#one and the same. he loves her and he’s killed and he’ll love her until he kills her
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not to start whacking the hornet’s nest but i think the most tragic part of ahsoka and anakin’s story together is that from the very first moment, it’s all based on a lie.
ahsoka meets anakin after aotc - he’s already committed an unjustifiable atrocity. he’s already slaughtered the tusken people, and as far as we know, ahsoka never finds out about that. and you know, that would completely and wildly screw up ahsoka’s perceptions of anakin
and i would go so far as to say it would screw with her image of anakin more than the vader reveal. because the vader reveal is like. oh shit your older brother/ best friend has turned into a monster and has committed genocide and is currently trying to kill you
but the tusken massacre reveal is like. oh shit your older brother who tucks you in bed when you’re sick and who makes you laugh so hard your ribs hurt has, for the entire time he’s loved you and you loved in return, been a murderer, and has actively been hiding a horrible, unjustifiable secret
the vader reveal is tragic because the anakin that ahsoka knows and remembers is, to her knowledge, gone forever. the tusken massacre reveal is tragic because the anakin that ahsoka knows and loves is based on a lie
#anakin skywalker#ahsoka tano#star wars the clone wars#the clone wars#not that the anakin ahsoka adores isn’t there. he is. but he’s also the same man as the desert killer. the same man as the jedi killer#one and the same. he loves her and he’s killed and he’ll love her until he kills her#I JUST THINK it would mess her up more than the vader reveal. i don’t know how she’d cope#how do you cope with the knowledge that (to you) all your good bits are from a killer. how do you reconcile your goodness with his#ahsoka is the best parts of anakin. its what sustains her during the fulcrum years. he lives on in her#how do you cope with that?#yooo if anyone is curious i HAVE posted the fic about this (:
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bsd characters and how they sleep (with you)
i fear i wrote this in twenty minutes in a feverish haze and have no idea how we got here... forgive any spelling/grammar errors but i hope it's cutesy
characters: dazai, atsushi, yosano, chuuya, ranpo
im taking requests!
°+..｡ﾟ｡ﾟ+.*.｡.
dazai:
ABSOLUTELY EASILY the clingiest one
will completely wrap his limbs around you from behind or from the front
it’s so hard to pry him off of you in the morning it’s like he gets ten times heavier when he’s asleep
also sleeps without socks but complains about being cold all the time
makes the both of you sleep with not one but TWO weighted blankets some days
it’s a little ridiculous but you put up with it because you love him
he also runs SO COLD
toes are freezing, hands are freezing, NOSE is freezing
he sticks his nose into the crook of your neck when he’s clinging onto you
you’ve only shrieked ONCE from the shock. maybe twice
manages to stay still all throughout the night but that’s only because he’s too busy latching onto you like a leech
atsushi:
too nervous to ask you to hold him so instead he’ll hold your hand while you sleep
it’s the sweetest thing ever
absolutely wakes up in the middle of the night if he feels your hand slip from his and will reach for it again
it takes like a month of sleeping in the same bed for you to recognize all his little quirks and the things he likes
you learn that he loves it when you kiss his hairline right before he falls asleep
it leads to a lot more peaceful nights and he doesn’t wake up in a cold sweat as often anymore
sometimes he ends up wrapping an arm around your torso while he’s asleep without even realizing it
when he wakes up he doesn’t get embarrassed or anything but DOES pretend to be asleep until you get up so that he can stick to you for longer
yosano:
THE MOST VIOLENT SLEEPER
sleeping in the same bed with her is a death wish most nights
she rolls around, flails, will wake up in the middle of the night and mumble something unintelligible before hitting you in the face
she’s crazy! she’s your hot gf! you sit there and take it like the loyal spouse you are!
her FAVE way to sleep is face down, starfish-pose on top of you
yes you can’t breathe at all but yes the weight is comforting
when she sleeps like that sometimes you’ll get a little treat during the night, and instead of hitting you in the face in her sleep she’ll kiss along your cheek all warm and soft
sometimes that ends in her drooling on your face
makes up for her drool and nightly attacks by waking you up with kisses (and bites on your CHEEK) and even breakfast when she’s in a good mood
chuuya:
he loves you so much but he is also dramatic
which means… he has his own sleep routine and bed set-up and if it’s disturbed he will not get a second of rest
he invests in a california king bed so that you can have your side and he can have his side
he sets the thermostat to a certain temperature, picks out blankets depending on the weather, adjusts his pillows every night, sleeps with an eyemask… it’s a little bit overkill
you don’t make fun of him for it because you know he’d kill you
sleeps on his back with his hands folded on his chest like he’s in a COFFIN
also sleeps like the dead and you’ve woken up a few times crying his name because you thought he was actually dead
if you try holding onto him during the night he’ll flinch without meaning to and start mumbling curses to himself
it takes you a while to get used to it
he makes up for his stringent sleep routine by letting you nap on the couch with him once in a while
he can handle that at the very least
will totally collapse right on top of you on the couch and fall asleep after a long day at work
sedated immediately if you run your fingers through his hair
lets out the cutest snores BUT DO NOT TELL HIM THAT OR HE WILL NEVER SLEEP ON YOU AGAIN!!!!
ranpo:
so incredibly fussy
moves around so much in his sleep and can never get comfortable
is always pushing your head off your pillows and rotating them so that you can both sleep on the cold side
kicks off his blankets just to complain about being cold and makes you lean over the bed to pick the covers back up and tuck him in
favorite way to sleep with you is facing you with his arms wrapped around your neck
this DOES end up in him accidentally choking you sometimes
if he gets too hot he has no shame in pushing you away and OFF THE BED
you put up with it because you love him and you wouldn’t have it any other way
chews on your hair??? in your sleep???
you wake up with half your hair covered in drool
have you seen that one video of the girl’s rabbit biting a strand of her hair clean off. that’s him. he’s the rabbit.
has a weak spot for sleepy kisses AUUUGGGHHH
will never initiate them but will always melt into your hands if you squeeze his face and give him a big fat forehead kiss
#dazai x reader#chuuya x reader#atsushi x reader#yosano x reader#ranpo x reader#dazai osamu x reader#chuuya nakahara x reader#atsushi nakajima x reader#yosano akiko x reader#ranpo edogawa x reader#bsd x reader#bungo stray dogs x reader#bungou stray dogs x reader#dazai x you#yosano x you#atsushi x you#ranpo x you#chuuya x you#osamu dazai x reader#osamu x reader#nakahara chuuya x reader#edogawa ranpo x reader#nakajima atsushi x reader#akiko yosano x reader#how do you do the tiny text on tumblr#i feel like a forty year old navigating tiktok#ermmm excuse me 🤓🤓 could you direct me to the uhhh 🤓🤓 the small text feature🤓
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R.C / HEADCANNONS
pairings: Rafe Cameron x fem!reader
summary: what it would be like to date THE Rafe Cameron.
a/n: first ever written work so sorry if it isn’t great! please give me feedback of what i could do better in the future. also sarah and rafe are actually quite close in this.
warnings: NOT PROOFREAD, sorry if there’s errors. a bit of nsfw at the end. mentions of fighting and implied towards death but only for a little bit and not at all descriptive. let me know if there should be any others!
SFW:
- he would spoil you so much.
- he sees your shein wishlist? he’s buying it all.
- you grab a shirt to look at it when shopping with him? he’s grabbing it in your size and even checking for it in other colours.
- you could even so much as be glancing around a shop and your eyes linger a little too long on one item and he’s getting it for you.
- even when you tell him you feel bad having him spend this much money on you he’ll just laugh and say “my sweet girl deserves everything.”
- he’d drop everything for you if you needed him.
- you call him crying? he could be in the middle of an important deal and he’s leaving to come get you.
- he’d fight, and probably kill, for you.
- if a guys getting a little too close at a party and making you uncomfortable Rafe is there immediately.
- he’d pull the guy away from you and just start laying punches after punches into his face until someone just drags the other guy out of the party so it doesn’t get too out of hands.
- then he’d hug you and leave kisses on your forehead while asking if you wanna leave.
- you’d always be at his house.
- which means you’d see Wheezie a lot and she loves you and is always asking you to do things with her.
- it kind of annoys Rafe because he wants to spend every second with you and Wheezie’s ruining that.
- but he also finds it really sweet.
- you’d also be best friends with Sarah.
- as soon as her brother announced he actually is with someone and not just having flings with anyone and everyone she was so excited.
- Sarah knew you had to be amazing to make her brother settle down.
- and you and her got along instantly.
- he’d actually be very affectionate.
- always having his hands on you in one way or another.
- also because he’s very jealous he’d need everyone to know you’re his and his only.
- but he’d always reassure you, especially when overthinking.
- you’d catch him staring at you and you’d ask why, thinking maybe you have something on your face or you look bad but he’d just say, “can’t i look at my gorgeous girlfriend?”
- someone would make a comment about you two saying they’re surprised someone like you could pull someone like Rafe and he’d be furious.
- he’d deal with them and then immediately pick you up and you guys would be leaving.
- as soon as you two were alone he’d reassure you by saying something like “you’re perfect baby, they’re just jealous they don’t have what we have.”

NSFW:
- as mentioned earlier, he gets very jealous.
- and he gets jealous easily.
- so if he sees a guy checking you out while you’re in public he grabs you and puts his hands on your ass while making out with you so the boy knows your Rafe’s.
- he’d then take you home to remind you you’re his.
- or even just in the car if he really couldn’t wait.
- “you’re mine. you know that right?”
- “say it baby, say you’re only mine.”
- knowing damn well you couldn’t talk when he was thrusting into you like that.
- but you had to try anyway for him.
- he’d be big on hickeys.
- he’d like marking you so everyone knows, you are his, and he’d love when you do the same.
- if you still had your v card he’d make sure to be really nice and gentle the first few times and slowly start getting tougher and introducing you to new things.
- always down for a quickie, it doesn’t matter where you are.
- he’d seriously just love you unconditionally and everyone knows he’s whipped for you.
#rafe cameron fluff#rafe cameron#rafe x reader#rafe obx#rafe outer banks#rafe imagine#rafe smut#rafe fluff#rafe cameron smut#rafe cameron outerbanks#rafe cameron x reader#rafe cameron obx#drew starkey#outer banks#obx#obx fic#obx smut#obx fluff
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OP men and being “told”they are in love with you:
Ft. Law, Kid, Zoro
Cw: implied fem reader (mainly in zoro’s part)
Ngl, not much of a fan of this so i might make a follow up! lmk if i should!
Part 2
❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎
Law:
Oh boy.
This man doesnt realize it until one of his crew members tell him. He’ll give you small smiles when youre not looking. Completely mesmerized at you: Your focus, your dedication, your delicateness with every task performed. But most importantly: your smarts. Every-time you spoke, he would stop what he was doing and listen intently at whatever subject it was. Which was how the crew…mainly ikkaku, Shachi, and Penguin, knew there was a special interest.
“Am I in love with y/n? I dont see how thats any of your business”
Law says, looking at an accusatory Ikkaku.
“Captain. I can see that look on your face. You’re all red.”
“No im not.”
“Oh yes you a-“
“Room”
~
After that, It really got him thinking. Why did he get all flustered? No. There is no way he was in love. It was just a coincidence that he happened to get all worked up around you. That his heart would beat a little faster. That he was willing to drop whatever he was doing to help/listen or be with you. That he spoke more softer and less stern too. That was all a coincidence….right?
~
“Captain? Who’s that tiny person you’re drawing on your sticky note? Are you distracted by something? Is that… y/n?”
“Don’t any of you know how to knock?!”
A blue bubble surrounds the submarine.
❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎
Kid:
Same as Law.
He doesn’t realize his behavior till a teasing Killer points it out.
“I didn’t take you to be such a romantic, Kid.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
His soft tone of voice in comparison of his rough one. The way he yelled at everyone except you. The way his brows furrowed every time he saw you talking to someone else. The way he locked himself in his workshop and didn’t let anyone in when he saw you enjoying yourself with another crew member that wasn’t him. Killer was the one who found him and he could see right through Kid.
What was this feeling? Why was he more angry?
“You were staring at them that whole time. You’re jealous huh?” Killer asks, Kid could sense the grin from under his mask.
“Jealous? For fucks sake. No”
Killer shakes his head with a laugh and mutters “Whatever you say” before leaving the room.
Kid scoffs. Killer didn’t know anything. This is how he always acted….right? I mean you were beautiful… but that didn’t affect him right? You shouldn’t be all smiley and happy with anyone besides him.. thats just a friendly way of thinking right?
“Eustass? Killer sent me in here cause he said you needed my help with something?” You walk in all shy and innocently. You didn’t know about the little trick Killer was pulling on Kid.
Kid turns soft when he sees you and becomes a blushing and stuttering mess for how caught off-guard he was from your sudden appearance. This, as everything else, enrages him.
And who else is to blame for this?
“KILLER IM GOING TO KILL YOU!”
❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎ ❤︎
Zoro:
He knows what he feels. He just doesn’t want to believe or pursue his own feelings.
Every-time he sees you, his heart beats faster. But this wasn’t the same fast heart rate he got when he was training. Nope. It was every time you were in his presence. Every brush of skin. Every-time he saw you fight. Every time you assisted him in anything.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t have time for romance.”
“Ah! So you’re not even denying it!You’ve never told Sanji off when it came to him flirting with us, but now you suddenly do?”
Nami says, pointing at herself and Robin next to her, referring to the event that led for the crew figuring out he was in love with you. Sanji was serving ice cold drinks he made for the hot summer day and as usual…he got flirty. But once Sanji got to you, his heart eyes and kneeling position in front of you as if you were accepting his hand in marriage. Zoro’s eyebrows furrowed and he stood up from where he was napping.
“Leave them alone Sanji. Can you not be a creep for one day?!”.
Although Sanji would’ve made a snarky remark back. He didn’t. Sanji looked stunned? He looked back at Nami and Robin from where they sat at and Nami shrugged, while Robin gave a knowing smile.
~
“You two don’t know crap. I don’t have time for this”
Suddenly, you walk in..
You look at Robin and Nami who were hovering over Zoro cleaning his swords on the bench. Although you were confused, you shrugged it off.
“Oh hey…” you say… “Zoro, wanna train?”
