “I don’t wanna have to pretend.” Between the conversation, I went from sitting on his bed to facing him sitting on the corner of his bed. His eyes were looking at me intensely. He was leaning in closer to me, hanging on every word I had said. Without a second thought, he stretched his hand out slowly to me, afraid he was going to spook me, and lay his hand on my thigh. “You don’t gotta put on a show for me.”

You became very aware that one hand was on your thigh, and the shirt he had given you fell perfectly in your lap to cover up enough of your body and leave rest to the imagination. You looked at him, feeling something turn in your stomach as your skin became hot. Without a second thought, you leaned forward and kissed him. The kiss was firm. His lips felt soft, and his hand slowly went from my thigh to my neck as he squeezed lightly, causing me to moan. OJ was leading the kiss, and I was following. You slowly wrapped your hands around his neck, bringing him closer to you. This caused him to let out a low grunt while kissing you, causing him to pull you into him while he was sitting on the chair. “Should I sit down?” I said, now in his lap once I sat on my leg On either side of his leg in the middle.

“You need to teach me how to ride,” I said, now feeling my hot center on his leg, which was adding the perfect pressure. I started to move my hips slowly and surely on his leg while kissing him. The kiss became more feverish and quick while I was driving my hips against his leg. I let a moan slip out of my mouth. His hands are now gripping my hips. “You gotta hold on tight, and you lead, and they’ll follow you.” He said, now locking eyes with me. The room that was once filled with conversation and laughter was now filled with something more serious; the remark was thicker in the air. As y/n looked back into his eyes, her eyes felt heavy as she started to move her hips back and forth slowly. Feeling tension building up in her hips and her core, she let out a gasp, causing Oj to grip her hips tighter and help her with movements of her hips on his thigh. “Uh-huh, just like that,” he said as he told me as he tightened his thigh, causing you to moan. He kissed her as another moan almost escaped her lips. My clit was now throbbing as I moved my hips back in forth. I could feel the wetness forming on his leg more. As I thought the sensation started to build in my legs, his hand went from my hips, now moving up to my waist, and my shirt was now rising as he went to touch my

Breast caressing and pinching my nipples caused me to inhale sharply, feeling that nerve goes down my spin he looked at me and removed the oversized t-shirt from me while I was still moving my hips, feeling the friction on my clit he was now kissing my neck nibbling licking leaving a tingly sensation. HIS hands grabbed my boob and licked my nipples. He seems to be taking his time with my nipples licking them, biting them, sucking them, causing me to bite my moan. As I grind into his hips, I feel his leg dampen more. My movements became more erratic, moving my hips and feeling my legs shake more. Knowing I was going to cum soon. “Uh uh,” he said grabbing my hips, “I want to be in you. I want to feel you, and I want to see you come on my dick. okay?” He said, his voice stern now, looking at me. “Okay,” I whisper. He was breathing quicker, trying to calm down.

Lay on the bed for me, and don’t touch yourself, he said. Now, lifting me off his leg, I could feel the cold air hit my body while my wetness ran down my leg. He placed me on the bed. Once he stood, he started to get undressed, and I took every part of his body in. He was thicker but also toned. You could tell from his physique he worked in nature, lifting, pulling, and tending to the ranch. Once he removed his underwear, his dick came from his boxers hard and ready. Ready for me, he started to climb on the bed, skin glowing in the dim light in his room.

As I lay down, I closed my eyes, trying to catch my body and thoughts. Is this happening? This isn’t a dream. Am I doing this with him? Oj?. I felt him climb on top of me. Are you okay he said his voice softer. If you want to stop, we can. I opened my eyes, knowing, looking into his eyes, that I was where I needed to be. His eyes were so big you always adored that about him. Whatever he didn’t say, his eyes always did. The hard part was knowing what he was thinking.

I’m okay I said, now looking at him with his shirt off, his skin still glowing. The light lighting over our bodies caused me to look at how his chest and shoulders had light stretch marks, causing me to smile. I lifted my hand, and my fingerprints glided across the skin's texture. Feeling the heat from his body under my fingertips caused him to shiver. He leaned his head down and kissed me. My senses were indeed heightened. His lips were soft, and his kiss was warm and slow. I could feel the air feeling my body as his hand rubbed my body. His hands felt amazing on my body. He had the type of hands that were slightly rough from working outside. He started to kiss my neck and the feeling he was giving felt amazing.

All the atoms in my body felt like they were moving. You could also feel him hardening on your thigh as he slowly moved against your thigh; you let out a moan as he bit your neck and rolled his tongue over your skin. “Please, I need you,” you said as you put your hands on the back of his neck, my hand moving down his back with my fingernails slowly dragging across his skin, causing him to moan and shake his head. He stops moving his hips with one quick motion, and he puts himself inside of you. Forcing you to gasp and him to grunt. You just basked in him being in you, the fullness he gave you, the throbbing and the heat. You were now focusing on him as he was now taking deep breaths.

“It’s been a while,” he let out a chuckle. “Then give me what you can you said, making him lock eyes with you. Before you knew it, he was slowly rolling his hips toward you, meeting your hips with a rhythm, causing you to moan. “You are so beautiful he said. “You know what he said?” “Yeah, you said meekly, more focused on the feeling more than anything. You could feel your stomach tightening, and your mouth opened slowly as you released your breath. “I need better than that he said as he snapped his hips into me, causing me to moan loudly.” YES, YES, you said. Now, he was picking up his speed. All you could feel was him going in and out faster. You could feel your legs start to shake, and you could feel yourself clenching around him. “Uh-huh,” he said, now more comfortable as he went in and out of me faster. My finger slowly dragged my nails down his back, causing him to grunt. I felt his hand wrap around my thigh to bring my leg up as he sank into me more, causing me to moan and close my eyes, my hand going from his back now trying to grab anything his arm, the blanket, the pillow. Y/n felt her wetness running down her legs on the sheets and her thighs. She truly wasn’t going to make it, and she knew it. The only sounds in the room were moans and grunts and our skin smacking together. “You getting there? I know you are he said in a deeper voice, causing me to moan in response. “You look so pretty coming undone for me…cumming on me” My eyes now closed as moans fell from my mouth as my hands grabbed the sheets around me. “Please, please, please,” the words falling into my mouth were slurred. Before I knew it, Oj's hand had both of my hands above my head pinned down, his other hand now rubbing my clit. “Cum for me, cum for me. I know you got it, good girl,” he said. His tone was so patient as he was ushering me through my orgasm. before I knew it, I was cumming on him and his fingers, and it felt like a haze had fallen on me.”Fuck” he said, panting as he pulled quickly. I soon felt something warm hit my stomach. The bed rose as the weight left the bed. “You okay,” he said, now rubbing your stomach and in between your thighs with a warm rag. You opened your heavy eyes. “Thank you for the lesson,” you said with a smile.

#oj haywood #oj Haywood x reader #black reader #daniel kaluuya #imagine #Oj Haywood imagine #Daniel kaluuya imagine #smut #y/n #x black reader

[cloveroctobers]

OJ HAYWOOD x READER / Summer Prompts !

A|N: with Jordan’s work, I always have to read other theories or reviews because I am usually in awe of everything I just witnessed. I also love seeing other people’s perspectives on his films. Any Jordan Peele slander is not welcomed over here, I respect your (wrong) opinion but ain’t nobody trying to hear that 😂! Anyways I knew I wanted to write for Daniel—OJ the moment I stepped out of the film.

WARNINGS: kinda lengthy + reading between the lines literally & spoilers? Sorta if you haven’t seen it but not really? takes place only a few months after the p*s*ing of Otis Sr. But BEFORE the events of the movie take place. + reader given a name but still written in second POV 😬

Plot: dancing through the night + cold cocktails

From this prompt list.

⎯⎯ ୨ ୧ ⎯⎯ ⎯⎯ ୨ ୧ ⎯⎯ ⎯⎯ ୨ ୧ ⎯⎯

Death has many faces and it can show you plenty.

You, Aïchatou, “Aïcha,” for short had your own lesson with death on multiple occasions. From the death of your parents, godparents, and your own brush of death at sixteen, in a sense you became desensitized to it. Some might even say obsessed on certain days but you knew how to separate from the heaviness of it all, the best way you knew how.

A death like Otis Sr. Was unexplainable even after three months had passed. The world slowly shifted when OJ and Em lost their father, it was another chapter of death for them that they had to cope with. This was unnatural. You’ve been friends with the Haywood’s since your pre-teen years, becoming quite attached to the ebony skinned OJ—who was only a grade ahead of you. From there you instantly became family and the Haywood’s couldn’t get rid of you even if they wanted to.

The night sky bled a deep blue on a misty but humid April. There was not a spec of stars in the sky or clouds as you blinked up at it, standing on the porch of the Haywood’s. You lived out of the way, much like many of the residential areas here in Agua Dulce but a whole thirty-five minutes away can be nerve-wrecking.

“I mean, you know you don’t have to come out here every Friday night right?” OJ said to you over the phone, as you returned home from work.

Huffing, you shuffled out of your work uniform top, phone once buried between your neck and shoulder, “Not uh, It’s routine since I can barely keep you away from the ranch long enough or else you’ll start missing the horses more than hanging with your girl.”

OJ hummed at that. He knew it was true, it was already written in stone that he and Em were to keep the legacy of Haywood’s Hollywood Horses going…despite Em focusing on her other business first. OJ took that more seriously after his father passed, it was all on his shoulders now…especially since he found out how much in debt his father was in.

Äicha understood that. She couldn’t be mad at that, she hardly got mad in the first place since she always felt like time shouldn’t be wasted on anger.

“What you bringing tonight anyway?”

“Nothing but the best homemade cocktails,” You placed the phone on speaker as you tossed it on the bed, “I just have to run to the store real quick and grab a few more bottles then I’ll be on the way.”

OJ glanced at the watch on his wrist as he stood outside, “So nine something? Got it.”

“It won’t be! See you soon!”

You arrived 8:35pm and was let in by no other than Emerald, who gave you the run down of taking a break from her current situationship. The house was already jumping with the classics as you took over the Haywood kitchen, preparing a special drink for the curly-fro girl.

Sliding a bowl of a drink towards Em was almost as if you handed her a bag of money. Her mouth was agape as she wrapped her fingers around the large glass, “see I didn’t know you were rocking like this!? OJ’s stupid ass would never send me a pic over text whenever I asked what y’all were up to on these Friday night’s. Girl!”

You laughed as Em pulled out her phone to take pictures and videos of her apple ciroc candy bowl. “Damn, you should be a bartender.”

“I was remember? Until my boss decided to turn into a stalker two months after he hired me.” You grabbed another glass.

Emerald shuddered before taking a sip from her drink with a smack of her lips, “that’s right! I don’t know what type of shit he was on but it’s a shame you felt like you had to be nice to a dude who you did not want a relationship with! People got to take rejection like a rim of salt and keep it moving! He’s not still bothering you ‘cause I know somebody that can take care—

The slamming of the screen door announced that OJ decided to grace y’all with his presence. He stomped through the house, circling around to where you two were chilling in the kitchen.

“What’s up? You done playing my little pony?” Em teased as her big brother entered the room.

OJ of course chose to ignore her, pressing his hands onto the island his sister sat out before deciding to reach out for her drink. He was always much quicker than Em was, placing his lips on the rim to take a sip, which made em suck her teeth.

“Can’t have nothing in this house, clearly nothings changed!” Em yelled.

OJ bared his teeth as he swallowed the alcoholic beverage before sliding it back over to Em who side-eyed him, “that’s good, tutu.”

You smiled.

“I thought your favorite fruit was something else, don’t lie negro.”

“Just because it’s not my favorite doesn’t mean it ain’t good?” He blinked at the girl who scoffed.

“Well this right here, is mine. Äicha may not charge you a fee out of the kindness of her heart but I ain’t so nice. I’ll be expecting compensation via cashapp, Apple Pay, PayPal—whichever you prefer.” Em grinned mockingly at OJ who rolled his eyes back over to you, who was already preparing another just for him. 

Em Haywood was the talker out of the two of you so conversation flowed easily. You served OJ a peach-crown royal bowl before making your own fruit drink. Soon the conversation led to the living room where you all got comfortable from Em bringing out the vape to you and OJ continuing to cradle your drinks. Normally the night would consist of drinks and catching up on some show together or streaming a movie or playing some sort of game.

That didn’t seem to be happening tonight as Em’s phone started to blow up. She would break the conversation to read the text, not reply and carry on.

“Don’t give a damn about that right now!” Em hissed, “Äicha tell us about your love life since I know OJ’s is already nonexistent. That man don’t know how to separate from this house.”

OJ lightly shook his head.

“Who wants to hear about all that?” You chuckled, taking a sip of your own fruity cocktail.

Em peered at you underneath her eyelashes, “I do! You’re a catch girl, I don’t know how many times I have to tell you. Whatever happened to the blue eyed bow-legged brotha?”

“Austin? No.” You simply replied, “that ended back in March? It wasn’t going anywhere, he’s in a whole new relationship now according to his Instagram.”

“You’re still following each other?”

“Yes?”

Em scrunched up her nose, “why?”

“Just never got around to unfollowing? It wasn’t a bad break-up or whatever you want to call it.”

“He might think you’re still interested on what’s going on in life when I know you probably aren’t, you’re usually good at letting things go, I’m really surprised at you.” Em summarized as you shrugged once more.

Picking up your phone, you unlocked it and searched for his page to unfollow. Waving the phone in the air you said, “there it’s done. Can we move on?”

“Sure,” em smirked as she peeked over at OJ who appeared bored of this conversation—fingers tapping on the arm of the couch, “I’ve been saying it…you should just date OJ. You haven’t been finding what you need with these other dudes.”

That made OJ snap his eyes to his sister who wiggled her brows at him. He took a sip from his drink again and got ready to push off the chair, “not this shit again.”

Yes, again. It wasn’t the first and last time Emerald Haywood would say this. For as long as she’s known the pair she always felt confident in saying this, it wasn’t her fault how you two always chose to receive that.

OJ got up from the chair and made his way back to the hallway and towards the front door.

“Where you going?” Em called out to the back of her brother’s frame.

He just waved two fingers in the air at her in response before he carried on, exiting the house. Sinking into the couch you rolled your head over to Em who lifted her shoulders, “what?”

“You gotta stop playing match maker.”

“I only do it for the people I love. There’s no harm in that, he needs somebody! You’re the perfect one! What happens when I make it big and head to the real hills, who’s gonna be here for him? The leftover horses? That’s not enough.” Em fanned her hand, crossing one leg over the other.

Emerald Haywood always had the dream to have fame and the money but most of all she wanted to be known. Yes the horses are part of her history but she didn’t want it to be her main brand, she wasn’t sure why her dad and brother couldn’t see that.

You got it and her mom did too.

With OJ, the horses were his future. It was destined that it would be the moment his mother gave birth to him and he had no problem accepting that. It was instilled in him since the moment he learned how to walk and he wouldn’t leave it behind just because his father was gone. He would be damned if he didn’t at least try to keep it going. He always knew the horses weren’t in Em’s plans, she always has her mind somewhere else. To be somewhere else. Chasing the fame and the fortune.

With you? He never thought about you leaving Agua Dulce. Sure it could be a possibility but you never talked about relocating, even when you ventured off for weekends with some blond dude that didn’t deserve you. OJ was happy to know that you decided to call it quits—although you never mentioned it, it just seemed like a waste of time and you never wanted to be a person that did that.

Otis James Haywood Jr. wanted you around.

So when you left Em to share a lengthy conversation with her situationship on her phone, joining Otis in the spring night, the tension in his shoulders relaxed.

You stood beside him, looking up into the night fighting the urge of your brain trying to question why OJ always brushed Em’s statement revolving around you two away. Normally you followed suit when you were younger, more embarrassed than anything but soon you understood. Yet your brain felt scrambled tonight and you didn’t want it to be.

OJ shifted to rest his back against the banister, still cradling the drink you made him while you set yours on the railing, staring forward pass the arena. It was quiet when the horses rested in the stables but the misty breeze provided just enough to fill that silence.

That’s the thing between you and OJ, you were comfortable in silence together. It never mattered but tonight was different. Tonight could bring a miracle…would it be a good one is the question?

The speakers seemed to shift to a slower melody. Which made you glance at OJ during the night as he kept sipping on his drink.

“The vibe is much better out here.”

You laughed, “it probably be even better if you got closer to the horses.”

“Maybe,” OJ replied, “This spot right here is cool too.”

Next to you.

Inhaling you nodded your head at that, listening to lyrics that smoothly escaped the singer’s lips:

Yes I'm sitting right here

Waiting for you my dear

Wondering if you ever

want to show up

You folded your fingers together, cracking them earning a bewildered expression from OJ’s wide down-turned eyes in the night. A laugh bubbled past your lips, realizing OJ hated the sound of your bones cracking on purpose. Shaking your hands out, you stepped towards OJ and took his drink from his hands to set besides yours. OJ watched your movements carefully, once you turned back to face him you reached up for his brimmed hat—with his quick reflexes he latched onto your wrist, halting your movements.

That man loved his hats.

So why did you think you could take it for yourself? A smile curled on the side of your lips, raising your fingers to show that you meant no harm. OJ let your wrist go, leaving you to sneak your hands around his broad shoulders. Stepping closer to him you took in his scent of warmth, despite him spending hours upon hours in stables…OJ always smelled heavenly.