Zoro looks away and starts to stutter.
“Oh uhm…s-sure…”
Nami and Robin smirk at him, which is met with a death glare.
“Im slicing all of you.”
#one piece#trafalgar law#eustass kid#eustasscaptainkid#one piece eustass#one piece zoro#roronoa zoro#trafalgardwaterlaw#zoro x reader#law x reader#eustass x reader
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Ok but how are the crazy f1 dads with their daughters dating? Who on the grid do they like?
oof this is a loaded ask bc they really are all out of it 😭 they just love their babies fr
♤ ♤ ♤
dad! kimi | growing up räikkönen!
FIRST OF ALL kimi doesn’t really vibe with most people in general, let alone anyone who’s trying to get with his little lumienkeli. kimi was lucky to raise a little girl similar to him, who listens when he places a no dating rule lasting until she’s 21 (as far as he knows anyways). despises the guys on the grid trying to get with her; he was one of them once so he thinks of them as animals, especially leclerc who’s known for his brow-raising dating life. also hates pierre but he already didn’t fw him bc he’s french. he is SLIGHTLY more easy going with women around his daughter so any grid guys with girlfriends might have an advantage. he finds that he wants the im-a-dog-and-ill-do-whatever-my-girl-says type for his daughter, but he dislikes unintelligence. he does not like anyone on the grid, but he best tolerates:
mick schumacher!
oscar piastri (+lily)
he vibes with kika okay but hates pierre 💀
bonus! he actually really likes max but his hate/distrust for jos overpowers that so he’s not letting that happen
♤ ♤ ♤
dad! jenson | growing up button!
OK SO JENSON is a bit less intense than kimi, however he is much more publicly affectionate with his daughter which means that he has definitely gone on public rants about how no man is good wen enough for his baby. that being said, he is a decent judge of character so he doesn’t hate anyone on the grid. but he gets real serious when he notices people hitting on his baby. this is mostly bc he was def a whore when he was younger so he isn’t quick to trust guys who are living the same lifestyle he was. he kind of turns on dad-mode when he notices anyone eyeing her up. but alas, he raised his own mini-me, who attracts just about everyone, and who likes to flirt back. it takes warming up to, but he can see himself fine with most of the drivers. he most prefers people who are friendly and who didn’t act like him when he was in f1 like:
george russel
daniel ricciardo
lando norris
♤ ♤ ♤
dad! fernando | growing up alonso!
NANDO IS DEFINITELY one of those guys who thinks he’s a “cool dad” bc he’s a young father and his daughter is his best friend. but in reality he’s one of those intense, fiercely overprotective dads who have impossibly high expectations for his daughters partner. 100% the type to punch a mechanic for saying gross things about his princesa. he’ll be calm and in a good mood then someone on the grid (or any man ever) mentions his daughter and he’s like 😐. UNLESS! it’s carlos. carlos is the only one who meets his standards, sorry to literally everyone else. but even with carlos, he can be a little stern just to get his point across about not messing with his only child. he just feels the need to personally approve of his daughter’s partner bc he’s hyper-paranoid about someone hurting her. his list looks something like:
carlos sainz!!!
that’s it
i mean if you put a gun to his head maybe max bc he’s a winner but he needs to learn to speak spanish so-
♤ ♤ ♤
dad! jos | growing up verstappen! unfortunately
FUCK JOS VERSTAPPEN obviously, however this man is one crazy dad who we have to discuss. his love for his youngest daughter is wild and unpredictable, and it’s very different from the way he treats his other children. his baby has some extreme one-sided beef with him that he’s smart enough to know about, so he isn’t too forceful about bonding, it’s definitely more desperate since max found success in f1 and she sticks with her big brother now. her entire life, he’s never allowed her to date, and when he found out about her first secret bf, he got arrested for trying to kill the kid so. he has IMPOSSIBLY high standards for his daughters partner and definitely wants her to marry within the f1 community, but he hates losers and despises half the grid.
suddenly he’s charles leclerc’s biggest fan !
lewis hamilton but he’ll never admit it
MAYBE carlos sainz
bonus! max obvi likes daniel ricciardo best but jos doesn’t fw him like that
♤ ♤ ♤
Ren
#dark! f1#f1 fanfic#f1 fic#f1 grid x reader#obsessive f1#carlos sainz x reader#charles leclerc x reader#f1 oc#f1 reverse harem#daniel riccardo x reader#max verstappen x reader#lando norris x reader#lewis hamilton x reader#kimi räikkönen x daughter reader#dad! jenson button#dad! fernando alonso#dad! kimi räikkönen#jos verstappen
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high infidelity — xavier thorpe.
pairings: xavier thorpe x reader , tyler galpin x reader.
summary: your relationship with tyler got rocky when he started distancing himself from you. xavier just happened to be at the right place , at the right time.
do you really wanna know where i was april 29th? do i really have to chart the constellations in his eyes?
You remembered that night vividly. You were wearing your favorite sundress because Tyler loved when you wore it. Your makeup had been done to perfection and you were bouncing off the walls , excited to finally spend time with Tyler. He had just been so busy lately , always leaving before it got dark , kissing the top of your head and darting away as soon as he got the chance.
You were never one to be insecure or worried about what Tyler was doing. You trusted him. You did.
Until he didn’t show at all. Your makeup was ruined by how much you cried , barely making out the letters on your phone. Tyler sending five messages in a row with some lame excuse , promising he’d make it up to you and how much he loved you.
You got up from the diner he was supposed to meet you at — the one your parents had dropped you off at expecting your boyfriend to bring you home.
You sat outside in tears somewhere that was towards the side. You cried not only because he cancelled , but because you felt as though the relationship wasn’t as strong as it used to be. He wasn’t as interested in you anymore. He never complimented you or made time for you. The two of you had been together for a year and for 5 of those months , he was acting as though you were just another customer — another friend.
“You okay?”
Your eyes glanced up and saw Xavier Thorpe. His hair pulled back in a bun showing off the features of his face well. His hands were shoved in his school jacket as he looked at you with curiosity , minimal concern , but curiosity. He knew you , how couldn’t he? You had always knew how to get the boy’s attention — even with normie Tyler Galpin on your arm.
Swallowing thickly , you wiped your cheeks with the back of your hand. “I’m okay.”
“You don’t look okay.” He commented , gesturing towards your tattered appearance.
Tearing your eyes away from him , you shrugged. “’M okay. Really.”
Silence hovered over the two of you for a minute. You didn’t bother looking back at him , assuming he’d walk away by the lack of conversation.
Your eyes shot up when he cleared his throat. “Want to come in with me? Was gonna take it to go but I think I found a reason to stay.”
you know there are many different ways to kill someone you love. the slowest way is never loving them enough.
Your relationship with Tyler was deteriorating. Fast. He spent most of his time with Wednesday and yours with Xavier. You noticed how fast he seemed to like her — how often you’d catch him looking at her when she wasn’t looking. Clear admiration and affection was on his face for her , though everytime you brought her up he’d shrug it off , lean it for a kiss and promised he loved you and nobody else.
You just didn’t feel it.
“You should just break up with him.” Xavier sighed as he rubbed your back comfortingly.
The two of you had discovered that you both had the same things in common. He loved to paint , and you loved museums. He liked action movies , and you liked popcorn. Everything the two of you were , just fit in together. You liked to talk , and Xavier loved to listen. Always.
The pit in your stomach grew darker. “I don’t know.” You mumbled and shook your head. “Maybe I just need to try harder or–or maybe if I dye my hair he’ll notice it and think I’m pretty again. . . like her.”
Xavier frowned. His hand grabbed at your face gently , turning you to look at him. “You are pretty. You always were. You don’t need to look like Wednesday , Y/N/N.” His eyes searched yours and you weren’t sure what it was. Your hand had absentmindedly found itself cupping the fingers he had around your face , your skin inviting the warmth of him to surround you gently. “You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever met.” Xavier said confidently.
Your cheeks turned red at the compliment. Sparks erupting around you as you looked at him with big eyes. “You’re just saying that you—”
“I mean it.” Xavier cut you off.
He shook his head with a sigh as he looked at you. Face fallen with little warm tears trailing along down your cheeks. He tutted , pinching your chin with his fingers while the other hand wiped them away quickly. “Pretty girls shouldn’t be crying.” Xavier said , barely above a whisper— but you heard him.
His words caused your heart to swell. And you didn’t know if it was his big , green eyes looking at you as though you really were that beautiful or the way your face felt like it had been set on fire the moment he had touched you. Though whatever it was , clouded your judgement , and before you could stop to think about the consequences , your eyes fluttered shut and your mouth pressed itself firmly against his.
The moment you kissed him , it was all over.
do you really wanna know where i was april 29th? do i really have to tell you how he brought me back to life.
“I think we need to break up.” You rushed out , glancing around the shop to see if anyone was listening. He was on break — barely realized you were there before you began pulling him out the door and towards the alley.
Your hands were shoved in your coat pockets as yoy avoided his lingering gaze. You didn’t want to look. You didn’t want to see any hurt or betrayal— you had already done enough and your heart wasn’t his anymore. It was sad , but it was reality , and you had to face the music.
“W-What? I thought. . . I mean I know it’s been weird lately but I—”
You scoffed. “You thought what , Tyler? Skipping dates. Flirting with Wednesday in front of me— I was just supposed to accept that? Act like everything was fine? Well it wasn’t! It wasn’t fine.” You didn’t mean to get so angry. But he knew this was coming. He had to have known.
“I wasn’t flirting with Wednesday.” Tyler laughed dryly. “I could say the same about you and that freak Thorpe.”
The mention of Xavier brought a crimson color bright on your cheeks. With a quickening heart beat , you simply shook your head. “You don’t get to turn this around on me Tyler.”
Tyler didn’t say anything. He just looked at you and knew. He knew.
“You. . . you’re breaking up with me for him?” He said it like a question , his voice trailing off at the end. His mind tried wrapping around where everything went wrong— how it happened. He couldn’t believe this was happening. Sure , he knew he hadn’t been the best. But he was doing it for them— for his mom. He was doing something good and you didn’t even know about it. “What? Did you fuck him?”
“Tyler!” You gasped at his accusation. The aggression in his tone made your eyebrows furrow. “You have no right to turn this around on me! Not after I tried so hard for months. Months!”
“You aren’t saying no.” Tyler scoffed.
“I kissed him.” You admitted , swallowing thickly. Tyler’s eyes dropped , his words seemingly meaningless , were actually true.
“You were. . .” Tyler put his hands on his hips as he looked away , blinking away tears. “You were with him last night then? When I tried calling you.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you love him?”
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
You paused and gave him a sad smile. You felt guilty for what you had done. It was wrong and you should’ve been thinking more clearly. But you couldn’t erase it. You couldn’t take it back.
All you had was forward now , and you felt like this was how it was supposed to be.
“He brought me back to life.”
#xavier thrope imagine#xavier x you#xavier thorpe#xavier thorpe x reader#wednesday#tyler galpin#tyler galpin x reader#xavier thorpe x you#taylor swift#high infedelity#xavier x reader#xavier x tyler x reader
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I’m so sorry if I’m bothering you with a lot of tecchou’s requests but I love him😭if you want, you can write annyone else too. May I request tecchou’s having a nightmare (like s/o being a cheater or dying, whatever you want) and then he wakes up and s/o is hugging him in her sleep (I’m so sorry for my bad English, was hard for me to request this ㅠㅠ)
they have nightmares about you headcanons
featuring...! tecchou suehiro, dazai osamu, ranpo edogawa & akiko yosano
content: no manga spoilers, comfort, dreams with blood and death, a little ooc to me (especially dazai's eww)
navi | bsd masterlist | pt.2
TECCHOU SUEHIRO
he chose to chase after the criminals, and that led you to be killed in his nightmare
tecchou felt strongly about justice, everyone that knew who he was knew that. so on missions, he was always sure to take care of criminals and save civilians
in his nightmare, things were getting rough on a mission. the two of you, the only ones working, were split up from each other. instead of making his way towards you, tecchou hunted down the leader of the crime organization on his own
you should’ve been alright as a fellow hunting dog. but in this situation, you became heavily injured. you were bleeding out for who knows how long when tecchou found you
“it’s okay,” you reassured him as you bled out, “we all make mistakes sometimes. this one… this one just happened to be a bit more troubling, haha.”
when he wakes up from this nightmare, you’re still sleeping peacefully next to him. he’s freighted, so what he does is try to wake you up. you look at him groggily once he does
i definitely think that tecchou’s facial expression would make it obvious that he was scared. his eyes are opened slightly wider and hand has a slight tremble as it holds your arm
“hey, tell me what’s wrong? did you have a nightmare?”
at your touch and voice, tecchou lets out a breath he had been holding in. the events replay in his mind before he tells you what happened
he places a hand over his heart once he realizes that telling you everything has helped him calm down. he knows you were listening to every word, and he appreciates not only that, but the fact that you were still there with him
“don’t leave me, y/n,” tecchou begged.
his slender fingers were intertwined with yours while he pulled them close to his chest. he had never been as scared of losing anyone that much until you came along. he was strong, and so were you, but loving you came with the natural fear of loss.
you promised, “i won’t. i won’t leave you, i swear.”
before you guys go back to sleep, he’ll fall into your arms and will become the little spoon. my bb just wants to be held after experiencing that nightmare :((
OSAMU DAZAI
he lost you in his nightmare
dazai says that he loses things he doesn’t want to lose, which made this dream— nightmare all too real
it was like reliving everything that happened with oda. you were already at death’s door when he arrived and as you walked past that door, his blood-stained arms held you
i don’t see dazai waking up to this nightmare screaming, crying, or even telling you about it. a silly nightmare was all it was, right?
but if he has that same silly nightmare constantly, then i imagine that he’d lose sleep over it. the nightmare was a reminder that you were someone important for him to lose. avoiding it meant sleeping less, or not even sleeping at all
not knowing the details, you were concerned about if he was sleeping well, or sleeping at all. you fall asleep before he does, but he seems to be wide awake when you just get up in the early morning
although he tried to be energetic around you like normal, it wouldn’t be long before he’d laze around as if something was clouding his mind
if you make the decision to confront him, dazai will surely play dumb at first
“work is just so tiring these days! kunikida won’t stop piling work on me~” a lie.