Like leather warmed by the soft sun, a glass of brandy, and pine. A scent so soothing and slightly smoky that you couldn’t get enough of.

“This is the part where you put your hands on my hips,” you suggested, pulling back slightly to get a good look at the stunning dark skinned man.

OJ snorted at you, “what is this prom 2.0?” He asked, nonetheless placing his large hands right on your curves.

Crossing your arms behind his head you softly smiled, remembering prom with OJ and your group of friends. You originally weren’t going to go after a boyfriend of yours played you, did a whole promposal in front of the school just to decide to take his ex three days before prom instead. OJ wasn’t going to let you sulk at home but your plans were just to watch some rom-com’s, however OJ dragged you out to a spot in the hills with your friends, in your prom dress dancing to songs blasting on a friend’s car stereo with underglow and headlights as your source of light for the night. it still remained to be one of the happiest nights you had.

“You mean 3.0 for you?” You corrected while OJ nodded his head from side to side, thinking about it.

Resting your head against OJ’s chest, the two of you began to sway as you listened to the drum of his heart while Billy Stewart continued singing:

Sitting here on the bench

With my back against the fence

Wonderin'-a-if I

Have any sense

“What’s the next few months looking like for you, tutu?” OJ quizzed, his hands seemed to tighten on your lower back.

Sighing you answered, “I’ll probably put my two weeks in, move to Vegas, become a casino girl and get brainwashed by the money and a mobster who shows me that cash rules everything around me. OR…I’ll find a guy who owns a winery and learn how to become a business woman myself…” you rambled.

None of those sounded like you. Which made a frown settle in between OJ’s brows. You weren’t about the money but you knew you needed money to survive, which is why you didn’t mind changing jobs every couple of years. You needed to do something new with your time when it came to survival.

You just simply lived with the time everyone was given.

“Wait…that was Austin,” you laughed humorlessly, “or I could take my best friend’s little sister’s advice and date her brother? He’s a old school horse guy and I’m many things so who knows?”

But nevertheless I say again

you gotta be waiting

Sittin' in the park,

Waitin' for hoooo-hoo-hoo-hoo

It was OJ’s turn to smile. He found himself biting down on his bottom lip slightly thinking that over. You felt good against him that night, you felt right, always. And OJ began to think about the what if’s with you. That’s when he began to put more step into the beat, one hand reaching up to intertwine your fingers which you stared up at, your head still resting on his chest.

You swayed in a slow circle together, switching directions so now that OJ had a good view of the sky. He noticed a small puff of a singular cloud just sitting there, if he focused hard enough he could almost see the rim of something flat peeking out. However he found himself no longer staring out there, the both of your heads snapping up as the music skipped at the next set of lyrics followed by a flash.

“Y’all so damn cute! I was right, thank me later.” Em stood in the door way, one fist digging into her waist while the other held her phone which snapped a picture.

Laughing you peeked at OJ who rolled his eyes at his sister. “What happened to the music?”

Em answered, glancing over at the record player, “I dunno, I never knew for any of daddy’s records to skip but hey, first time for everything.”

Clearing your throat, you opened your lips to say something but the pick up of a breeze caused all of your eyes to turn to the distance. It was faint but a spiral of dirt made itself known on the pathway towards the house. It was not uncommon for a sandstorm to appear in these parts of the town but it was strange to see at night.

“Yeah…nah let’s head in for the night.” OJ stated, forgetting about the drinks on the banister as he held the door open for you.

Emerald dipped her head, stepping back from the doorway, as you were next to move your eyes away and head inside with OJ locking the screen door and front door behind you all. Em decided to turn off the vinyl for the night, making you switch the tv on which jumped for a bit on a specific station before it seemed to settle as you changed the channel. The Haywood house was always the same, nothing was upgraded, so you were usually stuck with cable here.

OJ entered the room with sheets and pillows tucked underneath his arms. He tossed a set to Em who immediately began making a pallet right in front of the tv. He turned to you, holding out a pillow and sheet, “looks like you’re staying with us tonight?”

“Fine by me.” You tucked the pillow behind your head and wrapped the sheet on top of your body, after kicking off your boots.

You had no intentions of leaving tonight.

Something told you to stay put…so you listened.

OJ made his own pallet right in front of the couch, laying on his back, arms folded behind his head and hat tilted towards his eyes.

“Y’all seen this episode of the twilight zone before?” Em asked you two in the quiet of the night.

The place is here. The time is now, and the journey into the shadows that we are about to watch, could be our journey.

You could feel OJ’s eyes on you as you listened.

Once you met his eyes, the pair of you held each other’s stare for awhile before realizing that neither of you answered Emerald’s question. OJ kept his eyes locked on yours and opened his mouth to respond but was cut off by Emerald’s snoring.

Which erupted a groan from OJ who placed his hand over ear and flipped over to face you.

Laughing to yourself you suddenly whispered, “well…goodnight, everybody.”

OJ raised two fingers in the air up at you, leaving you to stretch and place two fingers against his.

⎯⎯ ୨ ୧ ⎯⎯ ⎯⎯ ୨ ୧ ⎯⎯ ⎯⎯ ୨ ୧ ⎯⎯

Continue along with my summer anthology prompts here.

#nope #nope spoilers #nope 2022 #Jordan peele #oj haywood #Otis James haywood jr #emerald haywood #oj haywood x reader #summer prompts #summer prompt #oj haywood x oc #daniel kaluuya #keke palmer #em haywood #nope x reader

[nerdieforpedro]

Weddings 101 with Dieter

Chapter Two: Proper Accommodations

Dieter Bravo x plus size OFC (Maya)

Fanfiction 18+

Masterlist / Dieter Bravo Masterlist / Weddings 101 with Dieter Series

Word Count: approx 4.7k

Summary: Maya arrives to Hawaii in Dieter's private jet. Turns out, the man's got a villa and would like her there with him and his goat. A car ride and some ridiculous banter ensue. Things are great until the OJ.

Warnings: Bad jokes, candy, even worse nicknames, Dieter being himself, self-doubt, self-esteem issues, cursing, mild body worship, food (it's a Nerdie expectation at this point), jealousy, brief mention of drug use, the nicknames worsen and include food, slander against Oscar Issac, accidental drug use, we got fluff people!

Notes: I started this series awhile ago and wrote this chapter last month. Then I fell face first into Frankie and hadn't looked back until the king trash panda himself took up residence in my brain. So we're back and I'm working on future chapters. The jokes continue to be bad, I'm not a comedian - I'd be very broke. I just enjoy two people being idiots with each other. It's a joy.

After disembarking and gathering her belongings, Maya thanked Dieter immensely for basically giving her a ride to Hawaii and if he wanted to hang out later that would be great. She needed to be away from him, the dancing was too much, he was drawing her in. Dinner could be later this week, it didn’t need to be tonight, she still needed to check in at the hotel.

Bravo leaned in for a hug and Maya returned the squeeze, pressing their bodies together. He was simultaneously firmer than she thought and also softer around the belly. His hands started roaming a little too low down her back towards butt and they gave a little squeeze. Maya should have swatted him away or told him no, but she decided to run her hands down his back as well and give him a little grab too. Turns out that Sugar lips was also quite firm as well, he jumped a little bit giggling.

 “I gotta say Kit Kat. This has been a lot of fun and I only drank while we did this whole thing, This is new.” Dieter stated triumphantly like he just got first place at something.

 Maya shrugged her shoulders and grinned, “Well Sugar lips, it turns out there's a lot of ways to have fun that maybe don't always include drugs sometimes.”

“Hey, your brother's wedding is on which island?” Dieter asked. His assistant who had been back trying to chat up the flight attendants a little bit got an inkling that there was something a little suspect going on, so he went over and gently reminded Dieter about his schedule including popping in for press at a golf tournament. Bravo wasn’t really feeling it, but he had already agreed as part of a contract.

Maya shook her head and told him, “You don’t have to feel pressured to do dinner right now. It’s an open invitation. You have very important stuff to handle, Dieter.” Her smile was weak, as much as she wanted to stay with him, she needed to leave this fever dream of an evening here. On to wedding business. She took a step back and he released her, Dieter disliked this greatly and his assistant for bringing up work shit. That can wait later.

 “Oh no Kit Kat you're not getting out of this one.” Dieter beamed and threw an arm around her shoulder, pressing his hip to hers, so soft and warm. “You’re definitely telling me where you're staying and I'm definitely coming there and if I don't like where you stay, we're gonna stay somewhere else.” He decided. His assistant’s face went pale as Brave shot him a stern look, ‘say something I dare you.’

 Maya chuckled and poked Bravo’s cheek, “What do you mean we? I'm booked into the same place with all the family. I don’t even know where you’re staying.” His assistant was furiously texting, he knew he had more work to do and how Dieter was fully capable of making his job a living hell if he didn’t get his way. She had mentioned that the wedding was taking place on Oahu but Dieter had been too busy watching her eat to listen.

 “Well, I gotta see this place, see if it's good enough for more Uno games and whatever else we come up with. It also needs to be pet friendly because Daisy is coming with me to visit.” The goat sauntered over to the pair and let out a ‘baah’ They both chuckled in unison. Maya went to protest again but he stopped her, “Nah you lost the game Toblerone. You call me sugar lips first of all, and second, show me the address.” He held his hand out, presumably for her phone. Maya gave him her palm and he used his middle finger to stroke her palm, making her draw her hand back with a squeal. She sighed and pulled out her phone, showing Dieter her accommodations which she felt were pretty nice it was like on the 6th floor of one of the Hilton hotels right off the beach on Waikiki island Dieter took one look scoffed and grabbed his nonexistent pearls and said, “No dice, this place is bullshit. Maya you’re not staying there. I'm not staying there. Toblerone, you’re gonna come with me to my villa.”

To this Maya put her hands on her hips which got Dieter a little a little hot under the robe which he was more than fine with.  Maya was disturbed at what he was saying, she thought it was a pretty nice hotel but more than that who does he think he is trying to tell her where to stay.

“Now Dieter-”

 “It’s sugar lips, “ He interrupted, she clicked her tongue and leaned forward where he leaned back.

 “Now I know, you are not trying to tell me where I should go, and where I should stay are you?” The robe-clad man shook his head and then put his hands up. “I am a grown woman.”

 Dieter tried to explain himself, “I'm not saying that it’s not a decent hotel. I'm just saying you could stay in a better place with me. We discussed decadence earlier, right?”

 She crossed her arms against her chest, “And what makes you think that I want to stay in a hotel with you Dieter Bravo?” He was making this a lot harder than it needed to be. Just let me go. He doesn’t want me, he just wants the feeling I give him, the fun. I’m not just for anyone’s use.

 “Again, it's sugar lips and we were not having so much fun on the plane. Like you're just gonna give this fun up just cause it's your brother's wedding. I mean because you know destination weddings already suck why not have why not have a little fun you know?”

 “And what type of fun are you talking about Dieter because I just met you and Uno was fun and I am extremely grateful for the free ride but whatever villa you stay in, if I thought I couldn't afford the jet ride I am damn sure not going to be able to afford a villa.” Maya now threw her hands up. This man was impossible.

 “Look, I didn't say you had to pay for it. I just said you had to stay with me and we need to get you some better wedding clothes anyway.” Bravo told her, he was re-thinking the jab about her wedding clothes. He was sure she probably looked pretty in them, but she deserved a lot more luggage than what she had.

 “I'm not trying to hear about fashion choices from a man who walks around in pajamas and a robe sir. You haven't even looked at my suitcase, so how do you know that my clothes are not appropriate for a wedding?” Dieter’s assistant looked up from his phone. Usually, his boss was much smoother than this. What about this woman made him so rattled? No matter, the assistant now had to inform the personal chef to stock and cook for two people instead of just Dieter.

 “Yeah, I got a sixth sense about these things Kit Kat just trust me on this. Now you will like the villa. It's got like 6 rooms, so we don't even have to stay in the same room. We'll just play Uno, drink, maybe I can get you to try some other stuff and we'll just have fun. Plus, we have to eat dinner.” Bravo slowly approached Maya, placing his hands on her hips and leaving her a kiss on her forehead. Kit Kat closed her eyes. So many red flags, she should leave, thank him and leave, maybe get his number. He’ll forget to call. It would be fine. And yet…

“We'll go to and from your brother's wedding, maybe you'll even let me come along to the wedding?” She shook her head, knowing that this was a horrible idea. But you only live once, right?

 “I haven't been to a wedding before, apparently I was told by my friends I couldn't come to their weddings.” He finally finished. She opened her eyes and looked at his sad brown ones. At some point Dieter had removed his sunglasses. His eyes were longing for her to answer him.

 “Now why did your friends tell you not to come to their weddings?” Maya asked, her hand reached up and ruffled his hair, he leaned in the direction of her hand.

Dieter beamed, “I'm just so much fun you know, and I just try bring joy to wherever I go.” He couldn't keep a straight face while talking. Maya threw her head back and howled.

“I bet you do bring joy, don't you?  Oh Lord Dieter,” Toblerone giggled and kissed his cheek.  “Fine, I will stay with you at your villa. I am staying in a separate room. We just have to make sure I'm on time for the different dress rehearsals and family events. Ok?” Her hand fell to his cheek, her thumb traced his nose, she felt his dimples form as he smiled. Dieter put both of his considerable hands over her hips and squeezed, he would never get tired of doing that.

 “I promise Kit Kat you won't regret it. I promise it'll be the best week ever. We'll have so much fun, so much joy. Maybe you won’t wanna leave.” Dieter dipped his chin to maximize his mischievous eye effect. It gave her a tingle up her spine.

 Maya leaned her forehead on his shoulder, “I don't know if I should trust you when you say fun and joy like that because your voice keeps cracking.”

The pair headed over to a car that was scheduled to take Dieter to his beachside villa that thankfully was only about 15 minutes away from the wedding venue where most of the events they’d be going to be taking place. It was much further from the hotel but outside of mandated events with the wedding, she didn’t plan on being at the hotel much now. She went ahead and texted her mom and her brother that she had a few hiccups with her flight, but she still was coming to the weddings and events. She also let them know that she had some different accommodations that she was going to stay at for the week. Her family was a bit concerned but they knew that Maya knew how to take care of herself.

On the car ride over, Dieter had slumped over on her shoulder, nuzzling into her. His hand laid on her thigh. Maya was petting little Daisy that sat in her lap.

 “You're a cute little goat aren't you like your daddy? This is going to be a wild ass week. What have I agreed to? I’ve lost all my good sense Daisy.” She laid her head back on the seat, closing her eyes. Today certainly was something. 

Dieter’s fingers pressed into the flesh of her thigh, he wasn’t quite asleep. He was plotting what to do once he got her to his villa. He was sure that his assistant had picked up to adjust things for her as far as the chef and food storage was concerned. Though playful, Bravo knew that Maya was still weary of him. That was fine, Dieter was a master at getting into people’s personal space and between boundaries they had set up for themselves. He was careful not to move his head, he wanted to savor the movement. She had been set to leave ten minutes ago. He had a small victory in that already. He would need to keep the momentum going. His hand relaxed and circled down to her knee, a grin formed on his face. 

The driver hit a pothole making the car bounce roughly and apologized. The actor had no issue with this, Maya slid against the car door, diagonal with one leg extended that Daisy slid down onto, not hard as she shook off the impact. Dieter’s head landed on Maya’s thigh where his hand had been, he snaked an arm under her leg pretending that he was more shaken then he was. The driver slowed down and only sped back up when he didn’t see anymore.

“Kit Kat! You alright? I got you.” He couldn’t help but smile as Maya rubbed the back of her head.

“I’m okay, I think. Bumped my head.” It took a moment to look down, she saw Daisy on the car floor and Dieter using her thigh as a pillow, feeling something under her leg that she identified as his arm. “Why would you grab…? Does anything you do make sense De-” She paused, remembering their bet. “Never mind.”

“You could just say it, you know. It’s just two words, Toblerone. Come on…” The dimpled man grinned rolling on his side, he was face to face with her stomach. It appeared very soft and jiggly. “I’ll poke you if you don’t.” It wasn’t a threat, he’d likely poke her belly even if she did call him his nickname. It was calling him.

“You’re infuriating. I get why you’re not at weddings, Sugar Lips” Maya lowered her voice at his nickname and straightened herself up in the seat as much as she could, Dieter’s arm under her leg was making that a bit difficult. “Seriously Dieter, move your arm. It’s going to go numb under there.” Her hand went to move his arm but he gripped her leg tighter.

“Nuh uh. My arm’s fine but if you want me to move I will.” His dimples were still on full display until his face went into her stomach, shaking his head from side to side. She’s so soft and warm. I think it’s okay not to breathe for a bit. Maya yelped and grabbed Bravo’s shoulders, she pushed him away slightly but she he proved too strong as he held his face in her soft stomach. She ended up just holding him, her palms running across his back.

“Dieter you’re fucking insane.” He didn’t let go. She felt his nose poking her deeply. No one had ever dove into her belly, laid on it sure, but not dove in and held on like this. She wasn’t sure what exactly he needed from her, but until they reached the villa, the only sounds were from Daisy and her occasional ‘baah’s’ and the wheels on the dirt road. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence, the opposite actually, which made Maya even more unsure of what was going on.

The villa in question was at the top of a hill behind a gate. The driver entered a code that was provided to him via text from Dieter’s assistant and pulled up the long driveway to the front door. The door itself was made from a beautiful dark oak and the shingles on the roof were a red clay color. The house itself was two levels with glass walls facing the side of the house toward the beach. The sun was almost finished setting by the time they reached it. The back of the house away from the beach was an eggshell white. It was beautiful and modern, not that Maya knew what she was expecting. The driver took all her and Dieter’s bags out of the car and placed them in the foyer of the house.

“Dieter, you have to get off now. We’re here.” Maya stated softly, her hand ran through his curls. She cursed herself for doing it, but they were so silky dancing across her fingers. Bravo groaned and pulled his head back and laid on her thigh once again. 

“Promise you’ll let me lay on you again and then I’ll move.” He peered up at her, she sighed. 

“Let’s see how dinner goes.”

“You drive a hard bargain Kit Kat. Fine, but!” He lifted a finger and placed it on her chin. “If you let me, you can play with my hair again.” Scoffing, Maya used the distraction to slide out of the car. Brave puffed out his cheeks laying across the backseat of the limo. Daisy licked his cheek before hopping out of the car, following the woman. “Daisy! You’ve turned on me! What is wrong with everyone?!” He fussed, his assistant snorted and helped the driver move the bags from the foyer to the bedrooms. Maya asked which room she would be staying, the assistant mentioned there were six rooms plus Dieter’s study. She snickered at the word study, she couldn’t picture him being able to focus on anything that didn’t involve his own fun for longer than five minutes. 

Maya picked the room that was two rooms down from the master bedroom which she assumed to be Dieter’s. It was still much bigger than the hotel room she would have been trapped in for the week. Complete with a king size bed, walk in closet, 80-inch flat screen TV, numerous outlets for devices to be plugged in, a small desk area was present, the bathroom was huge with two sinks, a walk in shower that had a bench, removable shower head and a tub for a nice even soak; it was perfect.

Bravo had finished his rant and entered the villa, he checked with the chef in the kitchen and told him to make pizza. Ham and mushrooms but no pineapple. His assistant checked in with him before heading out for the night, informed Dieter which room his guest was in and that he would come to pick him up at noon tomorrow to get him ready for the first part of the golf event later that afternoon. Rolling his eyes, the actor agreed and asked if Maya had the driver’s number so he could take her to any wedding events she would need to go to. The assistant nodded and informed him that he also gave her the back up driver’s number in case Dieter was using his primary driver. Bravo was pleased with this and threw his robe on one of the stools in front of the kitchen island. 

Maya came down the winding stairs and waved to Dieter and his assistant. She smelled the pizza that was baking in the oven and beamed, “Pizza! I actually haven’t had any for a while.” She had on a pair of dusty rose pink ballet slippers, she had changed into a plain light blue t-shirt with gray shorts.  She saw that Bravo’s assistant was heading toward the door, and she tapped him on the shoulder. 

“Thanks Zack for helping me get set up. I’ll try and keep out of the way.”

Zack the assistant blinked, he actually had not heard his name for a bit. His body had tensed but he calmed. “It’s no problem Ms. Maya, let me know if you need anything. He does need to be at least up and showered by noon though.” The woman nodded and his assistant left, she made sure to set an alarm on her phone for 11 in the morning just in case. Bravo was deeply disturbed. First of all, that was his name? He was sure it was Peter, or Lou, or Aspen or something. Secondly, Why did she need to touch him? Third and most important, when did they have time to talk? He wasn’t in the car that long. Shit maybe I was, because I hit a little snow on the part of the seat Kit Kat had been sitting on. I remember mellowing out for a bit, but only a bit. Maybe. His arms snaked around Maya’s wide waist as his chin rested on her shoulder, he shot the young man the same look he did when they were outside the car at the airport, one of pure annoyance. Maya shook her head as Zack left and the chef signaled that the pizza was finished. 

“Sugar lips, we were going to have dinner right?” She gently pulled Dieter’s hands off her waist and turned around to face him. “Come on, let’s eat. Don’t pout.” Her smile remained just as wide, sniffing the pizza that the chef was cutting up. He warned that it was still hot of course and not to eat it quite yet. Nodding, Maya reached in the cabinet and grabbed a glass, pouring herself some orange juice. Dieter watched her reach while leaning on the counter but looked away as the chef let him know that there was more food in the fridge and he was leaving for the night. Dieter told him goodbye and missed what container the orange juice came out of.

“Yeah we are. What did you talk with…Zack about?” He was in fact still pouting. Maya smirked, setting her glass on the counter. 

“Just making sure that you’re at your event on time tomorrow. Despite me being here, you have obligations Cupcake.” His left eyebrow shot up as his arm snaked around her waist again. She didn’t shirk away from his touch this time, putting her head on his shoulder and leaned into him.

“I like the sound of Cupcake. Why’d you change it?” 

“Trying out some different ones.”

“Alright, show me what you’ve got.” Dieter moved from her side to in front of her, just sliding his hand to her hip instead of across her waist. Maya was noticing a pattern, that he always seemed to need to touch her. She thought that she should think it’s weird, but she enjoys it. There’s always a hand, shoulder, his chin, lips, cheek finding its way to her.

“Jellybean, Marshmallow, Fluffy Boy, Pooh Bear, Tater Tot.” Dieter turned up his nose. He might let her guess which one he actually liked out of those, but he could throw out some new nicknames too.

“I raise you Maya: Sweet cheeks, Good & Plenty, Love muffin, hot buns or-”

“Wookie!” The actor’s eyes narrowed and he let go of her. His hands were in the air instead, tightening around nothing. That clearly struck a nerve. Maya bit her bottom lip and sniffed the pizza. Maybe Dieter Bravo wasn’t a Star Wars fan.

“Absolutely not! I auditioned for that movie and they gave it to that guy with the black curly hair! Him and his stupid forearms and that massive five o’ clock shadow and…”

“Are you talking about Oscar Issac? You auditioned for Poe Dameron?! I can’t see it, Dieter.” Picking up a slice, she put it to her mouth and bit off a large piece of the slice. The handmade dough seemed to have garlic in it and the sauce had sauteed onions. Cheese topped with ham and mushrooms with a medium brown crust rounded out the delicious flavors together in the pizza. 

“I could have acted like I knew how to fly an x-wing! They’re the ones that missed out!” Now pacing, Dieter started explaining that Issac wasn’t as good an actor as he was, didn’t get as many roles or money and he clearly was better looking than him too. Maya just watched him, continuing to take more bites of the slice and picking up another one. Her low rumbles from her throat were making Dieter slow down. “And he got to work with Mark Hamil and Carrie Fisher….Maya are you…What did the chef put in that pizza?” He finally stopped and watched as she had sauce around the corners of her mouth and a touch on her nose. 

“I was really hungry. I figured you were going to talk about He who shall not be named for a while. The pizza’s warm now and not hot. Shit it’s so good!” She licked her fingers and Dieter thought it was strange. He picked up a slice and took a few bites. Yummy but nothing unusual. Her behavior is odd. He didn’t plan to give her any molly. That was going to be after a movie or two and he wouldn’t force her…Ah. His juice. He was gonna take that tomorrow to get through that golf thing. This is not good. Maya reached for her orange juice glass that was half empty and Dieter snatched it away. “No Kit Kat! You need water only. Trust me on this.” She shook her head at him and started on her third slice of pizza humming a song he didn’t recognize. Dieter got her a bottle of water out of the fridge along with the bottle of orange juice he had planned on taking tomorrow. It was half empty, he instructed her to drink instead of just giggling and poured the rest of her glass back in his bottle. No one’s wasting premium drugs though.

“If you’re mad I drink your juice, sorry. I like orange juice and this pizza. You gotta eat this pizza too. Stop thinking about that man. He’s not in a villa in Hawaii. I feel a little warm…” Sweat beads were forming on her forehead. He handed her the water bottle and she popped the bottle and started gulping it down. Bravo had to pause, what else did he need to do, normally his assistant or someone his team hired made sure he was safe during his drug escapades. He had agreed to scale back so they were giving him a bit of leeway letting him stay without one of his team there and just a guest. Now he had gotten his guest unintentionally high. 

“Fuck me…I don’t want to have to call them. They’ll never let me stay by myself again after this.” He muttered to himself as he got a wet paper towel to wipe Maya’s face. Her giggle at the cool water was cute though. He never really had to take care of himself, let alone someone else. He then wiped off her hands and held them after. 

“You don’t have to call anyone Sugar Lips. I’m open to fucking you sometime this week. Not sure when. I have to let the idea marinate in my brain. We can start with touching though.�� Her eyes were glassy and her smile was warm. Dieter almost took her up on the offer as she closed the distance between them and continued to look up at him. 

“Maya you truly don’t know how much I want to take you up on that. We can’t tonight though. We have to get settled in and you need to drink so much more water. Hydration is important.” Truly, if she wasn’t high, able to truly say yes to him and he didn’t think she would be pissed about finding out she got high from his OJ, he would take her up to his room right now, but he isn’t that kind of man. Sure he’s not an angel, but not an asshole. “I think we’ll leave the pizza and go upstairs to get some sleep. We can check the rest of the house tomorrow.” Taking a step back, he held one of her hands and led her up the stairs. Entering Maya’s room seemed odd to him, but he was going to have to figure this out. Hopefully.

Undressing her was a bad idea, in fact, Dieter had to keep Maya from undressing in front of him. Unheard of this situation, keeping a woman he wanted fully clothed. Dieter was able to wrangle her in the bed and lay beside her, as soon Maya’s head hit the pillow she was out, snoring loudly. He chuckled, content to watch her face.

“So weird. I never thought I would wanna watch someone else sleep. Not sure what it is about you Toblerone. Maybe because you’re not pretentious? Mmm, no I don’t think that’s it. Doesn’t matter for now. I’ll think about tomorrow. Don’t dream about my snobby assistant or Oscar Issac, no matter how great of an ass he has. I bet you that’s how he got the Star Wars gig.” Bravo’s hand traced her round cheek, poking it softly. “I should ask you what skincare you use, you could be twenty-five or sixty-five Maya…” His voice trailed off and his hand landed on her neck, she curled closer to Dieter and groaned lightly, an unknown warmth next to her but she didn’t feel afraid. Maya felt safe next to someone in bed for the first time in a long time.

Previous: Chapter One

Next: Chapter Three

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[firespirited]

NOPE 2022. Review with spoilers under the read more

Nope didn't quite work as horror for me but was a decent action flick, I'd have enjoyed the experience better if it wasn't under "sci fi" and "horror": spent the time expecting something else instead of properly being in the moment - I was tired, had specific ideas about what might happen, then immediately wanted a rewatch because I'd missed the good stuff looking for other stuff (will do that rewatch as soon as possible)

It didn't work (as sci fi horror) partly because I'm a know-it-all/super nerd who gets all the sci-fi references and knows all the tropes and partly because Peele really doesn't do subtle.

Entertainment chimp chaos + ufo + horse wranglers = space chimp chaos, it was clearly a people and horse eating creature from jump so no build up there. I'm totally used to aliens being either creature based or beyond our understanding.

// or that wonderful balance in between that films like Arrival and Annihilation (or Evangelion) found where there's a logic but it's larger than we are, we're space dogs compared to their space humans.

That's my jam. The existential horror/wonder of encountering something advanced enough we can interact but to understand it? That's beyond us: might blow our minds or change us forever or leave us without answers because we're just not good enough. Yeah. Tangeant over lol //

- The second very specific thing is the sound of screams. I have trouble telling the difference between good and bad ones, I have had dissociative freezes at fairs and theme parks looking at people clearly enjoying themselves. For some reason that I cannot rewire or logic away, my brain assumes 1 of the people on the ride must be in genuine distress. Occasionally it happens with playground screams too. It's something I've had to work on as I lived close enough to hear fairgrounds every summer from age 15 - 30. I've heard them on the wind in july here for ten years. I cope well nowadays, a brief shudder then it's fine.

Anyway, Nope also didn't work as horror for me for two very specific personal reasons:

-the first that I won't really expand on here is trauma turned into a good story: dealing with something bad (and also very much NOT dealing with it) by having a good story to tell. The fact that this story dropped that into the narrative then didn't follow up meant that I briefly thought there might be something to break my heart in two... but that wasn't the point being made, the point clearly was a childhood exploitation turning into a pattern of exploiting everything.

// If you know of stories about trauma turned into a story to avoid confronting it directly or giving a good end send me reccs I'm ready to pick at that wound (okay okay maybe not 'I May Destroy You' final episode levels of ready, Michaela Coel is too powerful). //

So I was looking for that and it didn't happen.

So I knew exactly what the opening sound was, what the faint sound in the wind was. So the only reveal was that it wasn't mimicry or psychological tactics by the alien (i was still in the mode of thinking of various sci fi beings who used/enjoyed fear instead of just a wild creature. I was primed to puzzle solve and there's no puzzle just layers of meaning).

But I did love OJ the cowboy hero and his sister Em on the motorbike. They had very believable sibling energy despite one of them being in a deep funk at the start. And yeah the Akira bike slide was awesome. I really liked the alien design, starting with something we think we know but actually more of a sand dollar then popping into the jellyfish form but with the non-organic, not quite working within our physics square.

If it's an action film, it takes its time to really start which is why I was stuck on slowburn dread sci-fi mode for so long but that could be western film pacing. I honestly have no understanding or knowledge whatsoever of westerns: the whole genre stank as ahistorical attempts at myth making.

// It's one of the reasons I don't watch war films, often about myth making, post hoc justifications, glamorising a life of 95% boredom 5% hell. //

But yeah my expectations were a little too high: it hit me way too late that it was a 1:1 chimp metaphor not a more vague tampering with something we can't control and really thought the creature would be playing with fear or have somehow been formed by fear (like the boar in Annihilation having taken on its victims traits).

Also suffered from way too dark syndrome. I loved the well lit final action, if it'd been well lit during the creature choking over the house scene that would have been so much cooler. I have a low tolerance for ooh it goes bump in the dark for half the movie, I'm just squinting and cursing you for padding the film with anything but character moments in the aftermath or in dread that would make the human impact feel more real.

Solid action flick: We need dashing Daniel Kaluuya on a horse in more films. Keke Palmer is a scene stealer I look forward to seeing more of her. I liked the emo tech guy. Film dude was wack without being funny. Why did they give him so much screen time? Steven Yeun does what he can with what little he had. I would have liked to have lingered a little longer on his conflicting relationship to fame.

My review? No yet rated. Gonna rewatch it as an action flick in the dark and enjoy it for what it is. Something tells me it's very rewatchable! And... I need to stop making assumptions based on genre expectations.

#saf #Movie reviews #nope 2022

[maxphilippa]

Let me hear your Microphone Headcanons :0!

I'm curious to know :]

OKAY SO:

- She's trans. But I specifically wanna talk about transfem Mic here (shotout to transmasc Mic though he's so cool), listen. I like to think that Mic has had many struggles when it comes to realizing stuff about herself. She wasn't able to make many/any friends at all as a kid, and things only got worse when she found out that she wasn't "like the other boys" (because, she wasn't a boy, but she doesn't realize that yet), so it's complicated for her because she feels so bad in her own skin. That is until she gets the fact that she's more happy with... being her, instead of him. Though she doesn't start her transition UNTIL she moves out and starts her own life properly, it does take her a while to do so but she tries her best.

- Mic appeared in S1 for a few secs next to Knife. I like to think that this was Mic pre-transition too. She was slowly getting more comfortable with her looks.

- She was probably a fan of II (liked to watch the show in her free time), and got to chat with Knife for a bit too. Though it was an momentary talk, those two knew eachother from a long time ago. They just don't remember it at all anymore.

- Mic has an good relationship with her dad. But her mom was never really there for her. And her dad doesn't know that... well. She's Mic. But she'll work through it...! She's... scared of him not loving her anymore for being her true self. But she's gonna tell him, once she's ready.

- Fan got to do an interview on her, and Mic was an nervous mess during the whole entirety of it. She SUCKS at social skills after what happened with Taco and such, but she ultimately tries. Thing is, having a voice in your head telling you that you're a mess isn't the greatest thing ever. However, despite their somewhat complicated relationship (mostly because of Test Tube's hard feelings towards Mic), Fan was overall pretty considerate and chill with her.

- She doesn't like being alone, by any means. But she also feels overwhelmed if there's too many people in one place. It makes her feel like she's being judged just for existing. They have to hold her hand in order for her to wake up from that trance, or at least pat her back. She tends to isolate herself due to those worries, ironically enough.

- Mic might not be the greatest cook (Pickle and Knife take care of that mostly thanks to that fact, she can make decent meals but pretty basic overall), but she definitely loves baking and is pretty great at it. She likes making brownies and cakes.

- She has a lot of talents despite her insecurities taking over. She's able to knit, to paint, and to sing. She only truly gets back to them after arriving Hotel OJ.

- Microphone has fucked up hearing.

- She likes Heavy Metal, Kawaii Metal, Pop, Bossa Nova, Jazz and also definitely had a Vocaloid Phase (she still has it), but she generally enjoys any type of music! She's starting to get back at Spoiled Lemon slowly thanks to Pickle and Knife, but it is still not an band that she enjoys completely.

- She tends to attract butterflies for some reason. It is always a good thing for Trophy, who likes photography at all times.

- She doesn't know how to relax AT ALL and there's times where she's still up at night, and OJ makes her company.

- Of course, the matching necklaces she has with Knife and Pickle.

- She may be one of the tallest contestants and such, but she is the "lil' guy (but girl)" of the whole Hotel. She's very beloved.