you only figure out he lied once kunikida calls you. since you don’t work at the agency, you’ve only talked with him and a few of the other members a few times
“thank you for calling me, kunikida-san. i appreciate it.”
you found yourself bowing to dazai’s co-worker while you all stood by the main office door. a few of the other members sat at their desks, either watching or minding their own business.
the blond called you to bring dazai, who had been constantly sleepy as of late, home. although he ignored the work he was given, he still managed to act exhausted instead of lazy like he normally would. if he wasn’t going to get anything done during the day, he might as well be sent home to rest.
dazai rubbed the back of his neck, thinking that his partner calling you to the agency was unnecessary. not only that, but his cover had been blown. once you finish talking with kunikida, you take dazai’s hand and walk with him to your shared apartment. it was a quiet walk from there to home.
the moment he’s inside, dazai will flop onto the couch. it takes a little bit of convincing to get him to talk about the repeating nightmare
he thinks he doesn’t need it at first, but comforting him actually affects him greatly. it lets him know that he has your support as he fights his own battles. please have him close so that he can put his hands on your waist and rest his head by the crook of your neck
“you can tell me anything,” you tell him. “there’s a lot about yourself you keep a secret, and that’s okay. i get that there are things you can’t find yourself to share, but this is something you have to. talking about these things are important, dazai. i don’t want you losing sleep over it, m’kay? just talk with me.”
to love and be loved is a curse— but even so, dazai couldn’t resist
RANPO EDOGAWA
you were set up to be killed and he didn’t realize until it was too late in his nightmare
as the greatest detective in the world, nothing seemed unbeatable to ranpo. though there have been some obstacles, there was always a way to win in the end. well, that’s what he thought
his sleeping mind toyed with him by placing you in a situation where there was no way for you to live. fyodor had set up a plan to kill you, a valuable asset to the agency, and it went right under ranpo’s nose
it obviously felt so real to ranpo. so if he wakes up and you aren’t with him in bed, he’s afraid that maybe everything wasn’t a nightmare. he scurries out of bed and to the first place you’d be
“come back to bed.”
sometimes, you’d find yourself wide awake in the middle of the night. it was a problem that settled down when you got together with ranpo, but still happened on a few occasions. whenever it did, you sat on the balcony of your shared apartment and read a book. if the weather was harsh, you’d read in your study.
you were surprised when ranpo suddenly told you to go back to bed with him. his voice was more pleading than you ever heard it to be, leading you to think something was wrong.
you shut the book in your hands, “hey… are you okay?”
i feel like ranpo would play it off as something stupid that he doesn’t even understand, but you know better. the two of you would have to be hugging in bed for him to tell you what happened. as he does, his hands grasp the back of your shirt and he buries his face into your chest
once he finishes, he already knows what you’re going to say. you wouldn’t let yourself fall into fyodor’s hands that easily, so he shouldn’t think about it
“stay in bed from now on,” ranpo suggested. “if you wake up, read your book here.”
“but what if you wake up?”
“doesn’t matter to me.” he’s shy to admit it, but, “you scared me…”
safe to say, ranpo prefers to have you by his side so he can hug you if he was to ever wake up from any nightmares (my bb <3 im so soft for him rn)
AKIKO YOSANO
you died before she could save you in her nightmare
yosano wasn’t sure how she got there, but she had been running for what seemed to be forever. the aching in her feet seemed all too real as she sprinted towards where you were
but once she found you, it was too late. your wounds were deep and your blood was everywhere. she tried to use her ability, but it was futile to even try. the butterflies of her ability appeared, but your heart just wouldn’t beat again
“y/n, please,” the woman cried.
it was happening all over again. that soldier… a kind soul that couldn’t carry the weight of war any longer. he was gone, and yosano tried so desperately to bring him back. now, you were in his situation— gone and never able to return.
she let out a scream, both in that nightmare and in real life. it obviously woke you up, and you were quick to respond by holding her forearms
once reality sets in and she realizes it was only a nightmare, yosano is quick to take a deep breath. as a doctor, she’s had to help calm down patients many times. she knows what to do in order to ease her own mind, yet it was harder to do that she thought
her lips trembled as the breaths she let out were short and shaky. even if you hold her, her fists are clenched. it takes a moment with you rubbing her back to calm her nerves
being with her means you know her past with mori during the war. if you knew all about that, then yosano will definitely be open about the nightmare
she immediately feels a sense of relief after telling you about it, but is still shaken up. yosano will embrace you and try to fall asleep in your arms, even if the image of your dead body keeps on popping up in her mind
“a nightmare,” you reassure her, “it’s just a nightmare. i’m right here, darling.”
note: hi nonnie!! literally request for tecchou all you want (when my requests are open), I'm absolutely here for it!! someone else requested something similar and i planned to put all the requested characters in one post, but it was a lot so I'm splitting it into two <3
reblogs are appreciated + join my taglist !
@nagicore @enomane @er0ses @spenzitz @wineaddict2904 @aeshiiteiru @chuuyrr @ashthemadwriter @sanjis-fav-w1fe @bejeweledgirl @ma3mae @piichuu
#୨୧ [ writing ]#bsd x reader#bungo stray dogs x reader#bungou stray dogs x reader#dazai x reader#dazai osamu x reader#tecchou x reader#tecchou suehiro x reader#ranpo x reader#ranpo edogawa x reader#yosano x reader#akiko yosano x reader#bsd headcanons#bsd comfort#bsd hcs#bsd#bungo stray dogs
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dance until we're bones
pairing: aaron hotchner x fem reader
summary: you and hotch both confront a lifetime of things left unsaid when a case forces your past into the light.
a/n: so i started this. two years ago. got 1k in and left it, came back now for some reason, wrote like a freak until it was done. lol. this is quite heavy and different than most things i usually write and it is SO much longer than expected but im very proud of it 🫶 i didn't really pay attention to the canon timeline so just know that reader and hotch were in their early and late 20s in law school (90s) and early and late 30s in present day (early 2000s). title from i lied by lord huron and allison ponthier
wc: 17.1k
warning(s): a lot of angst. typical bau case stuff, murder (familicide), implied/referenced past child abuse, reader and hotch go at it basically the whole time, character death, kidnapping, slight mention of drugging, injuries, mentions of blood. i wouldn’t say a happy ending but a hopeful one
Hotch can barely stay awake.
He got the call thirty minutes to 4 a.m, and if he hadn’t already been up, he would likely be in a much worse mood. He can only hope that the rest of the team has gotten used to rude awakenings at this point.
It’s poor planning on his part—he already got out late due to extra paperwork, and once he got home, he found himself staring at the wall, and then staring at the ceiling. If he’s lucky, he’ll get to sleep on the jet. If things go the way they usually do, he won’t be out until their first night in a hotel.
He started making calls to the team on his way to the office, but to no one’s surprise, he was the first one there. He had time to wash down a shitty office coffee and get started on a second one by the time everyone’s there.
Morgan, Prentiss, and JJ all have coffees—JJ comes prepared with her own thermos, but Morgan and Prentiss fall victim to the BAU’s supply—Reid is fighting back yawns as he tries to fix a hastily made tie, Garcia is slightly less energetic than normal as she passes out files, and somehow Rossi looks the same as always.
Hotch just hopes he’s put together enough to make the team feel better about being here at an ungodly hour.
“Welcome, welcome, welcome,” Garcia greets, setting down the last folder in front of Reid before taking her spot next to Hotch at the front. “As lovely as it is to see all of you this morning, I’m afraid that we’ve got a grisly one on our hands, hence the hour.”
“Great,” Prentiss mutters. “How bad is it?”
“Three married couples have been murdered in St. Louis, Missouri in the past two months, with the most recent one happening yesterday,” Hotch says, and Garcia grimaces as she clicks onto the pictures. “Mom and dad are killed, but the children are spared.”
“Awful lot of similarities between the parents,” Morgan says dryly as he flips through the folder. “Looks like our killer has some family issues.”
Reid nods. “The unsub likely stalks these families once they see the similarities. I’m guessing he was abused as a child, seeing as they kill the parents but keep the children alive.”
“Probably has a grudge against his father,” Prentiss remarks. “They make it out the worst every time.”
“There’s no method to the torture,” Morgan says. “It looks like he’s just trying to make it hurt as much as possible.”
“Our guy probably isn’t trained in anything, then,” Rossi says.
Reid flips to another page in the file. “Serial killers like to see their victims suffer. If he’s not torturing the mom physically, then he’s likely making her watch.”
“He doesn’t kill children, though,” JJ notes.
“Maybe he thinks he’s doing them a favor,” Reid says.
“The unsub sees himself in the kids?” Morgan suggests. “He’s doing what he didn’t get the chance to do.”
“Whatever it is, we have to keep a tight hold on this,” JJ says. “The press eats this stuff up, and the last thing we need is a terrified city making it harder to do our jobs.”
“Especially with families being killed,” Morgan murmurs.
JJ sighs. “I’ll draft something on the jet and make some calls when we land.”
Hotch nods and he closes his file. “Wheels up in thirty. I hope you’re all ready for a long day.”
-
The jet is silent the entire way to Missouri, full of sleeping agents trying to delay the inevitable—save for JJ scribbling down notes on a legal pad for the first thirty minutes, but even she knocks out sooner rather than later. Thankfully, Hotch manages to fit an hour in himself, though it doesn’t do very much for him. He spends the rest of the time reading through the case file.
The team settles in quickly at the city’s precinct, and Hotch takes charge as usual. The uniforms are just as tired as they are, but he makes it work. Soon enough, JJ is off to work with the local liaison to craft a narrative, Reid has situated himself in an empty conference room to get to work analyzing maps with Garcia, and Hotch and the rest go to check out the crime scene.
It’s brutal—much too brutal for this early, but Hotch forces the emotions out of it and gets to work questioning the present officers. Morgan follows suit, with Prentiss and Rossi going to investigate the rest of the house.
They don’t learn much from the officers that they don’t already know. This is the most recent crime scene—George and Marsha Springfield, undeserving of such a grisly fate. Their two kids, 8 and 9, were off visiting their grandparents in Nebraska when it happened, and though they avoided the same fate, they’re going to deal with a lifetime of guilt.
It’s all Hotch can think about as he examines the first body. The six children left to deal with the carnage, about their past and future marred against their control.
All he can think about is Jack, and the dreary fate that awaits him if his father falls in the field.
Hotch swallows his doubt and his guilt all in one and forces every thought out of his mind. He has to be unshakable for the team, for what’s left of these families, for a city on the brink of hysterics.
They’ll find whoever did this. That’s what gets him through it.
They spent early morning at the crime scene, collecting evidence and gathering information from the officers and trying to make sense of the killer’s motive. Progress is slow, partially because of the hour, but they make enough that Hotch feels comfortable moving onto the next job.
Their four a.m. start time was too early to go knock on doors and get interviews, but now it’s a more normal 10 in the morning. After a quick stop back at the station to share information with Reid, Garcia, and JJ and down a few cups of coffee, they get right back on the road.
Hotch and Prentiss take one van and Morgan and Rossi take the other, splitting up to get what they can from interviews. It’s difficult working with kids, especially with such recent trauma, so they hold off on it for now, allowing the local uniforms that have been with them for a bit longer to set things up before the BAU tries anything.
First they go to a neighbor’s house, then an alleged eye witness. They don’t get much other than personality reads, but it at least gives them the beginnings of a profile. The third place they hit is their earliest idea of a suspect.
“Lucas Hartford,” Prentiss reads off the file one of the local officers had put together. “Thirty-nine, born and raised in St. Charles, Missouri. High school degree, but never got to college because he was in and out of jail.”
“What has he been charged for?”
“Booked a few times for public intoxication and convicted three times for assault. Once was for third-degree assault, Missouri’s version of aggravated assault,” she says. “He got out of jail last year, and it looks like he’s been living in St. Louis for some of that.”
“Assault and drinking is a far cry from serial killing, even aggravated,” Hotch says. “What makes him a suspect?”
“Both parents are dead,” she says. “And from the looks of it, it was not a happy home while they were around. He’s got a sister, so it fits the initial theory of trying to replicate his family.”
Hotch lets out a loose breath and nods. “We’ll start there. Try and get a story from this guy, build a profile, see if it matches the one Morgan and Rossi have made for their guy.”
“And hope we pin something down before more bodies show up,” Prentiss murmurs.
They’re at their destination soon enough, and Hotch parks in an open spot on the other side of the road. His eyes dart around as they walk up to the front door, filing things away in the back of his mind.
The house number and last name—1432, Hartford—on the mailbox plagued with rotting wood. What there is of a yard is poorly cut, and a small garden of wilted flowers has their own corner, victims of the winter weather. One car is parked slightly crooked in a small driveway—there’s no garage, so at least he’s probably home. Two potted plants sit on either side of the door, thankfully alive.
“Remember,” Prentiss says as they come to a stop together, “be nice.”
“I’m plenty nice,” he murmurs, and she huffs the slightest laugh.
Hotch knocks on the door as Prentiss fishes around for her ID, and thankfully, they don’t wait long. The door cracks open after a few seconds to reveal a woman—certainly not their unsub, but something a whole lot more surprising.
You.
Your brows furrow at the sight of him, and Hotch has to hold back his shock.
You don’t live in St. Louis. And your last name certainly isn’t Hartford.
“Aaron?” you ask in disbelief, and he doesn’t even have to look at Prentiss to know the questions he’s going to get later.
He says your name, able to control his surprise with only the slightest crease of his brows giving it away, then corrects himself just as quickly. “Miss Hartford. My name is SSA Aaron Hotchner, and this is SSA Emily Prentiss. We’re here with the FBI.”
Your frown deepens as they show their IDs, and you actually take it from Hotch, skeptical eyes scanning over it for much too long. You glance back at him as you hand it back over. “What is the FBI doing here?”
Emily clears her throat as she puts her credentials away. “We’re here investigating the latest murders in St. Louis. Can we come in?”
“The murders?” you ask with exasperation. “What— what murders? And what do I have to do with them?”
Aaron notices the way your grip tightens on the door just the slightest bit, and a shred of sympathy strikes him before he speaks up.
“We’ll be able to explain everything if you let us in,” he says.