- SHE HAS DYSCALCULIA. MATH IS HER BIGGEST ENEMY. She liked history as an subject though.

- She's touch starved.

#inanimate insanity #ii #inanimate insanity microphone #inanimate insanity knife #inanimate insanity pickle #inanimate insanity taco #inanimate insanity test tube #inanimate insanity fan #inanimate insanity trophy #inanimate insanity oj #inanimate insanity headcanons #ii knicropick

[kingdicemrwheezyflowertor]

How is Big Mickey in your AU?

Currently he’s fine. He’s been working with his little brother (Cranky) and little Sister (Carly) at Brendam Docks. He’s also very happy that the tugs are on Sodor so this meant to him that they are safe from Burke and Blair.

At first; He did work at Bigg City Port for many years. Helping the Stars and Zeds; falling in love with a old Star Tug and giving out the best advice he could to the Tugs (Despite him liking the Star tugs more than the Z-Stacks). However after the Munitions accident sent him crashing into the sea in an attempt to make sure everyone was safe by tipping in the opposite direction, He ended up washing up on the beaches of Sodor looking like a wounded mess and was out cold.

Sir Topham couldn’t let someone like Big Mickey lie on the beach to die or have someone find him and abuse him in some way; so He sent Big Mickey to the works to get repaired and hopefully get something out of him when he woke.

Thankfully he did and after a year or two of being in the works recovering and telling Sir Topham all he knew; Big Mickey was sent to work at the Docks as Cranky really needed some help. Let’s just say; Cranky and Big Mickey had a reunion and cried together.

Then when Bigg City Port closed down due to Bankruptcy; The Tugs we’re sold to Sir Topham and Big Mickey had a reunion with everyone, Even the Z-Stacks because even though he hated them, He sure as hell missed them.

When I said he fell in love with an old Star tug, I mean it. He fell in love with OJ; He was just scared to confess his feeling lol, The Poor lad.

#this is tugs #tugs big mickey #ttte sir topham hatt #ttte cranky #ttte carly

[justin-chapmanswers]

Justin, if you don't mind me asking. Will be there more "Inanimate Answers"? (It's ok if you dont answer)

Answering another one of these separately because my brain had a little brain-thought. Noggin-whispers. Skull-wiggles.

Exit Interviews! Like today's! Are similar! To Inanimate Answers! Mayhaps't've??

For some background, for Blueberry's I arranged the questions in order and had Barry improvise answers. Then I used those responses to write transitional phrases for our interviewer, Yellow, whose dialogue was mostly scripted. Then with Fan's, I arranged the questions again, but then Brian and our interviewer, Absolute Legend Mickel™, completely improvised their interview on the spot. Then maybe Adam did some light improv for Lifering? OJ's was very scripted, but in a fairly straightforward question-answer way.

Aaaaand, to get the present, Since Box's bizarre Exit interview, Brian and I have been writing them out together, with occasional guest writers, such as Dee helping a lot for Clover's. And here the goal of each of them is to not only find fun answers to the viewer's questions, but to also either find a real core to a contestant's story and help them re-ground themselves post-show, like for Tea Kettle and Cabby, or to shed some more light on a character by having them have an affect on an interviewer who needs to learn a lesson, like for Lifering (in the Box Exit), Clover, and Goo.

And this was always the mentality of Inanimate Answers! Just in a new form. Sometimes Apple needs to learn a lesson from Justin+Santa, sometimes Justin needs to learn a lesson from Balloon. And, in both shows, zaniness ensues. I'm still laying out viewer questions, and getting to use them to craft a little story that explores character not only through those questions, but also a culmination of what those questions mean to the character. It's fun!

One plus for the Exit Interviews is that I get to craft an interviewer who works as a strong foil for the contestant. Dr. Fizz is the perfect target to be driven crazy by Lifering, Bryan as an Interviewer was written to have insecurities that only Clover could help with, and now with today's Goo Exit, I knew for a long long time I wanted to create an interviewer for Goo who would be entirely opposed to Goo's silly existence.

On the flip-side, getting to write the very very bizarre character of Inanimate Answers Justin is veryyyy fun. I do think he fits best when placed next to Knife, whom Justin was created to bounce off of. Not to say that Justin doesn't work next to the other contestants on Inanimate Answers, but I remember when I decided I wanted to do Balloon next that I realized that the core couldn't just be the comedy of Balloon being annoyed by Justin's zaniness, because Balloon natural wouldn't react as strongly as Knife. So, that's when we started exploring different types of cores of an episode, such as showing Justin in the wrong and needing Balloon to help show him the light. Or Justin and Bow who get along surprisingly well, and it becomes about their chemistry. Or Justin being able to easily spot the underlying insecurities Apple has and having a deep dive into the root of those.

Aaaaand after writing all that, I'm missing Inanimate Answers more haha.

But! Exit Interviews are always a delight, as well. And I very much hope that y'all have a fun time as I and the team play around with different fun ideas to play with the question-answering, whilst've still trying to make mainline eps as frequently as possible. Wish us luuuuuck.

Aaaanyway I'm really happy with the Goo Exit Interview. Gettin' all gooey thinking about it. Hope you enjoy! And lemme know what y'all think on Inanimate Answers vs Exit Interviews (vs Fan Features??)!

#jay rambles #inanimate answers #exit interviews

[darcyfangirlsfrequently]

I Met You At the End of the World - chapter 4: All is Well (but I'm scared as hell that you won't like me)

Chapter summary: The Dirty Dozen case comes to a close, and Luke bids the BAU adieu, to the disappointment of many.

Chapter word count: 10,388

Total word count: 27,010

Can also be read here on Ao3

And I don't normally do this, but I'm tagging some people in this chapter: @hey-dw I know you exclusively read this on here and I don't want you to miss it! @a-potato-wearing-plaid I don't know if you follow this fic at all (I don't think so but you totally should because it's great and completely spoiler-free for you) but this is the chapter where Pretty Boy™ and Soft Boy™ meet and become friends and also there is a large Reid focus and also a lot of Soft Garvez™ that I think you'd enjoy

Luke and Tara had food in front of them they had no intention of really eating and martinis they were probably only going to take a sip or two from as they watched from their table as Reid entered the restaurant and sat down at the table that had been reserved for him and the woman he was meeting that night. Luke made eye contact with Morgan who was across the restaurant at the bar with JJ to confirm that they were all in position. Nothing could go wrong that night.

Luke watched as Reid fidgeted with his tie nervously—he wasn’t used to undercover work. Luke had offered to go in his place since he had plenty of experience with it, but he wasn’t a profiler, and they needed one to be the person going head-to-head with this woman. Reid placed a rose on the table—a request from the woman—and waited. All they could do now was wait.

They didn’t have to wait very long. A woman in a dark coat and teal dress with brown hair down to her chin walked up to him. “Spencer?” She could be heard asking through the microphone hidden behind Reid’s tie. Here she was. Cat Adams.

“Cat?” Reid responded.

“Hi!” 

“Hi. Hello. Hi.”

Cat attempted to hug him. “It’s nice to finally—”

Reid backed away from the hug. “Oh! Sorry, I have a… kind of a germ thing. I’m kind of weird with hugs.”

“Oh,” Cat replied. “Sorry.” 

They stood there silently for a moment, just standing there. The inaction made Luke uneasy. He knew Reid was nervous, but if his nerves accidentally caused him to do anything that might tip their hand… this night could go very poorly.

“Can I sit down?” Cat eventually asked.

Reid snapped right back into the moment. “Yes, please! Yeah, of course! Sit down!”

They both sat, and she took off her coat, placing it and her bag on the stretch of curved booth in between the two of them. 

They were silent for a moment more, and Luke couldn’t see her face, but he imagined Cat was examining Reid and his facial expressions. 

Cat was, again, the first one to break the silence. “First time doing this?”

“Yeah,” Reid replied, almost sound relieved. “I mean, yeah.”

“Yeah, I still get nervous too,” she said, as if to reassure him. Credit where credit is due, this woman was good at what she did. “Really, it wasn’t until an hour ago that I was like, wait, we’ve been trading emails back and forth but I still have no idea what this guy looks like.”

“Hence the…” Reid pointed to the rose on the table.

“I know, and then I was like, wait, he’s going to bring a red rose so we need to go to a nicer place, which is why I switched the restaurant at the last minute…”

“Not a problem at all,” Reid assured her, which was a bit of a lie. It had been a frustrating detail for the team, but one they were able to work with nonetheless. 

“And now I need to change and put something nice on for this place,” Cat continued. “‘Cause I was totally underdressed and my whole wardrobe makes me look like a Kardashian.”

Luke scoffed and rolled his eyes. Sure, it does.

Tara smiled at his reaction, having had the same thought.

Reid must have made a face at the name “Kardashian,” because Cat asked, “You don’t know who that is, do you?”

“No, oh yeah,” Reid replied enthusiastically. “Robert Kardashian. He got OJ Simpson off. You don’t… you don’t look like his daughter.”

Luke pressed his lips together so he didn’t actually laugh out loud, but made a mental note to tell Penelope about this later, knowing she’d get a kick out of her beloved “Boy Wonder’s” little slip-up.

“Yeah, no,” Cat said. “I was making a joke. A bad one.”

“No, it was a good joke!”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“It was funny.”

They chuckled awkwardly and then, for the third time that evening, were silent. After a pause, Cat finally said, “Can we start over? Hi, I’m Cat.”

Reid was still laughing nervously. “Hi, hello. Hi, I’m… I’m Spencer.”

“It really is nice to meet you, in person, finally,” she told him, sounding incredibly sincere. 

Reid nodded in response. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Tell me a little bit about yourself,” Cat prodded. “Do you really have three PhDs?”

“Yes. Erm, yeah, I do, I have three PhDs.”

“What was your favorite book that you read last year?”

“Um, honestly, I’ve never read a book I didn’t love.”

Then, Cat said the one thing that got their evening started in earnest. “Tell me about your wife.” She rested her head on her hands casually, waiting for his response.

Poor Reid was instantly made nervous yet again. “If you don’t mind, I’d, er, I’d rather not talk about her.”

“Might as well get it out in the open, right?” Cat replied. “That’s why we’re here. How long have you been married?”

“Four years.”

“When is she due to give birth?”

“In a couple of months.” Reid leaned across the table then, and lowered his voice, but not enough that the microphone could no longer pick up the conversation. “Should we talk about price now, or…”

Cat leaned forward as well. “Slow down, tiger. What exactly are we negotiating here?”

“You know.”

Cat shrugged. “I want to hear you say it.” 

There it was. There was a bit of the psychopath coming out. Forcing him to say what she already knew, giving herself all the power she could.

“To have her killed,” Reid whispered.

Cat remained silent for a moment, and Luke was almost certain she was smiling. People like her often did at this point.

“Let me see your ring,” she said. 

Reid held out his left hand where his fake wedding band was sitting, and Cat reached over to twist it around his finger.

“You know what that is?” She asked him. “A noose. Only it doesn’t kill you all at once. It kills you slowly, day by day. You ever feel that way?”

Luke watched as Reid nodded and knew that he, along with everyone else on the team, was making note of Cat’s destructive views of marriage, likely stemming from her experience with the marriage of her parents, and likely contributing to her corrupted worldview. 

“I feel that way all the time,” Reid said. 

“Take it off,” Cat instructed. 

“Why?”

“As a sign of your commitment,” she replied simply. “To me.”

Reid did as he was told, taking off the ring and handing it to her. 

She turned the ring over in her hand, examining it as she did so.

“If she sticks to pattern, she’ll take him to a secondary location and kill him,” JJ said over their comms. 

“We’re not going to let it get that far,” Rossi told her from his place at a booth on the opposite side of Reid and Cat that Luke and Tara were. He could see her completely if he looked over, while they could see him completely. “Hotch, do you have a visual?”

“Just hacked in,” came Penelope’s voice through their earpieces. She and Hotch were back at Quantico watching and monitoring remotely.

“All right Reid,” Hotch said. “We have you over her left shoulder. Do you copy?” Reid was supposed to cast a glance up at the security camera to confirm, and he must have, because then Hotch said, “All right, all agents stand by. Dr. Reid will give the green light. Don’t move until we have it.”

Cat was still playing with Reid’s ring. “24-karat?” 

Reid nodded. “Mmm-hmm.”

“24 K… times four years… means this rign should be dinged and nicked, but this sucker is brand new.”

Luke’s heart dropped to his stomach. They hadn’t given him an artificially distressed ring? They hadn’t even attempted to make the ring look old? What were they doing?

“You’re not married,” Cat continued. She fiddled with something in her bag, and then Luke swore he could hear the sound of a gun clicking. Shit. This was not good.

“What was that?” Penelope asked over the comms, obviously having heard what Luke did. “Was that what I think it was?”

“Everybody hold,” Hotch instructed.

“Why are we here, Spencer?” Cat asked, voice still unnervingly light and calm. 

Reid leaned forward again, and when he spoke, his voice was steady, even, and even slightly cold. It was made very obvious that his nerves that night had all been an act to get her feeling confident and make her drop her defenses. “We are here because you belong to a network of four hitmen who’ve been operating in the shadows of the Internet. You’re known as Miss 45. My team and I have been hunting you for months, and I knew that if I boxed you in, I could arrest you with as little resistance as possible.”

Luke knew that all of this was supposed to remain a secret from Cat until the end for obvious reasons, but flipping the tables like this would get the element of surprise back on their side. She was alone, and if she knew she was surrounded, she might be able to be convinced to give herself up.

“Your team being the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI?”

Luke and Tara stared at each other. She wasn’t supposed to know that. They hadn’t anticipated her knowing that. 

“You guys are good,” Cat admitted. “You’re the only ones that got close to us.”

Well yeah, Luke wanted to tell her. Because you were stupid enough to go after one of their own.

“But we got kind of close to you too, didn’t we?” Cat asked Reid. She leaned forwards, closer to Reid and the mic she must know he had. “Hi, Penelope.”

Luke’s blood boiled at the mention of her name, but he toned down his reaction. He needed to avoid Tara finding out, and besides, he couldn’t let his feelings for her get in the way of his job. Not when his job was protecting her. 

Penelope’s small gasp of fear could be heard on their comms, and Luke’s heart broke for her. She was so scared for herself already, and she was scared for Reid, this must all just be exacerbating that.

Cat sat up straighter. “Do you know why I’m so good at my job?”

“Because you kill without compunction or remorse,” Reid stated plainly.

“That only gets a girl so far in life,” Cat told him. “No, it’s because I think through every potential outcome, and then I plan accordingly. You see, I didn’t walk into your trap. You walked into mine.”

Reid remained silent.

“Where’s your head, Spencer?” She asked him. She slid along their curved booth until she was right up next to him, putting herself in everyone’s line of sight, barring Rossi. “What are you thinking about?”

“I was thinking about entropy,” Reid answered.

Cat nodded, and put her hand on Reid’s chest and began moving it lower, looking for something. 

“It’s the thermodynamic measure of the degradation of matter and energy in the universe. To put it another way—”

Cat found what she was looking for. “There’s your gun,” she said, pulling it out and taking it away from him. 

With potentially the worst timing ever, the waiter approached them then. “Good evening.”

Undoubtedly knowing she had to get him away from them for whatever her plan was to continue, Cat acted quickly. “Hi, you know what? We’ve been having so much fun getting to know one another, we’ll let you know when we’re ready, okay? Thank you.”

The waiter nodded and left their table, unintentionally guaranteeing his own safety.

“Now that we got that out of the way,” Cat continued, sliding back over to her original place. “Will you do me a favor and tell Blondie and Baldie over there at the bar to disappear?” She looked right over at JJ and Morgan, blowing their cover.

“JJ, Morgan, stand down,” Hotch instructed through their earpieces. 

The two got up and walked out of the restaurant, passing right by Cat and Reid’s table.

“Thanks for playing, guys,” Cat sing-songed after them.

“If she learns how many agents we have outside she’ll start shooting,” Hotch said. “Dave, get ready to take her out.”

“Yeah,” Rossi confirmed. 

“Reid, do not let her get up from the table,” Hotch told him. 

“All right, you’re in charge,” Reid said to Cat. Placing the control back in her hands would prevent any unexpected actions on her part. “Tell me what you want and I will see if I can get it here for you.”

“Anything I want?”

“Anything you want.”

“Like a million dollars in unmarked bills and maybe a plane to Aruba?”

“Is that what you want?”

“And you’ll say you’ll bring it here, but the real plan is to distract me from what is, I’m sure, an impressive law enforcement response just outside that door. Is that the plan?”

Reid smiled at her. “That’s the plan.”

What is he doing? Luke mouthed to Tara. 

She shrugged in response. It was anyone’s guess at this point.

“Okay,” Cat said. “Let’s talk, but let’s talk about something interesting at least. Tell me about me.”

She had no idea that that was a mistake. Getting Reid to talk to her about her would only play into her psychopathy and narcissism, and it would give the power back to him. 

“You?” Reid repeated before continuing. “You’re a black widow hitwoman. You specialize in seduction and you’re patient. You learn everything you can about the men you’re hired to kill, physically, psychologically, and emotionally, because you want them in as compromised a position as possible so they don’t see it coming when you pull the trigger.”

“And when I do it really well, they pull the trigger themselves.” She paused. “Give me your phone.”

“Why?”

“Because I know what I want now. I want to play a game with you. You like games?”

“I do.”

“Do you win?”

“I always win.”

“Give it to me,” Cat insisted.

Reid handed over his phone.