You swallow thickly in your throat, your gaze darting back to Aaron before you finally nod. “Okay. Sure. Why not?”
You move and Hotch and Prentiss walk inside, gesturing with a hand towards your living room as you shut and lock the door behind them. “Take a seat. Uh— do you guys need anything? Water, or coffee, or…”
You trail off, and Prentiss shakes her head. “Thank you, but that’s not needed.” She takes a seat on the sofa, but Hotch can’t stop himself from looking around the house.
It’s a small place, one story—likely rented, seeing how paintings sit on countertops and mantels rather than hanging on the wall. It has a certain charm to it, but something is off about it all.
Two styles clash—decorative pillows at odds with a filled and painted-over hole in the wall, an attempt at neutral tones ruined by dark articles of clothing scattered around, one person’s mess barely being held back by another’s cleaning efforts. You lived with someone else. Likely Lucas Hartford, possibly their unsub.
“Are you gonna sit down, Aaron?” you ask, snapping him out of his profiling haze. “Or do you want to look around some more?”
“I’m sorry,” he says, clearing his throat as he walks over and sits down in an open chair near Prentiss. “Just curious.”
“That makes two of us,” you say, and you cross your arms as you look at him. He notices that you don’t sit down yourself, and there’s still a coldness in your eyes. “You’re FBI now?”
He nods. “I had a change of heart.”
You huff a laugh. “Thought at least one of us would be a lawyer by now. I guess not.”
Hotch frowns, but Prentiss takes over before he can continue on that particular thread. “Miss Hartford—”
You interrupt by saying your first name, and it spurns something strange in his chest. It’s been over a decade since he’s heard your voice. “You can skip the formalities.”
Prentiss nods and repeats your name. “As you know, we’re investigating the murders that have been occuring in the St. Louis area.”
“And you think I have something to do with it?” you ask, the accusatory edge to your voice not lost on him.
“Not you,” Hotch says. “Do you know a Lucas Hartford?”
“He’s my brother,” you say, and your frown deepens. “You’re not saying—”
“No,” Prentiss interrupts, “we’re not saying anything. We’re just asking.”
And just like that, your entire stance, your visage, it all changes. Hotch can sense the walls slamming up around you, and he immediately realizes two things:
Getting information out of you is going to be much harder than planned, and you’re not anywhere near the same person you used to be.
Hotch doesn’t know what he expects, really. He graduated with the intent to prosecute for at least a decade—now, he’s with the BAU. It’s not fair to assume you’re that same girl he met in law school.
“My brother is not a murderer,” you state clearly.
“And we aren’t accusing him or you of anything—” she starts.
“Me?” you interrupt, and you let out a harsh laugh. “I’m a suspect too?”
“If you would allow Agent Prentiss to finish her sentences, you would be less upset,” Hotch says.
You glower at him, but you stay silent.
“We aren’t accusing either of you of anything,” Prentiss finishes. “We’re just trying to gather information with what little we know.”
“I know my rights,” you say, unflinching gaze still meeting Hotch’s. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”
Prentiss looks at him as well, but his eyes don’t leave yours. “That’s unfortunate to hear, Miss Hartford.”
“You know my name, Aaron. Use it.”
He does, and the letters feel strange on his tongue after so long. “This is a serious matter. This isn’t an accusation—we’re in the early days of this case and we need all the information we can get.”
“Ask away,” you say. “Doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”
“Lucas Hartford,” Prentiss starts. “He’s your brother?”
You nod. “He lives with me.”
He lives with me, not we live together. Makes him think that you pay for the place, he came knocking, and you didn’t have the heart to turn him away.
“Why is that?” Hotch asks.
You look at him, those scrutinizing eyes attempting to peer into his soul the same way they did all those years ago. But Hotch has changed since law school, and he’s much better at guarding his emotions. It seems you are, too.
“He’s a student,” you finally say. “He goes to community college. I’m giving him a place to live while he gets his associate’s.”
“Community college and living with his younger sister at 39?” Prentiss is trying to get information out of you, even if it isn’t in the kindest way. Your jaw clenches, and he knows her words have some effect. You’ve probably heard it more than once, the way things are going.
“He’s getting his life back on track,” you say defensively. “I’m the only one left that can help him, so I am.”
“What about your parents?” she asks. “Surely they’re a better option than this.”
“Both dead,” you answer. “And no one else cares enough to help him. Are you here to do anything other than dig up my past?”
Hotch feels Prentiss’s eyes on him, likely because it’s a step in the right direction for a really shitty reason, but he can’t look away from you.
“Really?”
He knows your parents are dead—it was in your brother’s profile, and by extension it applies to you—but it still hits him.
He met your mother, had countless lunches and dinners with her. Helped her move out of her old house. Spent two Thanksgivings and a Christmas with her.
And he didn’t even know when she died.
You shrug and wrap your arms around yourself, and for the first time you look something other than defensive or standoffish. You look— well… sad.
“Mom went a few years after you graduated,” you say, looking at Hotch. “Dad went five years ago.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” Prentiss says.
You nod your thanks, the notion a bit numb.
“You never told me,” Hotch says with a slight frown.
“We haven’t talked in ten years,” you say. “Sorry that I didn’t know you still wanted updates.”
Hotch tries to think of something to say in response, but Prentiss starts getting a call and she stands up. “Excuse me.”
His jaw clenches for a moment as Prentiss ducks into a nearby bedroom, but he’s recovered by the time you look at him again. Your arms are crossed, but your expression is even.
“I take it this was as much of a surprise for you as it is for me.”
Hotch nods. “We came here looking for your brother.”
“Does your team know about our history?” you ask simply.
“No.”
“Do you want them to?”
“...No.”
You huff a laugh, your eyes narrowing a bit. “‘Course not. Probably counts as conflict of interest.”
You wait another beat, then ask another question. “How’s Haley?”
“Good, last I heard,” he says, and then he hesitates. “We’re… divorced.”
Your eyebrows shoot up. “Really?”
He nods. “This job isn’t easy for anyone.”
You look like you want to say more, but once again, Hotch is saved by Prentiss as she walks back in. Her phone is closed in her hand and she looks at him. “Morgan and Rossi have a lead. The chief wants everyone back at the precinct to go over everything we’ve found.”
Hotch nods again and stands up. Prentiss takes her card out of her pocket and holds it out to you.
“Thank you for your time, Miss Hartford. If you find out any information, or want to tell us anything else, please give me a call.”
“Pass that along to your brother, too,” Hotch says.
You reluctantly take the card, but you don’t look at it. “You can see yourselves out.”
Prentiss nods. “Thank you again. Have a good day, and stay safe.”
She leads the way, and Hotch follows after her. He fights the urge to look back before he shuts the door.
Prentiss looks at him as they walk back to the car, and he can only imagine what is going through her mind. But eventually she just shrugs and pulls out her phone again.
“Garcia?” Prentiss asks after she picks up.
“You’ve reached the office of all that is holy.” Penelope’s voice comes out through the speaker, and Hotch can’t help the smallest twitch of his lips. “What’s up?”
“Dig up everything you can find on Lucas Hartford,” Emily says, and her glance at Hotch does not go unnoticed. “And throw in his sister, too. He’s one of our only suspects, and we need to know if she’s in on it.”
“On it,” Garcia says. “I’ll call you back when I’m done.”
“You’re the best,” she says, and then she hangs up. They get back to the car, and it only takes Prentiss all of five seconds after they get in for her to start drilling him.
“Alright,” she says, buckling her seatbelt with a click before she sets her attention on him. “What was that back there? You two know each other?”
Hotch busies himself with his own seatbelt and starting the car, answering as casually as possible as the engine revs to life. “We were friends in law school.”
“Sure,” Prentiss nods. “The way you were around her, that’s not just ‘law school friend’ stuff.”
Hotch is once again reminded of how, sometimes, it was a downfall to constantly be around profilers. It was nearly impossible to keep anything a secret.
“It’s nothing,” he says as he pulls back onto the road. “We knew each other, we fell apart, we’re here now.”
Emily hums. “Is it too far to ask if you were together?”
“Yes,” he says sternly, maybe a bit too hasty. “It is.”
“Fine,” she says breezily, and she looks out the window. “But that tension was thick.”
Hotch knows what she’s thinking. Hasn’t he been with Haley since high school, what kind of history did you and him have, were you together, would he be okay to work this case—
He doesn’t really want to answer any of them. You were a part of his past he hadn’t expected to resurface any time soon—if Hotch is being honest, he didn’t know if he would ever see you again once he graduated. Not after the way he broke things off.
You’ve changed a lot. So has he.
And now your brother is a murder suspect, and you could be covering up for him.
That’s the only thing that should be on his mind.
-
“For the last time,” you huff as you storm down the stairs, “I don’t want to deal with this.”
“Because you know that Mia is a lying bitch!” Cleo exclaims, following after you. “I’m sick of you stealing my clothes!”
“I’m not stealing your clothes,” Mia scoffs in your wake, just behind Cleo. “They’re too ugly for me to want anyways. I bet I wouldn’t even fit into them.”
“You are! And you’re stealing my fucking jewelry, too!” she yells. “All of my shit is going missing, and I know it’s not Little Miss Law School, so it’s got to be you!”
Mia draws out a mirthless laugh. “You are not accusing me of this.”
“I don’t have anyone else to accuse!” Cleo shouts.
They both look at you, and Mia says your name. “You have to settle this before I kill her.”
“Oh, I’ll kill you first!” she hisses. “At least I’ll get all my stuff back!”
You clench your jaw as your nails dig into your palms, and you’re about to bite back when the doorbell rings. You don’t even try to hide your sigh of relief.
“That’s Aaron,” you say as you grab your coat and your bag from the table. “I’m leaving. If you kill each other, don’t get blood on the furniture.”
You don’t give them a chance to say anything before you rush to the door, open it, and shut it behind you.
“You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” you breathe.
“What’s going on in there?” Aaron asks, amused.
“My roommates are fighting again.” You roll your eyes. “It doesn’t matter. You’re much more interesting.”
“You know this is a study date,” he says wryly, and you cut him off with a kiss.
“Still a date,” you murmur against his lips. “And something seriously needed.”
Aaron chuckles as he wraps an arm around you, pulling you into his side, and the two of you walk to his car. “You’ve gotta get out of this house, honey.”
“I know,” you grumble. “But I can’t afford a place on my own.”
“Doesn’t have to be on your own,” he says as he opens the door for you. “It just has to be away from the girls that are making you miserable.”
“The lease ends at the end of the semester,” you sigh. “Just have to make it until then.”
“You know,” Aaron boxes you in against the car when you lean against the side of it, smiling softly at you, “I do live alone.”
“Oh yeah?” You ruffle his hair with your fingers and grin. “What are you proposing?”
He shrugs, letting his hands linger on your waist. “Just that you hate your roommates, and you don’t hate me. You could spend your time somewhere else.”
“Careful,” you warn. “You keep saying things like that and we might not make it to the library.”
“You keep saying things like that, and I might not mind,” Aaron muses.
You grin as he leans in and kisses you again, once, twice, three times as your back hits the side of his car and you card your hands through his hair. Mia and Cleo are probably killing each other inside, but you don’t really care at this point. They’ve made your life hell for a semester and a half—they can bother each other for once.
“Aaron,” you whisper against his lips, and he gets one more in between words, “I’ve got a test on Tuesday.”
“And today’s Sunday.” He nips at your neck and you laugh, your eyes falling shut as you lean your head back. “You’ll be fine, honey.”
“You have one on Monday,” you remind him, and he sighs. You feel his hot breath against your neck.
“Ruining our fun in the name of schoolwork,” he says. “No wonder all your professors love you.”
“Everyone loves me,” you correct. “Including you.”
You steal one more kiss before you open your door yourself and get in, and Aaron lets out a breathy laugh.
“You’ve got that right.”
He closes your door then gets in the other side, and you’re already rifling through the glove box full of cassettes. You pull out the mixtape you made for him for your six month anniversary and pop it into the player, and Aaron smiles as the first few notes of Stairway to Heaven come on.
“You’re a threat to my grades, y’know.”
“Maybe it’s all part of my plan,” you say. “Distract you with kisses to make sure I’m a shoe-in for this fellowship.”
“A dastardly plan,” he says with mock austerity.
“I’ve been told I have to be more of a shark,” you muse. “Consider this me taking down my competition.”
Aaron laughs, and you find yourself smiling just at the sound of it. You love the way his eyes crinkle at the corners, how they soften just so, how he acts like himself around you, and not some perfected or stoic image that he thinks he needs.
Falling in love with Aaron Hotchner has been the easiest thing in the world.
“Don’t let anyone know,” he says, and he reaches over to intertwine your fingers together. “But I’ll happily fall to you every time.”
“As long as you don’t tell everyone how whipped I am for you,” you tease.
“Looks like we’ve both got reputations to keep up.”
“Looks like it.”
You share a smile, yours just on the edge of a grin as you try to bite it back. You hold hands the rest of the way, just soaking in each other’s presence with songs from bands you introduced to each other floating through the air.
(It is a goddamn struggle to get any work done at the library with that face across from you the whole time.)
-
You had sky-high aspirations when you were younger.
Ones that would make your teachers offer a smile and tell you to shoot a little lower, that would make your friends’ eyes widen, that your father would scoff at and your mother would humor you on just to get you to move past it.
You didn’t listen. You’ve wanted to be a lawyer since you went on a class field trip to a courthouse in elementary school and saw all the attorneys hustling about, dressed to the nines, making last-minute deals outside the courtroom.
They were just… so confident. So smart, so stoic, always knowing the answer to everything. The good ones had money, sure, but more importantly they had the power to change lives for the better. And as a kid that had to cover up bruises before the school day, nothing sounded more appealing.
All you’ve ever wanted to do is help people.
And as you sit in a cold, empty interrogation room, you can’t help but wonder where the hell you went wrong.
You don’t want to be here, obviously. But you know the FBI won’t stop bugging you until you give them answers—you know Aaron Hotchner won’t stop bugging you.
Because god— what are the odds?
What are the fucking odds of your ex-boyfriend from a decade ago showing up at your door with a badge and an attempted case against your brother?
It’s ridiculous, and it’s such bad luck that you think it could only happen to you. You’ve thought about Aaron Hotchner more than you’d like to admit over the years, especially when you found your old GW crewnecks, and the box of school supplies you used for a decade, and those photo albums from what should’ve been your golden years.
It’s not like any of it matters, though. You only agreed to come in and talk because you want them off your back and you don’t want them poking around your house. You saw it in Aaron’s eyes—he was profiling you and your place the entire time.
If the cops want to invade your privacy even further, they can get a goddamn warrant.
Your thoughts are interrupted when the door opens, and you hold back a mirthless laugh, because of course it’s Aaron. He greets you with your name, and he has a file in his hands. You wonder if it’s on you or your brother. “Thank you for taking the time out of your day to come in and talk with us.”
“Well, you seem to think my brother is a murderer.” You cross your arms as you sit back. “I’m not really gonna let that stand.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t asked for a lawyer,” he says as he sits down across from you.
“I don’t plan to be here for very long,” you respond tartly. “But don’t worry—that can always change. I know my rights.”
“I’m the last person you need to tell that to.” Hotch sets the file down and looks right at you. Though he’s obviously older—more grizzled, more hardened; harsher, sharper lines that define his face; lips set in a taut, unflinching line—you still see that young man from law school. The passion, the care he puts into everything, the penchant for striped ties.
You wonder what he sees when he looks at you.
“Your last name wasn’t Hartford when I met you,” he says. “Why is it now?”
“Not one for small talk,” you remark.
“I never have been.”
“I remember.” You hold his gaze. “It’s my mom’s maiden name. I changed it to put some distance between me and everything else.”
You can practically see the gears of his brain working, neural pathways branching off with every word you say to make sense of it and reason a thousand different meanings from it. Aaron’s always been like that, but it’s tenfold now.
You suppose one has to be like that, to try and get anywhere with the types of criminals they face.
“How long have you been living in St. Louis?”
“Seven years. I’ve had that house for three.”
“Rent or own?”
“Rent,” you scoff. “I don’t make enough for a down payment, and I don’t want a place tying me down.”
“What inspired the move?”
“Close enough to home to be familiar, far enough to not be.”
“And home is?”
“St. Charles,” you say, and you purse your lips. “Shouldn’t you already know all this?” You nod at the file in front of him. “It’s either on me or my brother, and we share a lot of the same info.”
“We prefer to get our information from the source,” he says.
“Sources can lie.”
Aaron doesn’t waver. “And we can charge you with obstruction if it harms our investigation.”
Your lips twitch for a moment, not entirely without heart. “Ask your questions, Aaron.”
He opens the folder and slides the first picture over to you—your brother’s first mugshot, taken when he was only twenty-one. You still remember riding your bike to the station in the sweltering August heat to drop off his bail and pick him up.
You had to catch the bus home together, you had to pay his fare, and his bail drained everything you’d been saving from your waitress job. But your dad refused to pay it, and you refused to be alone in that house any longer than you already had.
You swallow the memory. It still tastes as sour as the day it happened.
“Lucas Hartford is our main suspect,” he says. “He matches our initial profile—in and out of jail since his twenties, his parents are dead and he has an unstable home life, and he’s got a sister.”
“None of those sound like questions,” you say.
“Where is your brother?” he asks firmly. He’s given you a bit of leniency, but you can tell he’s getting tired of you. Some things never change, you think to yourself bitterly.
“I don’t know,” you admit.
“You don’t know,” he repeats.
“I let him stay with me, and my only requirement is that he goes to his community college classes and stays out of jail,” you say. “He’s done both, so I don’t ask questions.”
“And you’re telling me you haven’t questioned it.”
“I called him the other day after you left,” you say. “He didn’t pick up, and I didn’t get a call back until the next night.”
Aaron’s eyes sharpen. “What did you say to him?”
“I called to see where he was,” you say evenly. “I think you all are wrong, but I wanted to make sure he was okay.”
“You didn’t tell him—”
“No,” you interrupt, “I didn’t tell him about your investigation. If I think you’re wrong, why would I need to let him know?”
He still has that look in his eyes, and you know you’re getting on his nerves with the constant interrupting, the constant backtalk. But he probably deals with much, much worse.
“Good,” he nods. “You could be putting lives in danger if you do—including yours.”
“Please,” you scoff. “He won’t hurt me. He never has.”
“Why do you let him stay with you?” Aaron asks. “You’re straight-edge, he’s a borderline alcoholic that’s been in and out of jail for years. You’ve got a law degree, he never made it past high school. You’ve got your life together, his is falling apart.”
“That’s why I do it,” you say. “Our parents are dead. I’m all he has left, and he’s all I have left. I want him to get better, so I’m trying my best to help him get there. How can Luke put his life back together if he’s got no support?”
“That’s an awful lot of faith to put in someone who hasn’t earned it.”
“I’ve gotten good at that over the years,” you reply.
Aaron stares at you, and you stare back. You let the moment linger. You hope it stings, even fleetingly.
“And you’re wrong, by the way.”
“About what?” he asks. Again, unshaken.
“I don’t have a law degree,” you say. “I dropped out.”
And for some reason, that is what gets him. He frowns, and you wonder what it means that this is the most unexpected thing he’s gotten out of you.
“Why? You were only a year out. You had stellar grades.”
“My mom got cancer,” you say. “Luke was serving his second stint, Dad fucked off to some corner of the country to drink himself to death a couple months before. I was the only one left to take care of her, and I couldn’t do that from DC.”
“I had no idea.” This is the first time he looks taken aback since you’ve met him again. “And she’s—”
“Dead,” you supply without waiting for an answer. “Went a couple months after I was meant to graduate.”
“...I’m sorry for your loss,” he says. He’s just repeating what his agent said at your house, but it feels genuine, at least.
“It’s been a decade,” you say. “I’m just sorry it was her instead of my dad.”
Aaron’s brows knit together again, and less work goes into covering it up this time. “You seem to have something against your father.”
You huff a mirthless laugh. “Excellent profiling.”
“Child abuse is common for serial killers,” Aaron says. “We find it’s typically the root of their problems later in life, or plays a part in their MO.”
You stare at him again. This isn’t just an interrogation with Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner—it’s revealing parts of your past that you never told your ex-boyfriend Aaron.
“Yeah,” you finally say. “Our dad beat us. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“You know th—”
Aaron cuts himself off before he can finish whatever he wants to say, and he lets out a short sigh with a nod. “It’s valuable information for the profile.”
The room feels a lot colder all of a sudden. “Sure.”
He still looks like he wants to say more, but he bites his tongue as he takes the picture back and closes the file.
“I’ll be back,” he says. “Would you like anything? Water?”
You shake your head and remain silent. He takes the folder and stands up, and you watch him the entire way to the door. Just before he can open it, you find words escaping without you thinking.
“Look, Aaron,” you blurt out. He pauses, and he turns to look at you. “I know this is your thing, and this is your investigation, but I’m telling you—my brother and I don’t play any part in it.”
“The profile—”
“I don’t care what your profile says,” you interrupt. “He didn’t do it. He couldn’t have done it.”
“He’s rough around the edges, I know. In and out of jail isn’t good for anyone.” You hold onto the edge of the table as you continue rambling, needing something to do with your hands. “But he’s working to get better, and he is not the kind of person to do something like this. If you believe anything I say, believe that.”
“I suppose we’ll find out,” he says evenly.
He leaves the room, and your hands fall into your lap as your nails dig into your palms. You don’t mean to be desperate, but you feel it. You’ve been defending Lucas at every chance, but you’re terrified of being wrong. You’re terrified that Aaron might be right—that he might be behind all of this.
For his sake—and your sake, honestly, because you think you deserve to be selfish when he’s all you have left—you hope you’re right.
You have to be right.
The room feels even colder.
Your stare drifts to the one-way mirror, where you know his team is watching. You saw the way Agent Prentiss watched Aaron when they came to your house—he said he doesn’t want them to know, but you think they already do.
You wonder the kind of things they’ve come up with about you and him.
-
Morgan whistles when Hotch walks out of the interrogation room.
“She does not like you.”
“Did you gather anything else?” he asks placidly. He sets your brother’s file down so he can fix his tie.
“Abusive dad, dead parents, criminal background,” he says. “Lucas is looking like a stronger suspect. Oh— and she really doesn’t like you.”
“If you don’t want to go back to building a file on your suspect, move on,” Hotch demands.
Morgan shrugs, clearly unfazed, but he keeps his mouth shut. Reid, meanwhile, is still staring through the glass at you. You haven’t exactly relaxed, but you’re not as tense as you were while talking to Hotch. You pick at a loose strand of thread on your sweater, and when you pull it out, you let it fall to the floor.
“Her brother feels like a prime suspect,” Reid murmurs. “I feel like I could just figure it all out if I could talk to him.”
“I told Penelope to keep an eye on him,” Prentiss contributes. “She’s tracking his cards, the car registered in his name, even called the person in charge of the AA meetings he goes to to keep an eye out—everything. We’ll know if she gets anything.”
“Serial killers want to see the damage they’ve done,” Reid says. “Things are falling apart here—the whole city is terrified. He’s gotta be in St. Louis still.”
“You’re sure that he’s still in the running.” Hotch glances back at you, and he knows he has to at least ask, for your sake. He doesn’t want to put you through anything more than he has to—not after what you’ve told him.
And Hotch knows your past is your business—he just can’t believe you never told him.
He’s turned over your relationship in his head just as many times in these past few days as he did the months after he ended things.
“I’m sure, sir,” Reid says. “I’ve read over both their files, and Lucas matches with our preliminary profile. His stressor could have been his father dying.”
Morgan frowns. “Explain.”
“Family annihilators typically go after their own family for a myriad of reasons,” he says. “Paranoia, to cover up their lies, to free themselves from what they see as oppression, sometimes just pure jealousy.”
“He’s killing the parents but leaving the children alive,” Hotch says. “Sounds like a liberator to me.”
“That’s what I think,” Reid nods. “If Lucas has been banking on killing his father for that attempt at freedom, and then lost the chance?” He shrugs. “That could be why he started going for other families.”
“Other fathers to take his place,” Morgan realizes, and he nods again.
“You should talk to her, Spence,” Prentiss says. “You’ve got a handle on the profile, and you’re pretty good at conveying info. She seems like a reasonable person—just can’t accept her brother doing something like this.”
“It’s typical for someone to deny their family member’s involvement,” Reid says. “No one wants to think their sibling is a murderer.”
“If you lay it all out for her like that, with facts and the profile, I think she’ll listen.” Prentiss looks at Hotch. “She’s too closed off with you.”
“That’s how she is,” Hotch claims.
“Maybe,” she shrugs, “but it’s much easier to hate you than it is to hate Reid.”
Hotch glares at her, and Reid clears his throat to insert himself back into the conversation.
“I’d be happy to talk to her,” he says. “I know what it’s like to be in this kind of position—I can put her at ease, sympathize with her.”
They all look at Hotch, and he wants to say no. He wants to be the one to get this out of you—some part of him wants as much time with you as possible. But he decides to swallow his ego.
“Fine.” He nods, and he hands the folder to Reid. “I trust you to handle it.”
Reid nods too, far too many times, and he takes the file. “Thank you. Uh— sir. I appreciate your trust.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he says, but it has no bite to it, and Reid walks inside.
He says your name and sits down across from you. “I’m Spencer Reid. I know we’ve already said it, but thank you for talking to us. It may not seem like it, but it goes a long way towards figuring out this case.”
You nod. You already seem more at ease than you were with him, and it makes Hotch…
Not jealous, because that would be insane. But it makes him upset that he doesn’t understand you the way he used to—that he doesn’t hold that key to you anymore. God, it feels like he doesn’t know you anymore.
Hotch doesn’t get why a side of his brain still thinks this way about you.
“They sent a new one in,” you say.
“You looked like you needed a break from Hotch,” Reid says. “Don’t worry. We all do sometimes.”
You huff a slight laugh and your posture eases, your expression softens just so. Reid was right, as usual.
“I can imagine.”
He starts talking to you about the case, laying out all the facts, and though you don’t look happy, you don’t cut him off like you cut Hotch off.
“She’s pretty,” Morgan offers, glancing at Hotch. “And stubborn. I see why you like her.”
“Shut up, Morgan,” Hotch mutters.
He chuckles and holds his hands up, and focuses back on the interrogation.
The rest of it passes in silence, save for the occasional input from Prentiss or Morgan to elaborate on a point. You talk much more with Reid than you did with Hotch, and you don’t stare daggers at him the entire time.
Time doesn’t always heal all wounds, he thinks.
When Reid is finishing up inside with you, Morgan glances back at Hotch. “You think she’s part of this?”
He shakes his head. “No. She has no reason to kill, nothing to gain. She talks about her past too plainly—it hurt her, obviously, but it hasn’t taken over her life.”
“What about her brother?” Prentiss asks.
“The more we learn, the more I suspect him,” Morgan says.
She nods in agreement. “We just have to find him.”
Hotch isn’t sure yet.
But for your sake, he hopes his gut feeling is wrong.
-
Spring has finally sprung in DC, and you couldn’t be happier.
It’s hard to feel down on your walks to class when the birds are singing and the sun is beaming down on you, when you see students sitting on blankets reading and talking and actually enjoying life for once.
You’re two years into law school, and it feels like you’ve spent 90% of your time studying in either the library or your room. A bit of a sad existence, but it’s made better with Aaron.
You’re laying down on a blanket—one you crocheted yourself in undergrad—resting your head on Aaron’s chest as he reads a book, the spring sun shining down on you. It feels like the first moment of relaxation either of you have had since classes started, and you chose to spend it together in the University Yard.
You should probably be studying or doing some kind of homework, but you don’t care. It has been too damn long since you’ve gotten to just sit around and exist with Aaron, and you’ve got at least a couple days until your next quiz. That’s far enough away for you.
It’s been a rough semester for both of you, between classes and endless homework, between your internship and your endless family issues—Luke is two years in, and his parole was denied, and your dad still insists on being the reason you stay on campus year-round.
You don’t think you’re pushing it when you say Aaron’s support has been the only reason you’ve gotten through it, your grades—and your mental state—relatively unscathed.
Aaron says your name, and you hum.
“Are you listening?” he asks.