“Okay, here’s my game. You have thirty minutes to answer every question I ask. And if you lie, I’ll know. Because I’ve spent the past ten years of my life studying men and their lies before I kill them. Do you believe me?”

“I do.”

She set the phone down in the middle of the table. “That was true, you’re getting this. Now here’s how we’ll know who wins at the end of thirty minutes: If you win, you’ll drag me out of here in handcuffs. But if I win, you will escort me out, like a gentleman, to make sure I exit safely. What do you say, Spencer? Think you can win this one?”

He leaned over the table to her, motioning that she do the same. “Considering everything you put Garcia and so many other people through,” he whispered dangerously, “you’re going to have to shoot me in the face before you walk out of here.”

“Game on.”

“Oh boy.” Penelope’s voice was wavering, fear for her friend evident. No one knew what was about to happen.

“What do you want to ask me?” Reid said to Cat.

“How you found me, of course. A professional learns from her mistakes.” With that, she started the timer. 

The game was afoot.

“We got our big break in the case at the end of last year. I didn’t learn how big until I came back from some time off.”

“Why’d you take time off?”

Reid started to tell the story of coming back and meeting with Morgan and Savannah, getting some medical research from her, and collecting him for work.

“Stop,” Cat commanded.

“Why?”

“You still haven’t told me why you took time off.”

“It’s not relevant.”

“That’s not the game. The game is you answer every question I ask. Is it a secret?”

Reid shook his head. “No.”

“Is it dirty?”

“No.”

“Then tell me.” She strung the ‘me’ out, almost sounding like she was whining. Pleading. Begging.

“It’s not important to your story.”

“Out of curiosity, is it me you don’t want to tell or the people listening in?”

Reid looked down at the phone in the middle of the table. “Is this really how you want to spend your thirty minutes?”

“Yes,” she replied, not even skipping a beat to consider. But then she paused. And admitted, “No. Okay, so you were saying you showed up for work that morning and…”

“We learned that someone unexpected decided to talk.”

“And who would that be?”

***

Three weeks before

Hotch had called an emergency meeting, and Luke had anticipated being the first one to the Round Table Room, but he wasn’t. A man he had never met before was already there, studying files. This must be the famed Dr. Spencer Reid. Penelope had told Luke he’d be coming back that day. She was really excited about it, and so he was, by extension, happy on her behalf.

“Hey,” Luke said in greeting. “Luke. Alvez.”

“Oh hi!” The other man exclaimed. “I’m Dr. Spencer Reid.”

Luke smiled at his correct assumption. “Ah. No hand-shaking, right? Your reputation precedes you.”

“Yeah. Did Morgan tell you?”

“Him and Garcia, actually. They both speak very highly of you.”

“Of you, too.”

The rest of the team filed in then, cutting their conversation short. Hotch and Penelope took their places at the front of the room as everyone else took a seat. Luke shot Penelope a comforting smile, and she returned one of gratitude.

Hotch turned on the presentation. “Brian Cochran from the NSA. I’ve placed him on a 24/7 lockdown at USP Terre Haute. The network has proven that they can kill anyone, anywhere, anytime, and now that they’ve targeted Garcia, we can’t afford to lose another lead. Cochran used one of the hitmen to target DEA Supervisor Graff.”

“But we can press him on that to get him to cooperate,” Morgan said.

“Well, fortunately, that won’t be necessary,” Hotch told him. “He had a breakdown in solitary confinement and he was already willing to make a deal.”

“We need to go talk to him,” Rossi declared.

“Garcia and I already did,” Hotch informed them. 

“That is, we video-conferenced with him,” Penelope elaborated. “He was limited in what he could tell us about the hit people. He didn’t know their names, but he did know all of their areas of expertise.”

“How specific do they get?” Reid asked her. “Most successful hitmen are basically just Swiss Army Knives of murder.”

“Well, take the OG hit guy who got us into this mess, Giuseppe Montolo. Remember him? He was a genius at making hits look like an accident. The others, depends on what you’re looking for. Take the guy who’s still out there who’s responsible for shooting poor Mr. Graff. He’s known simply as The Sniper. He can make a T-zone shot from over 2,000 metres.”

“Which means he’s ex military,” Luke said. “Not necessarily ours, but he’s definitely trained. Has to be. You don’t get that good anywhere else. I’ve worked with really good snipers in the past, all of them are current or ex-military.”

“So who’s number two?” Tara asked.

“That would be The Chemist,” Penelope told her. “He works with poison. He specializes in hits that don’t leave a trace.”

“He sounds delightful,” Rossi quipped. “What about number three?”

“That would be The Bomber,” Penelope answered, using the remote to switch to pictures of an absolutely devastating bombing site. “According to Cochran, he’s responsible for this. It’s a chemical fire in Tianjin, China. Apparently a bureaucrat didn’t pay his bribe on time.”

“All that’s Conspiracy Theory Garbage,” JJ argued.

“But what is credible” Hotch replied, “is Cochrans insistence that he was trained by Mossad. Jack Garrett’s following up on leads.”

“That leaves us with number four,” Penelope continued. “The one with the highest body count of them all.”

“And who’s that?” Reid asked.

***

“Me!” Cat answered.

Reid nodded. “Yes.”

“Wow, that was really impressive,” Cat said sarcastically. “Yeah, the way you just made all those brilliant deductions with all that information that was just handed to you on a silver platter. Quick question: are you guys really profilers or are you just lucky? Because this, what I’m about to say, is profiling.” She cleared her throat before continuing. “The reason you took time off from work was to deal with the same girl who broke your heart.”

“No,” Reid answered quickly.

“The death of a parent, then.”

Luke rolled his eyes. Some ‘profiling’ this was if she was just guessing at different reasons someone might need to take time off work.

Reid hesitated slightly this time. “No.”

“Ah, hello, I’m getting close. It’s Mom or Dad in the billiard room with the candlestick… oh you’re mad at me aren’t you?”

“Not even a little bit.”

“Yes you are, I can tell.”

“No offense,” Reid said to her, “but you’re not really worth getting angry at.”

Luke’s eyes went wide. Goddamn.

Cat changed the subject. “So you figured out what the four of us did, and then what?”

��We profiled that you operated as spokes on a wheel. Somehow it had to be centralized, how you got jobs, who paid you. Somebody did all that for you.”

“You found The Snowman, didn’t you?”

***

“Great, so who’s this Snowman jagoff?” Rossi asked. Penelope had just explained that central role to the network.

“Cochran says he’s the IT expert,” Hotch informed them. “He’s the key to the whole network.”

“But if he set it up, he’s not going to tear it down just because we ask nicely,” Morgan remarked. 

“He will,” Hotch refuted, “because he was kidnapped by one of the hitmen and held against his will in a safe house.”

“I wonder how that feels,” Penelope snipped. 

Luke bit down on his lips to keep from laughing.

“Even if they have him under duress, he’s still going to be impossible to find,” JJ said.

“We will find him,” Hotch stated, “with this.” He held up the USB he’d confiscated off Cochran when he’d been arrested and then placed it down on the center of the table.

***

“Woah, woah, woah,” Cat interrupted. “I’m confused. What just happened there?”

“When we arrested Cochran, we found a flash drive, one that gave us access to a specific shadow of the Darknet, one we didn’t even knwo existed. Garcia used it to find the website The Snowman set up for all of you. Once we had the website, we had geography, specifically, the safehouse you were keeping him in. So we waited until the shift change when we knew we could take two of you down at once.”

***

Penelope had hacked into The Snowman’s server and was live-streaming a video of herself to him. She was holding up flashcards with messages on them, so she could silently talk to him. On these cards, she explained who she was and how she could help him. And, most importantly, told him to get down as the rest of the team stormed the building. 

Luke and JJ ran in, and she was able to take down The Sniper. Unfortunately, The Chemist killed himself with his own poison before they were able to aprehend him.

“What is this?” Barry Winslow, The Snowman, asked JJ and Luke as they undid his chains. “What’s going on?”

Luke patted him on the back as they exited the room. “Welcome to the FBI, kid.”

***

“Well, well, well,” Cat said. If Luke didn’t know any better, he’d say she sounded impressed. “You took The Chemist and The Sniper out of commission, huh?”

“Did you know?” Reid asked her. 

“I knew something was off. They didn’t bid on some contracts. And this isn’t the kind of job where you get to take time off to be with your… mother? Is it your mom? It’s gotta be your mom.”

Reid didn’t answer her.

“Why’d you take time off from the FBI?”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

“Spencer,” Cat insisted. “Why did you take time off from the FBI?”

“You can ask me as many times you want,” he replied in a cool voice, “and you can continue to waste your time, but I’m still not going to tell you.”

“Then you’re cheating and I don’t like cheaters.”

Luke rolled his eyes. She sounded like a petulant child.

“You don’t get everything you want just because you’re pointing a gun at me under a table,” Reid said, practically scolding her. “You’re not the first killer to point a gun at me, you’re not even the first woman to point a gun at me. Sorry.”

“You’re really going to take this all the way, aren’t you?”

He nodded. “Yeah.” 

“So am I.”

“Dave, go,” Hotch ordered through the earpieces.

“Look at my face,” Cat said. “Does it look like I’m bluffing?”

“I know you’re not bluffing.”

Rossi got up and started to move towards the pair just as Cat slid over in the booth, putting Reid directly in between her and Rossi, blocking the latter’s line of sight.

“I’m going to ask you this one more time,” she told him. “Before you say no, I want you to consider something.”

A sharp ringing went through their earpieces then, and Luke winced.

“She muffled the mic,” Penelope told them. “We lost audio.”

“Damn,” Luke whispered.

He couldn’t hear what Cat and Reid whispered to each other, but she must have seen Rossi and threatened him, because he could then hear Reid say, at a normal volume, “I’ll tell you.”

She removed her hand from his tie.

“Rossi, stand down,” Reid instructed, not breaking eye contact with Cat. He turned to the older man then, and said, “Please.”

Rossi turned, and walked away.

“My mom has schizophrenia,” Reid finally admitted to Cat. “The doctor has changed her medication, which seemed to agitate her, so I went to the treatment center to help her.”

Luke’s heart sank for the man he considered a friend. He hadn’t known that, and that kind of news was just devastating. No one deserved that.

“That’s it?” Cat asked.

“That’s it,” Reid confirmed.

“You just risked your life over mommy’s pills?”

“It’s the truth.”

“It’s part of the truth,” Cat decided. “You’re holding something back. Here’s what I’m going to do.” She reached over to the phone in the middle of the table. “I’m going to penalize you by adding ten minutes. And keep in mind that the only reason why you’re not dead right now is because I did learn something important.”

“Oh really?” Reid asked, doubting her statement. “What’s that?”

Cat grinned and gestured widely to the space around them. “Your backup! I flushed them out! It’s just you and me now.”

Smarking, Tara lifted her glass to Luke. “Guess again, bitch.”

Luke returned a smirk of his own, and tapped his glass against hers. Tara was the newest to the team, and Luke wasn’t even officially on it, so of course she wouldn’t recognize them.

“So,” Cat said. “When we left off, the score was you had two of our guys and The Snowman. You must have thought you were home free.”

“No,” Reid told her. “If anything, the case was harder.”

***

“I can’t tell you that much about them,” Barry Winslow told the team. “It’s not like we had heart-to-heart conversations while they handcuffed me to a computer.”

“Do you know any of their names?” Tara asked him.

“No. But I know their bank accounts.”

“How long do you think we have before the other two realize the network’s been compromised?” Reid asked.

“Two days, maybe. They like being independent contractors, so they always work jobs separately. And, uh, they rely on me to coordinate all their online traffic.”

“Which I can help fake,” Penelope offered.

Brian nodded. “Yeah. We have the facade covered on our end, but they also have back channel communications that I can’t account for. Especially The Bomber.”

“Why him?” Rossi asked.

“I don’t know,” Barry replied honestly. “But all I know is when they would rotate watching over me, he never showed.”

“I know why,” JJ said. “Because he’s paranoid. Most explosives experts are. Blow everything up, you live in fear that you’re next.”

“We need to lure out the hitwoman,” Hotch stated. “If we can take her alive, she’d lead us to The Bomber.”

“We have to give her a target worth coming out of hiding for,” Morgan said.

“That means me, doesn’t it?” Penelope asked timidly.

“No,” Hotch, Luke, and Morgan answered simultaneously and firmly.

“Sir,” she tried to argue.

“Garcia, that’s not going to happen,” Morgan told her in a voice that bore no room for disagreement.

“It’s not safe to leave you there exposed like that,” Luke explained gently.

Hotch turned to face Barry. “You have a record of all the kills she was paid for?”

“I have records of everything,” Barry confirmed.

“All right, even a contract killer can have victimology,” Hotch mused. “A pattern of which she’s not aware. We need to find that.”

It didn’t take long for Barry and Penelope to find the pattern after they knew what they were looking for. They found three men, all of whom wanted their wives killed. However, those hits had not gone the way the buyers had intended. The hitwoman had taken their money and then killed the men who hired her. Additionally, all three men had children. They were able to deduce that those specific kills were personal to her because something similar happened to her when she was a child. They decided they needed to lure her out using a made up client that fit that victimology.

“I can do it,” Luke offered without missing a beat. “I have undercover experience, it’ll be as easy as breathing for me.”

“I appreciate the offer,” Hotch told him. “Really, I do, and I appreciate your undercover experience, but to guarantee this will lead us to The Bomber, we need a profiler to be the one talking face-to-face with her, and unfortunately you aren’t trained for that. However, your undercover experience is still invaluable, and I would greatly appreciate your help planning the operation.

Luke nodded. “Whatever I can do.”

“I can do it,” Reid said then. “I pretend to be that kind of client. I’m going to pretend to be a husband who wants his pregnant wife dead.”

“Well I’d want to kill you if you told me that,” JJ remarked.

“Exactly,” Reid said. “Then all we have to do is set the right meeting spot. A bar or a restaurant that we can control so the odds are better of us taking her alive.”

Hotch nodded. “That’s our best strategy.”

***

“But there was one flaw,” Cat said. “You. You’re not married, and you don’t have children.”

“I’m the person on my team whose closest in age to you, and I knew that if I lost control of the situation, you’d be more likely to negotiate with a peer.”

“You have zero control here,” Cat said bitingly. “None. I outflanked you from the beginning.”

Reid considered this. “Well, some of your moves were pretty obvious.”

“Such as?”

“Such as showing up armed, such as changing the venue at the last moment…”

“I needed a restaurant full of innocents in case this was a trap.”

“If you really suspected this was a trap, then why show up at all? Even when you first laid eyes on me, from the bar, from outside, from wherever you were, you should have seen through me and kept moving but you didn’t. You couldn’t. Because you can’t get to the man you really want to hurt, so you need to hurt any man who reminds you of him.”

Luke knew Reid’s words had affected Cat, because she hesitated before answering him, and when she did, her voice was slightly shaky. “That’s kind of boilerplate psychology, isn’t it? I’m just another girl with daddy issues.”

“You’d be surprised how many killers do what they do because of their parents. If it’s so boilerplate, then why don’t we test that theory? How hard did you look for him?”

“Very hard.”

“And how disappointed were you when you realized that you will never find him? You needed some other outlet for your rage, and for a while this worked, but it also tripped you up. Can I tell you a little secret?” When Cat didn’t respond, Reid took it as his sign to continue. “Everything eventually falls apart. The trick is accepting when it’s over.”

Cat stared at him.

Reid stared at her.

The timer went off.

“Except it ain’t over, is it?” Cat asked.

“Do you really think I’m just going to let you walk out of here?”

“You profiled so much about me, except, you forgot to ask the most important question. Why would I make you sit here for thirty minutes?”

“Because you’re stalling.”

“Then you don’t know me at all. Do you think I’d show up here without an escape plan? Or is that what just another girl with daddy issues would do? Maybe if you hadn’t fallen victim to your own gender bias, and yes, all men have gender bias, even you, Dr. Reid, you would have recognized that your entire strategy was based on one faulty detail. Can you see it?”

“You’re not here alone,” Reid realized.

“And my partner? Less paranoid than you think.”

“You planted a bomb in the building.”

Luke and Tara glanced at each other, unsure of what they should do. Stand by and wait for instruction? Try to find the bomb?

“We’re on the move,” JJ said through their earpieces.

“I’m going to go look for the owner,” Tara whispered to Luke. “Stay here.”

He nodded.

“I didn’t,” Cat corrected. “My job was to keep your entire team focused on us, so he could do what he does best.”

Luke realized that Cat had, once again, unwittingly made a detrimental error. She had wanted the entire team’s focus on her… but then got rid of three team members, leaving them free to focus on anything else, including whatever The Bomber had set up.

“Hotch,” came JJ’s voice again. “We’ve got inter-connected C-4 charges down here.”

“How many?” He asked her.

“There’s six charges,” Rossi replied.

“They’re connected to the city’s gas line,” Morgan added. “She could take out the whole block.”

“There are innocent people here,” Reid pleaded with Cat.

“Yes, there are,” she agreed. “So let me remind you what we’re playing for. Not only will I walk out of here, but you will make sure I leave safely. And from where I’m sitting, it looks like I’ve won. You need to pay attention to this part. I’m going to tell you the terms of my victory. I want you to move all of your backup away from this building. If I walk out of here and see one cop, I will incinerate us all.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Spencer,” she warned.

“It’s not me. What you’re asking takes time.”