“Of course,” you say.
“Your eyes are closed.”
“I don’t need my eyes to listen,” you say wryly. “What’s up?”
You feel him tense for a moment, feel him adjust his position slightly.
“I got a call from Haley,” he says carefully.
Your eyes open and you frown.
You know the name, but only in the way that you talked a bit about your past relationships while you were still getting to know each other. She was his high school girlfriend, and it was a big deal then, but they broke up before college because they both wanted different things.
It shouldn’t be a big deal now. But he’s treating it like one, and that makes you hesitate.
“Yeah? What’d she want?”
“…She’s in DC for the weekend,” he says. “Some conference for school. She asked if we could grab a coffee or something and catch up.”
You finally sit up, his hands falling from where he’d been playing with your hair, and you look at him.
“Your high school girlfriend wants to catch up.”
“An old friend wants to catch up,” he corrects. “I haven’t really talked to her since we graduated high school.”
“...Okay,” you say slowly. “Do you want to see her?”
He shrugs. “I thought it would be nice.”
“Do you think she thinks it’ll be more than nice?” you ask.
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t even know how she got my landline. I think my mom might have given it to her.”
Your eyebrows rise. “Your mom gave your ex-girlfriend your number?”
“It’s the only way I can think of her getting it,” Aaron shrugs. “Like I said, I haven’t talked to her since graduation.”
You chew on the inside of your cheek, trying to think as you look at Aaron.
You’ve met his mom a dozen times. You’re insistent that she doesn’t like you, despite Aaron’s assertions towards the opposite—it wouldn’t surprise you if she gave this girl his new number in an effort to push him in a new direction.
But that train of thought feels a little crazy. You’re confident in your relationship with Aaron—you love him, and he loves you. God, he made an off-handed comment about marriage the other day. You’re not threatened by a girl from his past wanting to catch up.
“Go for it,” you finally say.
He frowns, like he was expecting the worst. “Really?”
“I trust you, Aaron,” you say. “You say she’s just a friend, I believe it.”
You lean forward to kiss him, your eyes fluttering shut, and it lasts much longer than it should. When you pull away, Aaron’s smiling softly at you.
“Thank you,” he says.
“‘Course,” you say, tipping a shoulder. “I’m known to be rational from time to time.”
He chuckles, and you smile as you lay back down on his chest. Soon after, you feel the weight of his hand on your shoulder.
“I love you,” he says. It feels more like a reminder than anything.
You entangle your fingers together and press a kiss to the back of his hand.
Sometimes you need reminders.
“I love you too.”
-
“Four more bodies,” Prentiss mutters. “God.”
“You can say that again,” Morgan murmurs.
Hotch is silent as he examines the father’s body. They’ve been so busy the past few days trying to nail down the profile, both on their unsub and geographically, that this happening again hadn’t been at the top of their list. There was a month between the first two, and two weeks between the second and third.
No one expected this to happen so soon.
The entire family was killed this time, and once again, the parents look similar to the other victims. It’s the work of their unsub, no doubt.
Hotch and the team had already been at the precinct for an hour going over all the information they’d found when they got the call at 8 in the morning, the bodies discovered by the family’s maid when she arrived for work.
An entire family, parents and children, senselessly slaughtered for one man’s deranged quest for liberation.
Hotch has been in this business for a long time, seen things that most people only imagine in nightmares, and he still has to take a step back when children are involved.
He sees Jack in every single one. He can’t help it.
Hotch took Prentiss and Morgan with him to the crime scene—JJ has a kid, Rossi had a kid, and he just didn’t want Reid to see it. They’ll all be more valuable working together back there anyways, and it’s imperative that JJ controls the narrative before this can break to the press.
Again, Prentiss talks to the officers at the scene and Morgan helps him examine the bodies. After all, there are double the amount.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” Morgan says as he stands back up. “Our guy is killing surrogate parents to get back at his own, fine. Dad was tortured again, mom was killed with a bullet. But bringing the kids into it isn’t his thing.”
He uses a gloved hand to gingerly lift the father’s arm away from his body so he can examine the underarm. “Look at this. He’s been stabbed at least ten times, and his arm’s nearly severed from his body.”
“And his neck,” Morgan mutters. “He’s half decapitated.”
Hotch sets the arm back down. “The unsub always wants the father to suffer, but this is a new level.” He looks up at Morgan. “I don’t think he has a reason for killing the children. I think he’s getting sloppy—he’s getting overwhelmed by his anger.”
“You think he’s devolving,” he says, catching on.
“Something tells me we’re coming to the end of the line,” Hotch says. “Whatever he does next, he’s going out with a bang.”
-
The mood in the precinct has fallen dramatically since the last hit. The uniforms aren’t happy that they’re working around the clock, the chief isn’t happy that the BAU hasn’t figured everything out yet, and the city isn’t happy that ten murders have been committed with what they think is no end in sight.
JJ and Rossi have gone out to bring in the suspect that he and Morgan found together for the sake of covering their bases—they still haven’t been able to find Lucas, despite Reid calling you every day to check in and upping police presence around the city.
The rest of the team sits around a conference table, over a dozen coffees between them, going over everything and racking their brains for information.
“This just isn’t matching up,” Reid complains. “Lucas has just been at home for the first two, but for the third and the fourth he’s got alibis.”
“What are they?” Hotch asks.
“He was on the road all night when the third happened,” Reid says.
“And how do we know?” Prentiss asks.
“Garcia picked up his debit card being used a couple times from Des Moines back to St. Louis when the third set of murders happened,” Morgan contributes. “Must’ve been a road trip, because there are stops at a gas station, a restaurant, and a rest stop.”
“The last one happened during an AA meeting he was supposed to attend,” Prentiss says. “I called the leader and she said he was there.”
“Do we have footage from any of those places?” Hotch asks. “We need to make sure.”
Reid nods. “I asked her to check it all this morning, including the AA meeting. She must still be going through it—I can’t imagine it’s easy to get all that access.”
“What about a second unsub?” Morgan suggests.
Hotch shakes his head. “These are all meant to be personal for liberation—catharsis. Involving someone else would take away from the feeling.”
“What about your suspect?” Prentiss asks, looking at Morgan. “Could he be the unsub?”
“Patrick Fenton,” Morgan says, and he shrugs. “He fits it—dead parents, jail time, child of abuse. But he’s got two sisters, and his parents died when he was in his twenties from a car accident. I don’t see why he would start killing almost twenty years later.”
“Maybe we’ll figure something out in questioning,” Reid says hopefully.
Morgan’s phone suddenly goes off, and he hits the button to answer. “You’re on speaker, babygirl.”
“I found the security footage from those three places, the ones that Lucas was at on his supposed road trip when the third family was hit,” Garcia says, voice slightly tinny through the phone.
“And?” Hotch asks.
“I was getting there,” she says. “Lucas wasn’t there. He wasn’t on any of the footage—his sister was.”
Hotch frowns. You?
“You’re sure?” he asks.
“I’m always sure,” Garcia responds. “And I don’t know if Spencer is there, but he also wasn’t there at the AA meeting—I combed through the whole meeting, and he didn’t show up at any point. Just another guy that looked like him.”
“And you’re sure about that, too?” Hotch asks again.
“What is with this questioning of my abilities?” she asks, offended. “Yes. I’ve stared at so many pictures of Lucas Hartford over these past few days that I’ve got him burned into my brain.”
“Thanks, babygirl,” Morgan says. “We’ll call back if we need anything.”
“And you’re always welcome in this house of miracles,” she muses. Morgan chuckles before he hangs up.
“Lucas gave her his card,” Reid realizes. “It’s an easy alibi, but it falls apart when you look into it even a little bit.”
“Probably seemed solid to him at the time,” Morgan says. “He doesn’t seem like a detail oriented guy.”
Prentiss frowns. “That means he’s back on the chopping block. We can put him at the scene of every murder.”
Hotch leans over the table and grabs Lucas’s file, and he pulls out the page compiling his family. “His father died five years ago from liver failure. Hartford got out of jail last year.”
“If he’s been plotting some elaborate murder of his father for years, just to get out of jail and find out he drank himself to death?” Morgan shakes his head. “He’d snap. It doesn’t feel like justice.”
“He thinks he’s saving the kids of these parents that he kills,” Reid says. “He sees himself in them—he can’t look past his own childhood, and he assumes those kids must want their parents dead too.”
“He’s trying to get back at his dad,” Prentiss says. “We know that.”
“But that’s not his main goal,” Reid insists. “If his dad died when he was a kid, the abuse would have stopped. His mom wouldn’t be the battered wife anymore, and he wouldn’t be the battered kid.”
“His goal has always been protection,” Hotch realizes. “Yes, he’s getting his revenge by killing his father over and over, but ultimately, he’s trying to save himself.”
“But he didn’t anticipate the kids being home this time,” Prentiss says. “He had to kill them too.”
“If he‘s seeing himself in these children, recreating what he never got to do, then that means that he effectively died in this scenario,” Reid says.
“He didn’t get what he wanted,” Morgan says. “That’s gonna take a toll on him.”
“He’s coming to the end of the line,” Prentiss nods.
Hotch’s brain is working overtime as they work information off of each other. They’re so damn close—they just need the last piece of the puzzle. If they find Lucas’s next victim, they find him.
“His next crime will probably be his last before he goes out himself,” Reid says.
“You think it’ll be a murder-suicide?” Morgan asks.
“It’s common with family annihilators,” Reid says. “Hell, it’s common with anyone who sees no future beyond their murders. It’s their way out.”
And then the answer hits Hotch like a ton of bricks. Reid is still rambling next to him.
“If his dad was still alive, I’d say he would be the target. But the only one left—”
“—is his sister,” Hotch grits out, and he’s dashing out of the conference room before anyone can stop him.
“Hotch!” Morgan yells, and he turns to Prentiss with wild eyes. “Where the hell is he going?”
“The last victim,” she says as she starts following him. “The one person he never managed to save.”
“Goddammit,” Morgan curses, and he grabs his phone from the table, dialing Garcia as fast as she can while he runs. Reid is close behind him.
“What’s up, sugar?” she asks. “Got anymore leads?”
He laughs dryly. “We’ve got a big one, babygirl. Lucas has finally reached the end of the road — he’s going for his sister. I need you to call JJ and Rossi and—”
“Send them the Hartford address and fill them in on everything?” she interrupted, and he could hear her fingers flying across the keyboard. “Already on it.”
“What would I do without you?” he asks.
“Be half the man and twice as sad,” she says. “I’ve got to call JJ. Be safe, my love.”
“Always,” he responds, and he hangs up.
Hotch distantly registers Prentiss stopping by the chief to alert him of what’s going on, because he’s in the fog of a rampage. He’s in the driver’s seat before he knows it, starting the car, and he sees Prentiss, Morgan, and Reid running out after him.
Prentiss takes shotgun and Morgan and Reid file into the back, and they’ve all got Kevlar vests in their hands. He didn’t really think of that through his haze.
“We’ve got an extra one for you,” Reid says, reading his mind.
“Thank you. I— I know what you’re all thinking—” Hotch starts, but Prentiss shakes her head.
“Just drive.” Her lips set themselves in a taut line. “We’ve got a murder to stop.”
And he does.
-
You sit on the curb, surrounded on either side by a box of your things. Packing up everything made you realize how little you had at his place. You thought you’d integrated yourself into his life fully, but it really just took an afternoon while he was in a lecture to disappear.
Summer has fully turned to winter, and you’re as morose as the weather. This side of town looks so depressing without the warmer months to pick it up—the sidewalks are lined with dead trees, the grass is shriveled up and yellowing, and you feel like you’re living in grayscale.
A shiver runs through you, the weather only partly to blame.
Amy is supposed to pick you up, but as usual, she’s running late. You don’t know if it’s a personal issue or DC traffic has just struck again, but it doesn’t really matter. Either way, you’re stuck here, and your bad luck seems intent on making it worse, because you watch a familiar car pull around the corner.
It parks a distance away—there’s no space in front of the complex, and he always complained that they didn’t do assigned spots—and you have to hold back a scornful scoff.
Of course you have to deal with this now.
Aaron picks up his pace when he gets out of the car, surprise—and what you think is shame—painted on his face. He says your name when he slows down.
“You’re already packed.”
You shrug. “I’m nothing if not efficient.”
“I could’ve helped you with all this,” Aaron says, frowning.
“Why do you think it’s done already?” you ask.
His throat bobs and he opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
“Let me save you the pain of chivalry,” you say. “I’ve got a friend coming to pick me up. I’ve already found a place. I called your property manager the other day and argued my way out of the lease, but I still paid my next month. You’re welcome.”
“You didn’t have to do that,” he says.
“You know what they say about a clean break,” you intone.
“I’m sorry,” Aaron tries again. To his credit, he looks like he means it. Against his credit, it’s about the fiftieth time you’ve heard it from him in the past two weeks.
“I shouldn’t have let you get that coffee,” you say with a grim smile, “should I?”
His lips pull into a taut line. “I didn’t cheat on you.”
“I know,” you say. It’s the one thing you do believe. “I just don’t think you ever fell out of love with her.”
Mercifully, you see Amy’s car pulling up in the distance. She’s your only friend with an SUV, so at least your boxes will fit.
“My ride’s here,” you say as you stand up, and you pick up one of your boxes. Amy throws on her hazards and she gets out to open her trunk.
“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she breathes. “Traffic was awful, and Jake has been so annoying—”
“Don’t worry about it,” you say with a slight smile as you put your box in the back. “You’re already doing me a huge favor.”
“I want us to still be friends,” Aaron calls. When you turn back, he has your other box in his hands, his expression shamelessly desperate. Amy glares daggers at him.
“Why?” you ask innocently. “So I can go without talking to you for ten years, ask you for a coffee when I’m in town, and then get you to leave Haley?”
“That’s not what happened,” he says, but you’re already shaking your head.
You take the box from him and smile thinly.
“Have a good rest of your life, Aaron. I hope it doesn’t involve me ever again.”
-
You let out a noise of frustration as you struggle to get the key into the lock, gritting your teeth as you try to fit it in. It’s always been finicky, but you just don’t have the energy to deal with this tonight. Thankfully, just when you start getting annoyed, you get it open.
You get a few steps in before your eyebrows rise, the sight of your brother at the kitchen table a surprise. He’s got his head in his hands, and your surprise turns to concern.
“Lucas,” you say with a slight smile, shutting the door behind you, “I didn’t know you were gonna be home tonight.”
His attention shoots to you immediately as he says your name, and he looks slightly out of it. “I was wondering when you were gonna get back.”
“Stole the words right out of my mouth,” you say wryly, and you ruffle his hair with your free hand as you walk past him. He swats your hand away in brotherly protest, and you snort. “This place has been quiet without you. Well— except for the cops. They were pretty loud.”
“They haven’t been back, have they?”
You look back at him and notice his leg is bobbing up and down insanely fast, and he keeps scratching at the soft wood of your table with his nail.
Your smile fades. “Don’t tell me you’ve been drinking.”
“Of course I haven’t,” he insists, but you turn on the kitchen light, then move closer to peer into his eyes against his protests.
“At least you’re not high,” you murmur, taking one last look before you pull away. “And stop ruining the table. I need it to last for the next ten years.”
He huffs, and you can practically hear him roll his eyes, but he stops.
“Did you go to class today?”
“You don’t have to act like Mom,” Lucas says, crossing his arms again with another huff.
“And you don’t have to act like a child.” You roll your eyes as you set your tote bag on the countertop and begin unpacking the groceries you bought. “I’m asking you about your day—that’s definitely not acting like Mom.”
“Yes,” he mocks. “I went to class.”
“Good.” You glance back at him. “I’m proud of you, Luke. You’ve been making progress.”
His smile is a bit thin, but he nods. “Thanks. How was work?”
You scoff and shake your head as you put a couple things in the pantry. “Don’t even get me started. I swear, Marie’s going to get me fired someday if she keeps her bullshit up.”
“She’s still on it?” Luke asks, and you can’t help but smile a bit.
“Don’t act like you know what I’m talking about,” you say. “Just agree with me.”
“I agree with you,” he says.
“That’s it,” you muse.
Your eyes fall back on your bag, and you’re reminded of what you meant to do next time your brother showed up.
“Oh—” You go back over to the kitchen table for your bag and pull out your wallet. You slide a debit card out and hold it out to your brother. “Thanks for letting me use it while I was up in Des Moines. I finally got my bank to get rid of the freeze on my card.”
“...Of course,” he says, and he takes it back. “Glad I could help.”
“I’ll pay you back, obviously,” you say as you get back to your groceries. “I just have to wait to get paid again.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “And uh— you never answered me. Did the cops come by again?”
You huff a mirthless laugh and shake your head. “You have nothing to worry about, Luke. I think they finally realized they were barking up the wrong tree.”
“…Good,” he says. “I can tell they’ve stressing you out.”
“Like that looks any different than my normal state,” you say wryly. “Besides, it wasn’t that bad.”
You recall the shock you felt when you opened the door to Aaron, and how nervous you were on the drive to the precinct. It’s almost been a decade, and yet he still has an effect on you that he has no right to.
“You remember that guy I dated when I was still in law school? Aaron Hotchner?”
“I think? I was in jail, so.”
You roll your eyes. “I know I told you about him when I visited you while we were together.”
“I remember you telling me how he broke your heart,” Luke says.
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“That he’s with the FBI now. The BAU,” you enunciate, and you huff. “He’s one of the guys on this case, coincidence that it is. They came here—they even brought me in for an interview.”
He frowns. “What’d you say?”
“The truth.” You pull your cutting board and a knife out of a drawer and get to work washing your vegetables. “That I didn’t know anything, and neither of us are involved in either way.” You shake your head with a sigh. “They must believe it, because they haven’t come back.”
“What have they said about me?” he asks.
“I’m not supposed to say.” You roll your eyes. “I think you’re innocent, but I could get charged with obstruction, and I really don’t feel like dealing with that…”
You trail off into a sigh as you finish washing the peppers and set them on a towel. “I hope they find whoever’s doing it, though. It is freaking me out that there’s a murderer out there.”
You pick up your knife and start cutting them up—they’re not the freshest, but it’s all Kroger had after work—and you glance back at Luke. “You really shouldn’t be going out so often with this going on, y’know. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m careful.”
“I doubt that,” you say wryly. “Still, though. I worry about you.”
“Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” he asks. “I’m your older brother.”
“I worry about everything,” you say. “It’s my thing.”
You hear him huff a laugh and you smile a bit to yourself. You get through your first pepper before you remember what’s been nagging at you your whole ride home.
“Oh— can you get the TV?” you ask. “Channel 8, I think. Marcy is getting interviewed for something with her nonprofit, and I told her I’d record it for her.”
Lucas doesn’t respond, though you hear the scrape of the chair as he gets up.
“Thank you,” you say. “I think they have a fundraiser coming up or something…” you trail off and shake your head as you scrape the cut peppers onto a plate. “God. I need to start paying attention in the break room.”
Another few seconds pass, and you don’t hear the television switch on. You huff and turn your head slightly. “Luke, I’m making dinner tonight. This is the least you could do.”
“I’m sorry.”
The words come out as a murmur, but you can tell he’s much closer than he was before.
You don’t even get the chance to turn around before something crashes against your head and your vision goes dark. You feel yourself fall to the ground, and your head hits the floor hard.
Then, there’s nothing.
-
Hotch has been breaking every speeding law there is.
The station isn’t too far from your house, but it’s still too far. All he can see is your body, crippled and lifeless just like every other victim they’ve had to look at.
It should never have gotten to this point. Lucas has been a suspect for the first day, but they looked to other suspects, got caught up in statements from neighbors and the kids of the victims.
If Hotch just found him and booked him on the first day, this wouldn’t be happening. Your life wouldn’t be in danger.
His hands tighten on the steering wheel.
“I seriously think we’re looking at a murder-suicide if this gets to play out,” Reid speaks up from the backseat. “This is his way of ending this for both of them—the ultimate protection of his sister.”
“No one can hurt her if she’s dead,” Morgan mutters.
“Hotch,” Prentiss starts, treading carefully, “are you sure you’re okay to lead this?”
“Yes,” he says, though he wants to say what kind of question is that?
You were together a lifetime ago in law school, yes, and he might still have feelings for you that he didn’t even realize were there, yes—but he’s an agent and a professional before all of that.
It doesn’t matter that you have history. It doesn’t matter that you likely hate him.
It doesn’t matter that he thought he was going to marry you one day, and then was watching you drive out of his life after he got back with his high school girlfriend another day.
Aaron Hotchner is not going to let you die. It’s as simple as that.
Hotch’s phone rings and he picks it up and flips it open immediately. “Talk to me, Garcia.”
“JJ and Rossi are on their way,” she says. “Are you headed to their place?”
“Yes,” he says, and he puts it on speaker. “I’ve got Prentiss, Morgan, and Reid with me still.”
“Do you think there’s anywhere else he could be?” Morgan asks. “If he’s going to kill her, he might not want to do it in this house.”
“Already a step ahead of you, my love,” she says, and he can hear mouse clicks through the phone. “They grew up in a house in St. Charles—it’s abandoned, from the looks of it, some place on the outskirts. Never got another buyer after the past owners moved out. I’m sending the address to Emily right now.”
Prentiss gets a buzz on her phone and she nods in confirmation after flipping it open. Hotch immediately switches lanes and makes a U-turn, his jaw clenching.
“Tell me how to get there, Prentiss,” he says. “He’s there.”
“You need to get on I-70,” she says, and then her brow furrows. “How do you know?”
“He’s killed everyone else in their homes because he sees it as the source of it all. His sister’s rented place isn’t personal enough.” Hotch shakes his head. “Why wouldn’t he want to go back to theirs to end it all?”
“Hotch.” Penelope’s voice rings out in the car, and he doesn’t even realize he forgot to hang up.
“What?”
“Be careful,” she says, and he rushes to turn it off speaker and press it to his ear. “I… I know how important this is to you.”
Hotch’s throat bobs and his eyes burn with the beginnings of tears. He blinks them away—he can’t be weak now. He can’t let his team see him be weak now. “Dare I ask how?”
“I found an article about GW’s mock trial team,” she says. “Kind of went down a rabbit hole from there.”
Somehow, he huffs the slightest laugh. It feels like a lifetime ago—it honestly is, at this point. Before he saw carnage and gore on a daily basis and tried to solve it, when he thought the DA’s office was the endpoint, when he came home to your smiling face every night.
And now…
Hotch’s spine somehow stiffens, and he knows the other three in the car are watching him. He can’t decide whether he cares or not.
“Thank you, Garcia.”
“No problem,” she says, and he can almost hear her blink in the pause. “Uh— for what, exactly?”
For the memory, he wants to say. But he doesn’t. He can’t, not right now, so he tries his best to snap out of it.
“Keep a watch on the patrol cars,” he says instead. “Update JJ and Rossi on our plan, but tell them to stay on their path. I’m sure I’m right, but we need to cover our bases.”
“Of course, sir.” He hears her fingers flying across the keys. “I’ve got yours and the squad cars’ locations up—I’ll call them now.”
“Thank you,” he says.
“Good luck, Hotch,” Garcia says softly.
Hotch hangs up before he gets too emotional. Penelope has a way of bringing that side out of him.
“We’ll get him,” Prentiss assures. She’s been watching him this whole time, he can feel it—she’s been attuned far too keenly on this entire part of the case involving you and him. “And we’ll save her.”
His knuckles go white around the steering wheel, and for once, Hotch can’t find the words.
-
It feels like your head is slowly being cranked in a vice when you eventually wake up, a dull but insistent pain. Your arm stings too, but you don’t know why.
You blink a few times as you try to figure out where you are, a low groan slipping out as you fully come back into consciousness, and you move to rub the grogginess out of your eyes.
Your arms don’t move. You try again, panic spiking your heart for a moment, and that’s when you realize you’re in a chair—tied to a chair, your wrists bound together behind you and your ankles bound to the chair legs.
Now the panic fully sets in. There’s a murderer in St. Louis, but you don’t fit the victimology from what you’ve seen, but does any of that fucking matter when you’re stuck in something out of a horror movie?
Lucas was the only one there with you. So either he’s in the same situation, or he—
“You’re finally awake,” a voice murmurs. When he comes into view and sits down across from you, your heart stops.
For a moment, all you can do is stare at your brother with wide eyes. You see the gun in his hand through your peripherals, but you don’t look away from his gaze.
“I was worried I was too rough,” he says softly. “But you’ve always been resilient.”
“Lucas,” you breathe. “What the fuck is this?”
“It’s finally going to be over,” he says, ignoring your panic. “We’ve been hurting our whole lives because of that bastard of a father, and I can finally make it all stop.”
Your brother is fucking crazy. He’s fucking crazy, and he’s going to kill you.
You’ve spent two weeks telling Aaron he was crazy and your brother was innocent, and now he’s going to be proven right when he finds your dead body.
You try to tamp down on your panic. You don’t have a law degree, sure, and you never officially practiced, but you’ve been a good speaker, a persuasive one, all your life.
And if there’s ever been a fucking time to be persuasive, it’s now.
“You don’t have to do this,” you whisper. “We— we can talk if you want to talk.” You tug at your ankle restraints. “This is unnecessary.”
He shakes his head. “I know you. You’d run.”
“Come on.” You manage as much of a smile as you can. “I’ve always been there for you, Luke. Why would this be any different?”
“...You’ve always been too nice,” he says, and he sets the gun down on his leg. At least he doesn’t have his finger on the trigger. “Anyone rational would’ve kicked me to the curb when I asked you for help.”
“You’re my brother,” you whisper. “I— I love you, Lucas. I’d never do that to you.”
“Family’s supposed to be everything, right?” He shakes his head. “You were the only one of us that understood that. You were there to pick me up every time my sentence was up.”
“I’ve always believed in you,” you say.
He huffs a monotone laugh as he stares at the ground. “You’re definitely the only one.”
You shake your head. “That’s not true.”
“Mom didn’t care enough to stop anything,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “And Dad wished I was dead every goddamn day. He didn’t have the guts to do it himself, but he definitely tried.”
You can’t defend your parents. Your dad’s a piece of shit, and your mom didn’t stop anything he did—but you could never find it in yourself to fully hate her because he hurt her too, with more than just bruises.
“I’ve dreamt of killing our dad every day for twenty years,” Lucas says. “And that old bastard had to fuck me over one last time and die while I was in jail.”
You remember when you got the news. You were next of kin—your mother had divorced him by then, and your brother was incarcerated—so you got the call from the hospital. You deliberated for hours before you bought a plane ticket to Montana—apparently that was where he fucked off to drink himself to death—and you don’t know if you’ve ever felt more numb than when you were sitting in some lawyer’s office, listening to him drone on about his will and how his estate would be divided.
“So you killed all of those people?” you asked. “Because you didn’t get to kill our dad first?”
“I was saving those kids!” Luke yells, and you shrink in on yourself. “Saving them before their parents could fuck them up like ours did to us!”
“You don’t have to do this,” you repeat. “You’re just letting Dad win. Proving every shitty thing he said about you.”
“And that’s the zinger, isn’t it? Luke laughs and shakes his head. “He was right. We’re a whole family of fuck-ups. An alcoholic abuser, a battered wife, a nonstop jailbird, and you…” He shakes his head with a sigh. “You should be out there prosecuting people like me.”
“He ruined us,” Luke murmurs. “And I’m finally going to fix it.”
All you can do is stare at your brother, wide and teary eyed. You can’t find the words, but you don’t have to.
Police sirens begin to filter through the air as they get closer, and Luke huffs. “Of course.” He eyes you. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” you say weakly.
When he leaves to peer out the front door, you take a second to look at your surroundings. It takes a second because they’re so decrepit, but you could never forget.
Luke brought you back to your childhood home—the place in St. Charles, rotten down to its bones. It’s abandoned by now, but the atmosphere is nothing less than oppressive. There’s a reason you graduated high school a year early, why you never came back once you got to college—except with Aaron, to help your mom move her things out.
You refuse to die here. Even if you have to claw back through the gates of Hell inch by inch—you will not die here.
You hear footsteps, and when Lucas comes back in, he has a crazed glint in his eye. He shakes his head as his finger returns back to the trigger, and you can’t help but flinch. He won’t. Not now.