Cat grabbed Reid by the tie and pulled him close, her face right by the mic. “This is to whoever’s in charge: Unless you guys want to be responsible for the biggest FBI disaster since Waco, you will back off now.” She let go of the tie and whispered, “Watch this.”

Hotch was too busy trying to deal with the bomb to address Cat’s demands. “JJ, say again. The bomb has a cellphone trigger?”

“That’s right,” she confirmed. “All she has to do is call the number and boom.”

“Can you jam the signal?” Hotch asked, most likely to Penelope.

“Not from here, no,” came her reply, her voice tight with fear.

“The failsafe will still kick in,” Morgan told them. “Same outcome. Can’t move ‘em, can’t submerge ‘em.”

“It’ll take us hours to get the gas turned off on the whole block,” Hotch said mournfully. “If we alert anyone, then the panic could set her and the bomb off.”

“SWAT’s on the radio with the bomb squad,” Rossi informed them. “They say our only chance is to get our hands on that cellphone. If we shut down the trigger, we can remove the charges.”

“Alvez,” Hotch called. 

“Go ahead, Hotch,” Luke replied.

“Does she have a cellphone with her?”

Lifting his glass to his mouth so the wide brim would slightly shield his eyes, Luke looked over at Cat and Reid discreetly. “I don’t think so. I didn’t see her pull one out. The Bomber was setting this up while we were all up here. I think he’s holding the trigger.”

“We’re combing the block. He could be anywhere though. Where’s Lewis?”

“She went to go find the owner and inform the staff of the situation,” Luke told him. “She just texted me, she said she told the staff to calmly tell each patron there was an unforeseen problem in the kitchen that cannot be resolved, their dinner has been paid for, and they need to leave at their earliest possible convenience, as well as instructing them to leave Cat and Reid alone.”

“Good,” Hotch replied. “It’ll minimize if not completely eliminate mass panic.”

The servers started coming out in droves then, and Cat noticed. “Look at that, there they go.”

Reid started to explain. “All we want to do—”

“Is minimize the collateral damage,” Cat cut him off. “I get it. I’m not mad. It’ll give me the cover I need to slip out. I just need to know it’s clear, so do me a favor and tell your boss that nobody leaves until it’s safe for me to.”

“Reid, perimeter agents are pulling back,” came Hotch’s voice. “You have to let her go.”

Reid’s face looked pained. 

“Well?” Cat demanded.

“Repeat,” Hotch said. “All agents do not engage or pursue until the bomb is defused.”

Reid still said nothing.

“Spencer…” Cat said, audibly growing annoyed.

Finally, he said, “You can leave.”

Cat got up, took her bag and coat, and moved to leave.

“But you won’t,” Reid said, stopping her in her tracks. 

“I’m sorry?”

“Double or nothing I can get you to sit back down.”

“Reid, what are you doing?” Hotch asked, unnerved at this sudden turn of events.

“Wow,” Cat drawled. “Now you’re stalling.”

“You played your trump card, but I have one too.”

Cat wasn’t taking the bait. Turning away, she said, “Thanks for dinner. I had fun.”

“I found your father,” Reid called out to her.

If Luke had taken a sip of his drink at that moment, he would have choked on it.

Cat’s reaction was similar. She stopped dead in her tracks and turned back around. “No you didn't.”

“Look at my face,” Reid replied. “Am I bluffing? I’ll tell you where he is. But you need to sit back down and listen to the rest of my story.”

“No, tell me now, or I’ll—”

“Detonate the bomb? You’re not going to do that, Cat, because then you won’t learn anything. You said you were good at your job because you think through every outcome. Well guess what? So do I.”

Cat looked around for a moment, seeming unsure, but then sat back down at the table. “All right. Finish the story.”

“To prepare for this dinner, I had to learn everything about you, starting with your real name.” He described the way he had profiled her and found her with the help of Penelope. “Catherine Adams. Daughter of Daniel Adams, who did in fact leave the country in 1987 but came back in 2012. Based on confidentialrecords in rehabs and sober living houses, which in turn pointed us to flophouses and soup kitchens. He couldn’t put twenty-four hours together sober. And you can probably imagine my surprise when I discovered that he actually lives right here in DC.”

“Where?” Cat demanded, tears in her voice.

“It’s not that simple,” Reid told her. “He was in bad shape when I found him. I showed him a picture of you. He had no idea who you were.”

“He didn’t remember me?”

“The alcoholism shredded his brain. I’m sorry.”

Cat scoffed. “You’re not sorry. Sorry is what people say when they don’t understand.”

Reid didn’t reply.

“Wait,” Cat said, realizing something. “Your mother. Tell me.”

“Is this part of the game?”

“No. The game is over.”

Reid was silent for a moment before answering. “When I looked at her medical chart, it didn’t make any sense. The medication they gave her should have been helping, but I couldn’t figure out why it was making her so angry. So I went to see her. The moment I walked into her room, I saw it. For three seconds, she didn’t know who I was.”

Luke’s heart clenched with sympathy. He hoped his new friend was lying in an effort to stall Cat, but if he wasn’t… that was potentially the worst experience someone could have with their parents. He couldn’t imagine how he’d react if, one day, his own mother didn’t recognize him. 

“I had her tested that morning,” Reid continued. “And I found out that night that she had early onset of dementia. Most likely Alzheimer’s.

“Did you test yourself?” Cat asked him.

Reid looked down at his lap. 

“No, you didn’t. You were too scared.”

“I thought I dodged a bullet when I turned thirty and didn’t have a schizophrenic break like her,” Reid said, voice thick with tears. “But this is somehow bigger and scarier because I can actually see it happening. All the memories that we used to share… are just dying. I can’t stop it. I can’t help her. All I can do is find people that I can help.”

Cat cocked her head to the side. “Is that really why you showed up tonight? To help me?” She leaned across the table to him. “Do you know how many men have told me that they wanted to help me? How do you think that worked out for them?”

JJ’s panicked voice came through the comms then. “Hotch, she just armed the bomb.”

“Hotch we need to pull back,” Morgan insisted.

“Copy. Alvez, get out of there.”

“Hotch, we might have a lead here,” Tara said, having returned to their table a few minutes prior.

“She hasn’t touched anything to arm the bomb,” Luke explained. “That means The Bomber’s here, somewhere in the restaurant.”

“All right, if you can take him, do so,” Hotch conceded. “But the priority is evacuation.”

“I’m not even sure it is a him” Luke mused. 

Tara nodded. “Cat mentioned something about gender bias. So what if we applied that to The Bomber as well?”

Hotch considered this. “All right, she’d have to be in a position to maintain line of sight of Reid all night. Who do you see?”

“Look for anyone with their phone out,” Luke advised as he and Tara started discreetly scanning the restaurant. “That’s the detonator. Our woman will give herself away by looking over.”

“You’re right,” Reid said then to Cat. “You don’t need my help. You don’t need anyone’s help. You are completely in control.”

Tara and Luke kept looking as Reid spoke, and then Tara found her.

“I’ve got her,” she whispered. “Blue dress. By the bar.”

“Hey, you know what, babe?” Luke asked at a normal, playing his part of the couple he and Tara were pretending to be as their cover. “Let’s get out of here, I’m not really feeling this place.” He got up and extended a hand to her.

“Aw, really?” Tara pretended to whine. “I kind of like it.”

“I want to take you to a spot where we can do some dancing,” he explained, leading her along the bar on their way to the exit. The second he was behind the woman Tara had pointed out, he grabbed her arm and twisted her away from the bar, wrestling with her for her phone. The second he had it, he pushed her toward Tara, who in turn shoved her against the bar to make the arrest as Luke used the phone to de-activate the bomb.

“Hotch, we’re clear,” came JJ’s voice, alerting Luke to his success, but only momentarily.

“Reid’s not,” Hotch informed them. 

Cat had grabbed Reid and was standing by their table, holding her gun to his head. “Don’t!” She screamed.

“FBI,” Luke announced, making his way over to them. “Everybody stay calm please.”

“We’re going to be smart about this and talk it out, aren’t we, Cat?” Tara called out as she cuffed The Bomber.

“That’s up to you,” Cat called back.

“Get everyone out of here,” Reid instructed them.

“Move,” Tara ordered the civilians around her, dragging The Bomber out with her. 

Morgan came into the main area of the restaurant then, having run back after the bomb was safely deactivated, and stood by Luke who was still standing in front of Cat and Reid with his gun trained on her. 

“Morgan, Luke, you too,” Reid said to them. 

Morgan shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Me neither,” Luke agreed.

“Guess we’re right back where we started,” Cat mused, looking at Reid. “You and me with a gun.”

“Reid, it’s time,” Morgan warned.

Time for what? Luke wanted to ask, but he held his tongue.

“No,” Reid pleaded.

“We don’t have a choice,” Morgan insisted. “We have to do it.”

“Morgan, shut up,” Reid begged. 

“There’s one thing he hasn’t told you yet.” Morgan directed that at Cat.

“That’s not true, he’s lying, don’t listen to him,” Reid babbled.

“What haven’t you told me?” Cat demanded. 

“Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!”

“We brought your father here,” Morgan announced. 

Okay, so he was bluffing, Luke realized. The promise of her father was likely the only thing that could guarantee to get Cat out of this building alive.

“Here?” Cat repeated in disbelief. “He’s here?”

“He’s right outside,” Luke confirmed.

“Reid thought he needed every bargaining chip he could get,” Morgan explained.

“Morgan,” Reid pleaded again. “I am begging you, don’t. Don’t.”

Morgan ignored him. “Every bargaining chip he could get to convince you to do the right thing.”

Cat scoffed. “How is this the right thing?”

“Your father killed your mother,” Luke stated, playing along. This, this was what he knew. What he did best. The hunting, the undercover operation, talking down the unsub, it all brought him right back to the Fugitive Taskforce, and he loved it. He thrived in it. In these final hours of the night, it finally made sense to him why Morgan had begged him to come aboard. “There’s no statute of limitations on murder, so you really need to think about your options right now. You shoot him, I will kill you. Or if you surrender, you will live to testify against your father.” 

“That’s not good enough,” Cat spat.

“We can arrange for the two of you to drive into custody together,” Morgan offered, “and then you can remind him of who you are.”

“If you give her this she wins,” Reid argued. “Don’t do it.”

“Kid I am trying to save your life, now let me do that!” Morgan snapped back. There was a beeping sound outside, a large vehicle backing up. “They’re bringing him in right now.”

Cat looked over at Reid, who looked absolutely agonized and distraught. “You’re really upset about this, aren’t you?”

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Luke asked her. “A chance to finally hurt the man who deserves it.”

“They all deserve it,” Cat told him. 

“He deserves it the most,” Luke countered.

Reid shook his head, which only seemed to spur Cat on and make her decision easier. “Only if Spencer escorts me out.”

“Deal,” Reid said through gritted teeth.

She threw her gun to the ground. Morgan and Luke approached the pair, Morgan handing Reid the cuffs while Luke kept his gun trained on Cat in case she had any surprises up her sleeve. Once she was cuffed, Reid began to escort her from the building.

“Hotch,” Morgan said into his comm.

“Yeah?” 

“We’re coming out.”

“Okay, you’re all clear,” the Unit Chief informed them.

The four of them walked out of the building together, but Cat stopped dead in her tracks the second they crossed the threshold. “Wait.” She paused for a minute, then said, “Okay. I’m ready.”

Reid guided her down the steps and to the police van that was waiting for her, and Morgan and Luke followed them. They swing open the doors to reveal… nothing. Cat’s father wasn’t there. He never had been.

Reid led her into the van and cuffed her properly to the wall.

“You lied to me,” she said, sounding near tears.

“If it makes you feel any better, I really did look for him,” Reid told her sincerely. “But I couldn’t find him, so yeah, I did make it all up.”

“Not all of it,” Cat replied. “You don’t pull a story about a parent losing her memory out of nowhere. Your mother and the Alzheimer’s, that’s true.”

“Did you know?” Luke whispered to Morgan.

“Not a clue,” he whispered back.

“I won,” Cat declared.

“How so?” Reid asked her.

“Because I will get out of here.”

“Yeah, in twenty years, maybe, if you’re lucky,” Reid retorted.

She brushed him off. “Yeah, that’s fine. You know why? Because in twenty years, I’ll remember your name, but you won’t remember mine.”

Reid didn’t bother responding, he just stood up and got out of the van, Luke and Morgan slamming it shut behind him.

“Come on,” Morgan said to the other two. “Garcia’s spending the night with me and Savannah, let’s go and say hi to our girl.”

Reid nodded, smiling at the prospect of getting to see his friend free and happy again. Luke tried to not make it incredibly evident how much he was looking forward to seeing Penelope again, and at the same time, how sad he was this whole ordeal was over.

Morgan’s house was a decent walk away, but the weather was nice, and the three men enjoyed the cool night air to help soothe their nerves after the intense night, hell, intense months they had had. They didn’t say a word the whole time.

“You guys want to come in for a bit?” Morgan offered once they had arrived. “Decompress?”

Luke nodded, but Reid shook his head.

“I’m good, I’m probably just going to go home,” he replied.

“That was an intense case,” Morgan sighed. 

“Yeah,” Reid laughed. “It’s over. Network’s gone.”

Morgan nodded, a serious look on his face, and Luke stepped to the side a little, wanting to be as not-present as he possibly could be for this no doubt personal conversation that was about to transpire. 

However, before anyone got the chance to speak, a very drunk Penelope came barrelling out of the house calling, “Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!” A frantic Savannah came running out after her.

Morgan’s eyes went wide. “Hey hey hey, what is happening right now?”

Penelope was on a roll, running down the stairs in her four-inch heels to go to them. “You’re what’s going on. Right now is what’s… You are here. Do you know what’s happening right now? It is… it is done! The Dirty Dozen is done! Yes! Duh-uhn! I’m in it!” She made little strange gestures with her hands as she spoke, which had the group in absolute stitches. 

Morgan turned to Savannah. “How much did she have?”

Savannah scratched the back of her head guiltily. “She started out with jäger.”

“Jäger?” Morgan repeated in shock.

Penelope put her hands on Morgan’s shoulders. “I love you.”

“Okay,” he replied, trying to see where she was going with this.

“I love you,” she repeated. “And you!” Penelope pointed at Reid. “I love you so much. And you,” she stumbled over to Luke and planted her hands on his chest to ground herself, staring down at her feet. He was glad she was so drunk she likely couldn’t feel how much his heartrate had just accelerated. She turned her head back toward him, a look of concentration on her face. “I don’t know you well enough to love you yet, but I definitely like you a lot and I could love you.”

“Okay,” Luke managed to squeak out, flustered as all hell.

Penelope turned to Savannah then and grabbed her by the shoulders. “And you! I should be jealous of you because you’re so hot—”

Savannah turned in shock to stare at Morgan, who was equally at a loss for words. 

“But I’m not!” Penelope swore. “I’m not! I promise you I’m not! I’m not, I promise! No, I’m not, ‘cause you know what? All I feel in here is love.” She started running her hands over her body. “I just… I am feeling full of love. So much love… I’m wearing too many clothes!” She turned and started running back up the stairs to the house. 

“I got this,” Savannah assured them.

Casting a glance to Morgan and Reid, Luke decided they could probably use a moment to themselves, so he called after Savannah, “I’ll help you.”

"You don't have to," Savannah told him as they chased Penelope through the house. "I can handle a drunk Penelope, it wouldn't be the first time." 

"Oh I know, but I don't mind," Luke assured her. "Besides, Mor– Derek and Spencer looked like they needed a minute to themselves." 

Savannah nodded, understanding. She knew Derek's three closest friends were right there, Luke, Penelope, and Spencer, and knew that two of them had been having an especially tough go of it. She had learned to love each of them as much as he did. She wouldn't fault her boyfriend for spending time with his friend, especially one who had been gone so long. "We need to convince Penelope to go to sleep," she told Luke. "She's a very blabbery drunk, as you saw, but she's also a sleepy one. The sooner we get her to bed, the better she feels in the morning. But normally she brings pajamas, she doesn't have any this time." 

"Did she happen to bring her bag that she was living out of at Quantico?"

Savannah's eyes lit up. “Yes she did! Okay, I’ll go grab the pajamas, you try to corral her in the guest bedroom at the end of the hall, okay?”

“Sounds like a plan, but first I’m going to get her a glass of water so she doesn’t have a killer headache tomorrow.”

Savannah took off to find the pajamas, and went to get the water and Penelope. “Hey, Penelope, hey,” he said gently, taking her by her shoulder—and trying to pull her cardigan back on because he was respectful.

“Luke! Hi!”

He smiled warmly at her. “Hi. I have a question for you. Wouldn’t you just love to go to sleep in a real bed instead of your office couch like you’ve been having to do the last few months?”

Penelope’s entire face lit up. “Yes! I’d love that! Yes! Please!”

“Okay, then follow me, all right? We’re going to the guest bedroom. Savannah is bringing you pajamas.”

“All right!” Penelope replied enthusiastically.

Luke was absolutely enamored. She was just… adorable. “And can you drink this glass of water, please? I don’t want you having a headache in the morning.”

“Oooh, good idea.” She took the glass from him and gulped at it greedily.

Savannah met them in the guest bedroom and gave Penelope the pajamas, and they gave her time to change. Once she had, Luke helped get Penelope into the bed—she was somehow more uncoordinated drunk and out of heels than she was drunk and in them—while Savannah put the dress she’d changed out of with her other things. 

“I am really tired,” Penelope said as she lay down, falling asleep the second her head hit the pillow, letting out a small snore that Luke genuinely considered one of the most beautiful sounds he had ever heard.

Savannah chuckled as she left the room. “Now I need a drink.”

Luke pulled the blankets up to Penelope’s chin, a soft smile on both their faces. If he happened to give her a small kiss on the forehead once Savannah had left the room, what would it matter? Sweet dreams, sweetheart. Sleep tight.

Morgan came in once Reid left, and the three remaining adults sat down with drinks of their own. 

"So," Morgan sighed. "That's over. At long last." 

Luke shook his head in disbelief. "I know. It hasn't sunk in yet. It was the last few months of our lives, and now it's done." 

"And you're done with the BAU now." 

"Yeah. I'll be by tomorrow to pick up my things and say goodbye, but then it's back to normal." 

"Well we'll miss you." 

"I'll miss you guys too." 

"How'd you like the BAU, Luke?" Savannah asked him. 

"Oh, it was great," he replied easily. "Great experience, great people, I kind of wish I didn't have to go." 

"See?" Morgan laughed. "I told you you had nothing to worry about! You were all worried about not being good at the job, but you're a natural." 

Luke shrugged off the compliment humbly. "Eh, once I met the people it was easy. You guys make the job easy. And of course, once I met Penelope, I understood why you were so eager to protect her." 

"Yeah, she has that effect on people, doesn't she?" Savannah laughed fondly. "She's pretty great."

Luke's entire face lit up. "She's amazing. We got along great, she's definitely one of the people I'm going to miss the most. I would check in on her every night, I'm gonna have to get use to not doing that anymore." 

Morgan's eyes went wide. “Ooh, look at how he’s smiling!” He turned to Savannah. "Are you seeing this?" 

Savannah's eyes were shining with shock, glee, and a little bit of mischief. "Oh I'm seeing it all right." 

Luke schooled his expression instantly. "Seeing what?"

"You, my friend, are crushing," Morgan sing-songed.

"I am not!" Luke lied, feeling his cheeks and ears burn.

"You so are!" Morgan goaded. "You have a crush on Penelope!" 

"Can we not call it a crush, please?" Luke begged. "That sounds so… high school." 

"Maybe so, but that's exactly what it is!" Savannah teased. 

He fixed her with a faux-glare. "Et tu, Sav?" They had only met a few times in the two years she and Morgan had been together, but, both being easy people to get along with, they formed a quick and easy friendship.

She raised her hands in the air in mock surrender. "Hey, I'm just calling it like it is!"

Morgan grinned. "I think it's great. You are absolutely smitten."

Luke smiled to himself. Yes, he was helplessly and hopelessly smitten, but he wasn't going to admit that. At least, not in those words. "Shut up," he replied instead, with a laugh.

Morgan only half-listened. "So. You gonna ask her out?" 

"No," Luke replied quickly. 

Morgan cocked his head to the side. "Why not? You two would be good together!"

Like thought for a moment, trying to figure out how to phrase everything in a way that made sense. "I'd feel weird about it. She's just been through an incredibly intense draining and traumatic experience, I would feel like I'm taking advantage of that. And I also wouldn't want her to feel like she owes me, in some weird way? And I also don’t want to come off as the guy who feels like he’s owed, because I’m not an asshole. Besides, you know, I’m sure once I no longer see her every day for a few weeks, and I’d hate to try to start something only for that to happen.”

“First of all,” Morgan countered, she would never think any of those things and second of all, if you really think your feelings will fade by not seeing her, then by asking her out and seeing her frequently, they wouldn’t fade.”

Luke seemed unsure. “I’d hate to ruin our friendship over something I’m unsure about.”

“Then wait a bit, see how you’re feeling, and then go for it!”

Luke shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

***

As promised, Luke was back at the BAU the next day to collect his things. The army and the Fugitive Taskforce had instilled in him a habit of traveling light, so all he had to do was throw a few things in his backpack and he was all set. He said goodbye to everyone, giving Hotch and Rossi a firm handshake, Morgan, Tara, and JJ a hug, and holding up his elbow to Reid to bump his own against. Then, before leaving, he made his way over to Penelope’s office. 

“How’re you feeling?” Luke asked with a smirk once she opened the door.

She rolled her eyes playfully in response. “Fine, actually. Probably because you and Savannah made me drink water and go to sleep, so thank you.”

“Any time.”

“So what are you doing here? I thought you were done now? Are you staying longer?”

She looked so excited at that prospect, and he was loath to contradict her. “No, I’m done. I was just here to grab my things, and I wanted to say a proper goodbye.”

Her smile morphed into a frown. “Aw, okay.” She stepped forward, wrapping her arms around him tight and resting her hands in the middle of his back.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face in the crook of her neck, inhaling the sweet, flowery smell of her hair. 

“I’ll miss you,” she whispered into him. 

“I’ll miss you too,” he whispered back.

“I’ll have to get use to you not coming to visit me every day,” Penelope said as she stepped out of the hug.

“Well you can call or text me any time,” Luke assured her, squeezing her shoulder gently. “Don’t be a stranger, okay, Penelope?”

She nodded, smiling softly. “Okay. You either, Luke.”

He smiled warmly at her one last time. “Goodbye, Penelope.”

#Garvez #Garvez fanfiction #Platonic Morvez #Platonic Morvez fanfiction #Luke Alvez #Penelope Garcia #Derek Morgan #Spencer Reid #Cat Adams #Aaron Hotchner #David Rossi #Jennifer Jareau #Tara Lewis #Savannah Hayes #Criminal Minds #Criminal Minds fanfiction

[xolborsaysstuff]

A sight for sore eyes/a break for broken eyes. | EYE phone AU part 11 (haha bet you weren't expecting this(( you probably were)) )

Mephone sat on the couch after OJ let them in, silently regretting every choice he had made almost ever. someone should really make a word for the mix of feelings that he was going through. He sighed leaning back into the couch cushions he had been lead to earlier.

Mepad had been standing by him ever since they'd gotten here until he had shoo-ed them off (despite wanting them to stay) so he was now alone in the quiet room, having to replay the memories of what had gone down in his head like the world's worst podcast.

Who knew what the contestants were thinking now, his stupid outburst had ruined everything, and now they knew at least a half of what he had thought, if they hadn't thought of him as a pathetic and selfish person then, that rant had probably changed that.

Mephone wasn't sure what had even happened back there. At first he hadn't been able to refocus and actually pay attention to recollect his thoughts, but… After that moment, right before he made Mepad teleport them, he remembered how he had said a word he couldn't quite place, and after he had said that he didn't exactly remember what had happened, just what he had felt during it.

Even now he couldn't quite place everything he had felt, but he did remember that he had felt tired and in pain, he had felt desperate for something, he had felt selfish and like he was cornered, and then he was back, the feelings had drawn themselves back into his mind, leaving only unwanted bits and pieces to recall what was wrong with him.

What if it was good he didn't remember, though? Maybe he wouldn't like remembering any of that. Maybe it was too horrifying.

Maybe he should just forget-

"Mephone?" Asked a voice that made him jump, ending him up on the floor in front of the couch. "You okay? you were shaking. "

Mephone scoffed, trying to act like he wasn't shaken up at all. "I'm - fi- fi-fine-…" He clapped a 'yes' to the person that was probably OJ (having had explained the way of communication to the cup when he realized the hotel manager hadn't understood why he was applauding him for asking a question when they had first arrived. )

"Well, okay then… So, if you don't mind me asking, can you tell me about the cracks? " OJ wasn't informed on much about the situation as far as Mephone was aware, but of course he knew as little as everyone else did about the cracks across the phones screen, it still a aggravated Mephone to no end to be asked about it again despite not knowing where he got it though.

'Actually, I DO mind.' He thought to himself, but merely clapped 'no' in annoyance, with a glare towards nowhere in particular behind the flag.

"Oh, alright then, well, are you… Adjusting okay?" "Wha- a-a- [what] what?"

OJ paused, most likely thinking on how to explain himself. "What I mean is, are you dealing with the situation okay? It seems to have been pretty tense from what I heard, plus I think you need to have time to cope with the loss of your sight, right?"

Mephone reached up to the blindfold in an offended and defensive manner. "No I-I-I- [no I] do-don't! I'll be- be- be- fi- [doc-] fi- fine, I ca-can just go-go-go- go to Test-…" No, he couldn't go to Test tube, never again, not after being tracked. "..A [don't-] doctor or something- some- something." He said, attempting to shove the strange worry out of his mind. He had admittedly previously thought about this before, but had decided to pretend it wasn't an issue.

"…Mephone, I don't know how you work but doctors haven't really found a way to cure blindness…" OJ said carefully. behind the blindfold Mephone scowled. He was aware of what doctors were, and they probably did have something to fix him, anyways. (He knew better, but he just couldn't accept it.)

OJ seemed to think for a moment, "You could talk to your crea----]"

"NO!" Mephone cried out without thinking, not even being sure as to what OJ said or why he objected, but whatever it was it left a feeling of dread in him, similar to Test Tube's lab.

After a moment Mephone realized he probably should say something to make the outburst less awkward. "Just-.. No, there's- there- there's pro- or- probably a doc- [probably a] doctor some- somewhere that can [a doctor-] fix-fix this. " he explained while trying not to get too angry at his own stuttering, crossing his arms and hating the brief silence before OJ spoke again.

"…Alright, well, you and Mepad can stay here, though I'm still confused on why you even came, I mean Mepad said you were saying some weird stuff-"

"Wait, r- r- rea- [wait-] really?" "Yeah? Do you not remember?"

Mephone hesitated. "W- what- did- I- [what did] I sa-say? I alre-ready- know, of- [what did I] course, jus- just won- wonder-…" Mephone stopped talking, resisting the urge to yell.

"Not sure, you can ask Mepad, they said they didn't want to talk about it without your permission so you're going to have to ask them yourself apparently." OJ explained. Mephone hummed in acknowledgement but was now barely listening, his mind focusing on worrying.

So he HAD done something during the small missing part of his memory, and if Mepad heard him everyone else must have as well. something he'd been suspecting to be true but quietly hoping for it not to be. He groaned and pressed his hands onto where his eyes would be. Because of course everyone but him got to know what he said.

"You okay?" Mephone clapped another yes despite it being an obvious lie, but OJ didn't pester him over it. "Well, alright, do you want to go talk to Mepad?" Mephone hesitated, but eventually clapped yes.

Maybe he'd remember for a little while longer, unless everything went haywire.

----

Test tube had no idea what to do, everything had gone wrong so fast! And it was just so- She didn't even know.

The situation was a big reminder to the fact that if something happened to Mephone again and they weren't able to fix him, they wouldn't be able to be recovered. She wasn't sure if she could find a way to even bring back his powers, and with him running off it just added even more worrying to the pile.

"…golly." She said, unsure what to even say, and Nickel didn't seem to appreciate that.

"Really? Golly? Is that all you have to say? Our host just ran off!" Nickel glared, and lightbulb spoke up.

" Nickel the shows like, on hiatus, and Mephone leaving to go cool down doesn't really hurt us, so what's even the problem?"

"Are you kidding me?!? The show'll be on hiatus for even longer if we don't do something! Can't test tube at least try to find him? She's got a tracking device on him!" Nickel said, and Test Tube sighed.

"I haven't even checked if he took it off, yet! And besides, I doubt he trusts us anymore, at least not enough to come back willingly."

"Wait, why not just turn him off and on again? Didn't that work last time?" Baseball suggested.

Test tube blinked, and almost considered agreeing, when she remembered,

-----

"I… Understand the concern, miss test tube. If we bring him back, and he continued to lash out, you… may return him to this state until we can figure out a way to calm him down. " Mepad stated

"But please do not start working on him until he is awake and able to give his permission." Mepad said, and Test tube nodded.

-----

"...I promised Mepad I wouldn't do anything without getting Mephone's consent, anyways, and I intend to keep my promise." The tube crossed her arms as she said this to show she was dead serious.

"Ugh, fine, whatever, be unhelpful." Nickel rolled his eyes. "Hey, you could be a little less rude, you know! you're also responsible he left anyways." Test tube accused, though she definitely felt partly at fault, she recognized that Nickel was also slightly to blame too.

"Hey, it doesn't matter who's fault it is. what matters is that we can't continue until Mephone is fixed! "

"The show doesn't matter right now when the situation is much more serious, nickel! Mephone went missing and came back blind and barely able to utter a word without stuttering and for some reason he can't even remember Cobs!"

"Cobs…? What, like his creator? The one who turned out to be not so great?"

Test tube paused, she had thought about it a bit, but had gotten distracted by everything else that was going on.

Why had Mephone forgotten Cobs specifically? And why had he forgotten at all?

Test tube hummed as hypothese buzzed in her mind. "Hm… Might be best to think about it a bit more, but we can't assume anything right now." She said more to herself than anyone else.

She'd be able to learn the truth eventually.

----

Unbeknownst to them, Mic and taco were having a very odd conversation.

"I believe that it might have something to do with him, yes. It's very clear to me as I think more on this, honestly." Taco told Mic, "The hot air balloon looks damaged almost beyond repair, too. I think I can figure out what happened, and maybe we can even get the show back on the road by fixing Mephone."

"But you know what Test Tube said-" Mic attempted to object but was met with disagreement. "Mephone doesn't know what's good for him, the grief of losing his sight makes him practically incapable of making any rational decisions, and plus he loves running the show, so we would be helping him and everyone else in the end, I promise." She reasoned, and Mic realized that the british mexican food did have a point.

"…Fine, what do you need me to do?"

----

Mepad sat in the room, it was a simple bedroom with two beds and nightstands to accompany them, and not much else, but it was still very nice, and it was very quiet at the momeby despite the amount of residents living in the hotel, allowing Mepad to rest for a moment before they heard the sounds of footsteps coming down the hall.

"…#£pad…? " Mepad could hear Mephone call out before OJ had even swung the door open, Mephone trying to get into the room as fast as he could. "Ah, sir, welcome back. I apologize if I was crowding you earlier." it's- it's- i- it's fine, #£pad. " Mephone reassured, and OJ cleared his throat. "Alright, I'll be nearby, you can call if you need anything." The hotel manager said as he left, receiving a polite 'thank you' and a few claps of acknowledgement from Mephone.

"So, uh, he- hey- he- [so] hey #£pad…" Mephone started, not sounding very sure of himself. Mepad decidednot to question him as they simply responded, 'Sir? It's quite alright if you want to talk if that's why you're hesitating." Judging by the look on Mephones face, Mepad had gotten it exactly right.

"Uh, wh- what- wha- what does [what] the- e- r- roo-r-room look-.. " The host stopped his sentence when there was enough for Mepad to understand it. "The room is quite a nice and simple one, sir. There is a bed for you to your right if you take a step forward and put your arm out to find it. " Mepad said as Mephone muttered his stuttered thanks, locating the bed and climbing up onto it to sit at the end.

"#£pad… D-did- di- [#£pad] did I sa-say- say any-an-anything… Weird, bef- [anything weird] before we g- got here? "

---

End.

anyways instead of writing that conversation right now when I'm about to go to church today and it's 5:40 am I'm leaving that for later, as in next chapter.

It's the last day of disability pride month, so this is the perfect time to post this!!!!probably!!!! Happy disability pride everyone!!!! I was so nervous of not finishing this by the end of the month because I wanted it to be a gift for this month but I pulled through!!! shout out to Gemdra (too-many-hyperfixations) She helped me out a lot by giving me little nudges into writing again when I kept stopping so she's basically responsible for the update!!!

Next chapter I have planned is… Wellll you'll see it when I post it (evilly grinning as I say that) I don't have the entire thing written out ofc I just ken what I'm going to write for it.

Sorry this chapter is so short, I've been feeling kinda weird lately but I'll get better eventually maybe, also I've been working on a lot of other things too (I have so many w.i.ps send help) I even made an ask blog with Battery-O but anyways hope you enjoyed this, have a good one!!!

-Xol.

#ii mephone4 #inanimate insanity #eye phone au #xolmumbles #ii contestants #ii mepad #ii OJ #ii taco #If you're wondering where Toilet is #Toilet ran off trying to go find Mephone4 #he'll likely be back ofc #probably #tw eye trauma #tw steve cobs #I mean like he's mentioned slightly

[knickynoo]

Hi! This is the person who asked for the orange juice gifs. (sorry you had to like speedrun the whole show because apparently they drink that much orange juice, I somehow never noticed until you pointed it out lol.) Anyways, I'm curious, do you know why they drink so much orange juice? Or is it just this unexplained phenomenon?

No worries! I had fun going through the episodes! I wish tumblr had done that update allowing for 30 gifs at a time earlier, though, because then I would've been able to just cram all the gifs into a single post rather than 3, lol.

I wish I knew why they leaned so heavily on the orange juice in that show, because it really is very noticeable. I've got a Family Ties book "Alex Gets the Business", which is like a "bonus" episode basically, and there are multiple mentions of oj in that too. It's like subliminal messaging. I have to wonder if orange juice sales went up among Family Ties fans during the show's original run.

Anyway, I do know one interesting fact regarding the oj thing! MJF has actually talked about how he used Alex's frequent consumption of juice to help him time his lines just right. Basically, he would sip it to occupy his time while someone else was delivering their lines, and then once they were done, the glass would go down and Alex would fire back a witty retort. Eventually, it became enough of a pattern that whenever the audience saw Alex drinking his oj, it would signal to them that he had a funny line coming up. And it totally worked. I mean, you see Alex reach for that glass, and you're just like, "Oh, he's gearing up to say something hilarious."

There's an interview where he mentions that he got the inspiration for this quirk from his older brother, who was the family comedian and would sit there silently drinking his milk at the dinner table and waiting for the opportunity to crack a joke or make a funny comment.

Thanks for the ask!

#asks #family ties #alex p keaton

[bizarrescribblez]

Selfshiptember Day 6: Confessing Feelings

It was two weeks since the Jean Jacket incident and life has..

Surprisingly been normal?

Not that I’m complaining I’d much rather everything be back to the way it used to be than ever have to come face to face with an unimaginable beat that was Jean Jacket.

But everyone’s lives have been returned to how it used to be. Of course people know about what happened at Jupiter’s Claim, and the ranch, and Jean Jacket. But it’s been quite. The only people knowing the severity of it being .. all of us..and a scientist who was helping OJ, Em and Angel study Jean Jacket based on the photo Em took with the Winking Well and information told by us.

OJ still tended to the horses and continues his father’s legacy of running Haywood Hollywood Horses. Emerald has taken up joining him while still advertising her many talents on the side.

As for me I still make videos online and accept brand deals from businesses. Which lead me to the front door of Angel Torres’ apartment. I needed help with my camera since it’s been bugging out and I knew he could help. That and I just wanted a reason to see him again. None of us have stopped talking to one another since the incident. The only thing I was grateful for was it blossoming an unbreakable bond between the four of us.

I knocked on the door and tried not to instinctively back out.

Just like the three of us, Angel resumed his job at Fry’s and is still the same nerdy sweaty mess I’ve grown to love. A part of me worried if that’s even what he wanted, with what happened at the ranch he could be throwing himself out there to people. He could be famous. He could probably even get back with his ex Rebecca …

I shook my head trying to not think about it too much. The door opened as Angel grinned wide, having headphone around his neck presumably on his computer minutes before.

“Mia? What’s going on?” He asked and motioned for me to come inside which I quickly did. He shut the door and I took my camera out of my bag.

“Um- I think my camera isn’t working too good, can you fix it for me? I’m not sure what’s wrong it just isn’t filming right?” I sure wasn’t helping my facade of coming here just for him. He took it and placed it on his desk. “I can pay you for it it’s no biggie”

“Mia. You never have to pay me for fixing something for you. Besides getting to see you is payment enough.” He gave a smug face as my cheeks grew red instantly. The effect this man had on me.. “Was that all you needed?” He asked, looking like he didn’t want to be alone.

“Kind of but.. hey can we um- talk?” I asked and he quickly nodded, putting his hands on his sides. “How come nothings changed …”

“What do you mean?” He raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“Just. How come everything is just the way it used to be.. like yeah Jean Jacket and all that happened changed us mentally.. but..” I stopped for a second. “I don’t know. I just figured you..you would wanna be known for being involved with what happened.” He looked even more puzzled.

“Why do you think that? I mean I’m happy with everything being back to normal.”

“Are you though?” I asked. Feeling bad for asking but I was just too in my head to think it over. “Angel you could be famous. You could be living in a better apartment. Fuck man you could probably get Rebecca Diaz back.” That last sentence stung to say. Angel stayed silent for a few seconds, not helping my inner thoughts of him wanting any of that.

“Mia. I don’t want any of that. I don’t want cameras on me or not getting any privacy.” He said making sure to give me full focus to set in that he was telling the truth. “And I especially don’t want to be with Rebecca again. Why would I want her when I want..” He stopped himself in his tracks. The silence was killing me and I started to regret coming over. What if he’s talking about someone else.. someone that wasn’t me. Man I sound selfish. “I.. I want you.”

Heart shattering went from heart pounding when I heard what he said. I looked at him with wide eyes.

“W what?” I asked in disbelief. He approached closer to me. Braving himself by lifting my chin up so our eyes met. Our faces inches away from each other.

“Mia.. I want you…. I. I love you.. I’ve loved you ever since you walked into Fry’s. You fixed my heart after Rebecca broke it and.. I just.. I know it’s a lot because it’s only been a few weeks but-“ I quickly cut him off by wrapping my arms around his neck and kissing him on the lips. He quickly returned it and wrapped his arms around my waist pulling me in closer. The kiss lasted for what felt like forever, not that that was a bad thing, and soon enough it led to him hovered over me as I was laying on his bed. “Did you actually need help with your camera?” He asked as my face grew red which caused him to laugh and lean in close to nuzzle into my neck.

“I did actually.” I admitted as my hands found their way in his hair. “But, it wasn’t that important.”

Omg day 6 complete…. Ok I know I was gonna do these daily but I might take occasional breaks on some of them I don’t have much inspiration for but :) that’s okay

Tag List:

@strawberry--bat @jils-things @pinkdinkydoon @captainscyarika

#selfshiptember2022 #selfshiptember #self ship #self ship fic #self shipping #self ship community #f/o community #fictional other #🐶🐰 angel of the morning

[tinseltine]

In watching and reading interviews with Jordan Peele, he says with NOPE that he wanted to hone in on Spectacle (definition: an event or scene regarded in terms of its visual impact) he seems to be looking at the negative impact of this display on society and yet admits that ironically, he wanted to create a “spectacle” that everyone would want to go see this summer in the theater; so there’s that. Personally, my brain is too overtaxed this week to sit and ponder on the meaning of this word and it’s affect on humanity, but in terms of the film, “Nope” is definitely visually striking.  Particularly those wide mountain shots both in broad daylight and starry nights, filmed in the Agua Dulce desert in northern Los Angeles County at the Firestone Ranch.

In the film this ranch is owned by a black family – Otis Haywood Sr., (Keith David) Otis “OJ” Haywood, Jr. (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald “Em” Haywood (Keke Palmer) they train horses for Hollywood movies and commercials.  The brother and sister dynamic is the crux of the film. Their relationship, like most brothers and sisters is antagonistic, yet bonded. They have completely different temperaments – OJ is so taciturn, and low-key, he’s all about duty and mainly communicates with those uniquely, sad, soulful Kaluuya eyes.  Em is all personality and bravado, full of dreams and schemes, but never over-the-top; she’s good at hyping the family biz, but has little to no interest in the actual day to day running of the ranch.

After the initial incident, the majority of the film is build up, reminding me of Hitchcock’s “The Birds” where there’s a lot of atmosphere, a lot of visual cues and unhurried storytelling.  We meet Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yeun) who runs Jupiter’s Claim, a Western Theme park in the middle of the California desert. Park has been buying horses from OJ, but he also has a connection to the opening scene of a Chimpanzee TV star, who goes ape and viciously attacks his co-stars on set. Adding another theme throughout about man vs beast, which is interestingly layered.

Later we meet Angel Torres (Brandon Perea) he’s at techy guy who works at a Best Buys type store where Em & OJ go to buy surveillance equipment. Angel manages to insert himself into the goings on at the ranch. Then there’s the brooding, raspy, director guy, Antlers Hols (Michael Wincott) who adds a tremendous amount of flavor to what becomes operation getting the “Oprah Shot”.

I’m not gonna describe the sci-fi UFO aspects of the film, I was glad I knew very little going in and don’t wanna spoil anything for others. Of course, we were all waiting for the title of the film to be a line in the film, and it doesn’t disappoint. Basically, I’d say with each film, Jordan Peele has proven himself to be a true auteur.

#movie review #nope 2022 #jordan peele #aliens #daniel kaluuya #keke palmer #steven yeun #Hitchcock #sci-fi #ufo phenomenon #brandon perea #michael wincott #film talk #summer 2022 #Nope Movie #auteur #black cast #spectacles

[donnabroadway]

Meghan Markle is a white mama biracial

There I said it, since we've been tip toing around it by whispering that she doesn't have any black friends, I will just say it. This is a woman who was allegedly raised by two black woman in a black section of Los Angeles and she has no connection to the black community. Don't get me wrong, Meghan has never denied having a black mother but she's never ever said she was black and that should be noted. I know in the past, biracials were only allowed to claim one said, more than likely the black side due to phenetics, racism, and societal norms, but not having connection to one side is a choice. And let me say this, biracials were not counted as white until white women started having and raising children with men of color and there became pressure for them to embrace their whiteness and be counted as white, like their mothers. Despite having a black mother, Meghan Markle is not black, she is biracial and she should be counted as such.

In the late 90s when Tiger Woods began to hit his stride, people would talk about how he was the first black to do this or that and he did an interview basically distancing himself from the black community. He called himself "cablinasian" and pretty much said he wasn't black. He has a black father, not racially ambiguous but very phenotypically black, and an Asian mother but he made sure to tell us the "ca" for Caucasian came first. That tells us all we need to know. OJ is once alleged to have said "I'm not black, I'm OJ" when asked about distancing himself from the civil rights movement happening during his career but he allegedly became very black after his 1994 trial where black people supported him, so much so he began spending a lot of time in black neighborhoods and eating black culinary staples like chicken and waffles. Meghan Markle has also described herself as a woman of color, person of color, and biracial but never as black despite being raised by two black woman in a predominantly black neighborhood. Before anyone says anything, I am a monoracial black woman, raised by two black people, raised in predominantly black spaces so I would never negate anyone's experience or tell anyone what to identify themselves as, not my place but choosing to live, work, play, and love as one race over the other is a choice and it was made by Doria. You mean to tell me that this black woman, with locs, a black mama, and black family never made sure her daughter had the black experience. She never connected her daughter with anyone black besides herself and her mother. That's a choice. I'm not saying she has to negate her black side but there are children born to white mothers, raised in white spaces, adopted and raised by two white parents that have more of a connection to the black community and connection to the community is the job of the parent from that community. Doria's job was to connect her with the black community and I'm willing to bet that Doria isn't that connected to the black community herself.

In the five years that Meghan Markle has been a well known public figure, not one aunt, uncle, cousin, friend, God mother, God father God sister/brother, play auntie, play uncle, cousin, family friend of color has come to surface. The only black person that was tied to Meghan was her mother. So a black woman has a wedding and no one black was there except some celebrities and people she knew once she became famous but all of her childhood and long term friends are white? Ok, got it. I understand she feels comfortable in white spaces but this was a choice made by her mother and continued by Meghan. I know people who grew up in predominantly white spaces and made the choice to seek out their blackness by finding black friends, going into black spaces, and exploring what blackness means to them. The fact that Meghan can't call herself a black woman despite being raised by two of them says a lot. I know Meghan is white presenting, racially ambiguous, biracial and I'm not taking away from that but she can be a black woman and a white woman at the same time.

If Mariah Carey who also presents white can live in both spaces, if Halle Berry who presents black but has a white mother can live in black and white spaces without negating either side, if Barack Obama who was raised white in white spaces but understood he had some blackness can embrace his blackness without rejecting his white mother, so can Meghan Markle but she chooses not to. Meghan Markle is not a black woman and black people should stop capping so hard for her. I get it, her mother looks like us and it's exciting to have someone who is one of us in such a high position, but this is a woman who chose not to raise her daughter as a black woman, she raised her to be post racial and racially ambiguous. She could have taught Meghan about race and what it means to be a black woman and about her black heritage without negating her whiteness and making her feel like she has to choose but she didn't, which I don't understand but it's not my choice to understand. No one could have predicted that Meghan would become a Duchess and experience this level of fame and scrutiny but we could have predicted that race and her blackness and standing as a black woman would have come up at least once. The fact that this was not even a personal question until the British press made it a talking point, is interesting, to say the least. Doria is in her late 60s, she was born to two black parents, has two black siblings, and was raised in black spaces yet Meghan doesn't have a relationship with any of them. Meghan should at least have one cousin and one auntie or uncle, we all have that one we're cool with even if we're not cool with anyone else in the family and yet she has none. It is weird. I'm not saying embrace black over white but not to embrace black at all to have no close black friends, family members, or associates is disconcerting.

[violetreminder]

Judged harshly for his many sins, OJ Simpson marched forward through the corridors of hell, pitchfork barbs prickling his back. Constant searing pain causes him to scratch furiously at his hands, now permanently fused with his infamously well-fitting leather gloves. The demon escorting him pulls on a chain that binds the Hall of Famer's neck, and cries out: "HALT!" Coming to a stop, Juice looked up and saw what appeared to be a fairly ordinary door, which somehow unnerved him more than any of the more twisted passages he had passed to get here. "Get in." the devil snarled, "Theres someone special who's been waiting a long time for your arrival." OJ's mind raced, then quickly subsided. He had, in truth, been waiting for this moment. He knew that eventually he would have to face her again in the next life, and had plenty of time to prepare his hollow words of justification. The door slowly creaked open of its own volition, and Simpson was quickly shoved into the dark room beyond the threshold before the door slammed shut again. Little time passed in the dark, though every second felt like an eternity. Suddenly a flash of blinding fluorescent light flooded the sterile grey room, and as his eyes adjusted he noticed the furniture in the corner: a small armchair pointed towards a TV set. He could not quite make out what was playing on the tube, as there was the preoccupation with trying to figure out why there was a man seated in the armchair. This was not who OJ expected to encounter at all, and furiously he racked his brain trying to think of who could be waiting for him. OJ's feverish thoughts were interrupted by the sound of laughter emerging from the television, prompting him to look to it again as a man within the screen looked to him, (or was it through him?) smiled, opened his mouth, and began to shout: "LIVE FROM NEW YORK, ITS SATURDAY N--" A click. The screen blacks out, the man in the seat begins to shuffle and rise. He then began speaking in a very distinctive and hauntingly familiar voice of cutting derision: "Suppose thats enough of that, yknow thats one of the only shows we get down here? Felt a bit mean spirited at first but it turns out Satan is a huge fan of Lorne's work."

"No. It couldnt be." OJ said, dumbfounded and paralyzed with shock. Here? Now? Forever?? Was there truly no escape from him even in the afterlife? The man turned his face to the appalled OJ, revealing the largest and most smug grin Simpson had seen since setting foot inside this eternal inferno. It was him alright, and as the man proceeded to pull a barbed-wire-clad baseball bat from underneath the armchair, his grin widened further. "What?" said Norm Macdonald, firmly gripping the bat with both hands "You were expecting, perhaps, Betty White?"

#this is way too long for a bit of obvious payoff but A) I still like the punchline and B) fuck OJ #oj simpson #norm macdonald #creative writing

[inside-the-hotel-oj]

‘Paintbrush - How did your coming out happen with everyone at the hotel?’

Well, it went- it went better than I expected. There was more ‘not understanding’ than bigotry, which was…really nice. It was funny how it happened though, I wanted it to be a more one-on-one thing so I could explain it better, but that's kinda the…exact opposite of what happened. It was last year- this year? Last year? It was at the New Year's party that OJ does every year. A few people were making bets, basically behind my back, which was…not cool. Like, at all. But- anyways, a few of them were making bets and I heard them and ended up getting really pissed and turning around and they were petrified. Suitcase- Suitcase was the one that spoke up out of the group, and she said something along the lines of, like- like, ‘you guys they might be neither!’ And I didn't say anything up until then, but I just nodded. I literally- I think I could have handled that so much better and I just nodded? I guess it worked out anyways, so…whatever works, I guess.

‘What happened at the Hotel when OJ was gone for season 3 and, OJ, how did you fix it?’

OJ: Unfortunately, I had to put someone else in charge while I was gone. The choice was obnoxiously harder than I thought it would be. I mean- Soap would obviously be wonderful for the job, but I don't really know her. I can't trust her with my hotel! I knew it had to be someone I knew well enough, which led me to the ultimate and…frankly, idiotic choice of putting Paper in charge. While he is very trustworthy and an absolutely wonderful person to be around, I don't think she's really made for running a hotel.

Paper: It was horrible. I don't even- I can't even think about what might happen if I ever had to manage this place again. There was a huge storm while OJ was gone and the electricity went out and it took, like, a week to fix it because I didn't know who to call, and then the whole place was in disarray because I don't really know how to delegate tasks very well and it was just a whole thing.

OJ: No, it was awful. Luckily, I had my taskforce ready to fix everything. Needless to say, I will never be putting Paper in charge of anything ever again.

'What are each of the objects' sexualities?'

Full (as of 16/12/23) list: Balloon (he/they aroace), Baseball (he/they cishetallo ally), Blueberry (he/him cishet ace), Bomb (they/them pan demisexual enby), Bot (they/them biromantic), Candle (she/they transfem hetallo), Cheesy (she/him gay ace), Cherries (she/him questioning), Clover (she/they lesbiromantic), Fan (he/they pan demisexual), Goo (genderfluid transmasc pan), Knife (xe/he pan), Lifering (he/him cishetallo ally), Lightbulb (she/her transfem lesbian), Microphone (she/they/vol bisexual), Nickel (he/him cishet demisexual), OJ (he/him transmasc biromantic), Paintbrush (they/them omni graysexual), Paper (he/she questioning), Pepper (she/they lesbian), Pickle (he/him cisallo bi), Salt (they/she lesbian), Soap (genderfluid aroace), Suitcase (they/she demiaroace), Tea Kettle (she/her transfem hetallo), Test Tube (they/she agender biromantic), Tissues (he/him cishetallo), Trophy (he/him questioning), Yin-Yang (they-plural [Yin: he/him, Yang: they/them] aroace)

#ask the hotel #askblog #ii oj #oj ii #ii paintbrush #paintbrush ii #ii paper #paper ii #ii season 1 #ii season 2 #ii season 3