“Looks like your friends the FBI are here,” he drawls. “You said you didn’t tell them anything.”
“I didn’t,” you insist. “They’re profilers—they figure things out.”
He shakes his head. “They don’t realize that I have to do this.” Luke kneels down in front of you and takes your chin in an iron grip. “This is the only way to end our pain.”
He lets go of you then stands up, moving behind you—you want to protest, but you don’t get the chance. He presses his gun to your temple and then the door is broken down. Four agents rush in, guns at the ready. Aaron leads them, and he’s got fire blazing in his eyes.
“FBI,” he barks. “Hands up.”
Lucas doesn’t seem fazed, his breathing staying the same. You stare right at Aaron, unfiltered fear in your eyes, and you feel torn bare. He’s going to watch your brother put a bullet in your head.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” he says smoothly. “This is a family matter.”
“Put the gun down, Lucas,” Aaron says.
“You know my name,” he says. “I know yours too, Aaron Hotchner. My sister told me you were with the feds. She also told me you broke her heart.”
“Put the gun down,” he repeats.
“I don’t think I will,” Luke says. “You see, I don’t go around just kidnapping people for fun. I have a purpose here.” He tilts his head to the side. “But you know that, don’t you? You’re all profilers.”
“You’ve been targeting families that look like your own,” he says. “You think that killing them will end the pain inside you, and protect those kids in a way that you never got.”
“I don’t think it,” he bites, “I know it. If my dad had been shot thirty years ago, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
“This isn’t going to bring you peace,” Aaron says. “Your sister has been the only person to stay by your side through every part of your life. Do you really want to lose that?”
“Trust me,” Luke says. “I’m not losing her.”
He flicks the safety off and you flinch. He’s going to kill you.
“Put the gun down,” another agent warns.
“If you all don’t leave right now, I’ll shoot her.” Your whole body stiffens as he presses the gun harder into the side of your head, your breathing going off kilter. “Except you, Aaron Hotchner. You can stay.”
“We’re not doing that,” the woman says. Agent Prentiss, you think.
“Really?” Luke chuckles. “You think you hold the cards here?”
“It’s okay,” Aaron says. “Go.”
Agent Prentiss frowns, and the other two men look different levels of puzzled. They obviously doubt the decision, but they don’t doubt Aaron, because one by one, they leave.
“Wow,” Luke muses. “They really trust you.”
“Because I know you don’t want to hurt her,” Aaron says. “Deep down, you know you’re not protecting her. Not by hurting her.”
“I’m not hurting her,” he says. “She’s always been the one to keep me safe over the years—I’m finally paying the favor back. I’m finally taking her pain away.”
“You were abused as children. Both of you.” Aaron looks at your brother. “Your sister always tried to protect you, but it never worked. It just made it worse for her, and it made you feel worthless. You’re her older brother. You’re the one that was supposed to protect her.”
“My sister said you’re profilers,” he says, and though his tone is lazy, you know your brother. You can tell it’s starting to get to him. “Is that what you’re doing right now? Profiling me?”
“You would never be good enough for your father, and your mother would never do anything to stop it,” Aaron continues. “All you had was your sister, and even that wasn’t good enough—you hurt her just as much as your dad did. At least your dad didn’t think he was a good person.”
Luke growls, and he puts a hand on your shoulder to pull you closer to him. “Shut up.”
“Your sister has told me you can be more than this,” he says. “And I think she’s right. You’re better than this—better than living between the margins and jail.”
“I’ve had a hole in my chest since I was born,” Luke mutters. “And I’ve tried to stop it, but it’s just grown and grown and grown. This— this aching pit of pain, and he caused it. You’ve got it too— I know it.”
“I— I do,” you say. And you’re not lying. You’ve had a pit of despair in you for as long as you can remember. The only difference is that you’ve fought every goddamn day of your life to keep it from consuming you. “And it hurts, Luke. Trust me, I know. It took me so long to even be able to deal with it, but I know how to. I can help you—we can both walk out of here.”
“No,” he whispers. “No—we can’t.”
“Yes, we can,” you plead. “I love you, Luke. I’ll spend every day of the rest of my life helping you if that’s what it takes to get rid of that hole.”
For a moment, he doesn’t say anything. For a moment, you think you’ve gotten through to him. Aaron never takes his eyes away from you.
“I’ve never been able to protect her,” Luke murmurs. “Not from our dad, not from the world, not even from you, Aaron Hotchner.” He presses the gun harder than ever into your head, like he wants to bury the metal in your skull along with the bullet. “But that all ends now.”
You screw your eyes shut. You don’t want to see Aaron’s face when your brother kills you.
And then it happens so quickly you barely process it.
There’s two gunshots, almost at the same time. You scream, first because of the gunshots, then because of the sudden roaring pain in your side. There’s a thud next to you, your eyes shoot open, and you see your brother’s lifeless body fall to the ground.
You scream again—you can’t even control it, it just rips out of you at the sight of the hole in his head and the blood pooling beneath it—and Aaron drops his gun to rush forward. The rest of his team thunders in after him, all in guns and bulletproof vests, and they’re talking, but you can’t focus on a single goddamn thing because your brother’s dead body is right next to you.
Aaron pulls out a pocket knife and begins to cut through your restraints, and the instant he finishes you collapse. He catches you without a second thought, and you immediately wrap your arms around him.
Torrential sobs wrack your entire body as you bury your face in the crook of his shoulder, every part of you shaking as the reality of it all hits with full force.
Your brother is a serial killer. He killed ten people, he tried to kill you. And now he’s dead.
The only part you had left of your family—gone, just like that, with four other families ruined in his wake.
Aaron’s soft voice in your ear is the only thing bringing you back from the edge of hyperventilation, his own hold on you the only thing keeping you from collapsing.
“I’m so sorry,” he murmurs and he shrugs off his windbreaker to wrap it around your arms. “You’re safe now. You’re safe.”
“He’s gone,” you choke out, voice muffled as you speak into his chest. “He’s gone, and he tried to—”
A fresh round of emotions hit you, unable to get the words out, and you fully break down in Aaron’s arms.
“I know.”
Aaron’s fingers linger on your side and you feel some dull pain, but you feel his breath still for a moment.
“You were shot,” he says with your name. “We have to get you to a hospital.”
You don’t even feel it. God, you don’t feel anything. There’s a distant ringing in your ears, an insistent pain in your skull, and you finally realize Aaron is right when you pull away and see the blood on his fingers.
But black spots start to fill your vision. You may not feel it, but your body holds the score. The pain intensifies in your side as your adrenaline starts to slow down, and you collapse against Aaron.
“Get an EMT in here!” he yells, keeping an arm wrapped around you. “We’ve got a GSW— she’s losing blood fast!”
You can feel Aaron’s rapid heartbeat, can feel his steady arms as he keeps you propped up. You feel the warmth of his body, feel the warmth draining out of yours.
“Aaron,” you whisper, your strength fading. You don’t think he hears you.
He helps you up and you’re suddenly hoisted onto a stretcher, and he’s beside you as the EMTs run you out of your childhood home. The night is a blurry canvas of red and blue lights, and your eyelids feel like they’re made of concrete.
“Aaron,” you try again, and you have enough left in you to grasp his cheek. “Thank you.”
And as the world goes black around you for the second time, you see his lips form your name.
It’s not a bad thing, you think before darkness overtakes you, for Aaron Hotchner to be the last thing you see before you die.
-
You wake up in the hospital alone.
You don’t know what you expect. You have few acquaintances, fewer friends, and the last part of your family is dead after he tried to kill you.
The real surprise is that you wake up at all.
Lucas is dead.
He tried to kill you. You thought he succeeded.
You let out a slow, even breath, accompanied only by the sounds of beeping machines. It still doesn’t exactly feel real.
You’ve spent the last two weeks defending your brother against every accusation, and you ended it in the hospital—well and truly alone for the first time in your life.
You look at the television. Some muted soccer game is playing, and you’re thankful. You were worried that you and your brother would be the topic of the day.
Who are you kidding? You’re going to be the topic of the year. He killed ten people. He tried to kill you, and you think he nearly did. He shot you, after all.
You let your head fall back against the pillow. All of your limbs feel insurmountably heavy, your side aches like hell, and you’ve got the worst headache of your life.
And you can’t stop playing it all over in your mind.
He was going to kill you.
Your own brother, your flesh and blood, the only person you had left, tried to kill you and would have killed you had it not been for the BAU.
Had it not been for Aaron Hotchner.
The door opens and someone walks through, your eyes following the movement, and when he sees it, he pauses. And so do you—apparently the devil appears even when you think of him.
“You’re awake,” Aaron says after a moment. It’s the third time he’s sounded surprised since you’ve met him again. Seeing you, finding out your mom is dead, seeing you.
But there’s relief there, too.
He has a coffee in his hand and his tie is undone, the sleeves of his white undershirt rolled up to his forearms. It makes you realize his suit jacket has been slung over the back of the chair near your bedside.
“How long have you been here?” you ask, your brows furrowing ever so slightly.
Aaron closes the door and sets his coffee on the table before he answers you. “Three days.”
“And how long have I been here?”
“Three days,” he says. “You suffered head trauma, they discovered drugs in your system, and… you were shot. You had to go into emergency surgery.”
You frown, and he answers before you can ask any of them. “…Your brother. After he knocked you out, he used something to… keep you out. And after I shot him, he still got one off—thankfully, as he was falling. The bullet hit you in the side instead of the head.”
“How bad was it?” you ask.
Aaron glances away. “You died on the table. They managed to bring you back, but…”
“I guess Luke did succeed,” you say absentmindedly. Aaron doesn’t laugh, and you glance away too. “Sorry. Bad time for jokes.”
He shakes his head. “If anyone’s allowed to joke about this, it’s you.”
Your lips twitch for a moment, but then you look back at him as he takes a seat at your bedside again. He looks— god, he just looks tired. Tired and ragged and downtrod, and you can’t imagine you look much better.
“You were out for two days after,” he explains. “This is the first time you’ve woken up.”
“Why are you here, Aaron?” you ask quietly. “Why have you been here?”
Aaron frowns. “Where else would I be?”
Your throat feels like it’s closing up, and you feel the telltale pinpricks of tears. You blink them away before they can start.
“My brother was a serial killer, Aaron.” Your hands clench into fists as you stare at the wall. “He killed ten people while he was living with me and I— and I didn’t even fucking notice.” Your gaze moves back to him. “I went against all of you because I thought I knew him, and look where it got me.”
“It’s not a crime to want to see the best in people,” he says. “Especially your family.”
“It’s a crime to fucking murder people,” you huff, and it’s only slightly unhinged. “I— I thought I knew him, and I didn’t. And if I did, maybe none of these people would’ve had to die.”
“Don’t blame this on yourself,” Aaron demands. “Lucas was lost. Mentally ill. He was on a path for revenge, for his deranged idea of protection—nothing you could have said or done would have stopped him.”
You shake your head. “It might be easy for you to say that, Aaron, but I— I can’t. He’s my brother. I gave him a place to live, I gave him easy access to families— god, I fought with you all for two weeks about his innocence, all while he was planning his next fucking murder!”
“It is not your fault,” he repeats, slower and enunciating the words. “He was the only member left of your family, and you loved him. You were just stubborn, and that’s nothing new.”
“I just don’t know what to do.” You’ve had these walls up for so long, especially this past week, and now that everything’s come to a head and you’re in the hospital and your fucking brother is dead, the floodgates have opened. “I have to plan a funeral because I’m the only one left to plan one, but— but does he even deserve one? He’s a serial killer, and he tried to kill me for god’s sake, but he’s my brother and even though he’s gone he’s still all I have left and—”
You break off as you suck in a huge breath of air, the notion shaky as you clench your hands into fists to keep the rest of your body from doing the same.
“And I just don’t know what to do,” you repeat, barely a whisper.
You meet Aaron’s eyes, almost desperately. You feel like you’ll shatter into a million different pieces if you even breathe wrong and he might be the only solid thing in your life.
“Whatever you do,” he says, “you don’t have to do it alone. Not if you don’t want to.”
“Aaron,” you start shakily, but he continues.
“I know what you think, and that’s not what I’m suggesting.” Aaron pauses for a moment, and it’s obvious how carefully he’s crafting his words. “I’ve… always regretted how we left things. And I regret losing touch with you. This isn’t the way I would’ve liked to meet you again. But I’m thankful I have.”
He pulls a card out of his shirt pocket and holds it out to you. You realize it’s his business card, and it’s got his number.
“I’m sorry for the formality,” he says dryly, “but I don’t exactly go around prepared to give out my number for purposes other than work.”
You take it without giving yourself the chance to think about it. You run your finger around the sharp edge of the cardstock, pressing the pad of your thumb against the corner.
“Years ago, you wished me a good life, and that you didn’t want to be involved in it,” he says, still treading carefully. You can’t believe he remembers the last thing you said to him. “But— but a lot has changed since then, and I hope that has as well.”
“I’d like you to be a part of my life again,” Aaron finally says, “if you want to be a part of mine.”
For a moment, all you can do is stare at him. Two and a half years of law school flash behind your eyes—coffee shop dates and endless hours spent studying at the library. Movie nights cuddled on his couch, hauling boxes out of your house at an ungodly hour to get away from your roommates. An unhealthy amount of all-nighters immediately followed by going out to celebrate a miracle of an A on an exam. Getting through every soul-sucking part of earning a J.D. together, falling apart before either of you could make it to the other side, and somehow…
Somehow, you’ve ended up on a completely different side together.
“My life isn’t going to be easy,” you say faintly. “Especially… moving through this.”
“My life isn’t easy either,” he says. “I’m divorced with a kid and I try to solve murders every day.”
“It’s not a contest.” An attempt at a joke, but it falls flat for you. Aaron’s lips still quirk at the edges the slightest bit.
“Getting through this certainly won’t be easy,” he agrees. “But I have more experience than most in these sorts of things. So if you ever need anything, call. Please.”
“I imagine you’re pretty busy,” you murmur. “Unit chief and all.”
Aaron shrugs. “I make time for the things I care about.”
Thankfully, you don’t have to figure out how to respond to that, because there’s a knock on the door, and a nurse walks in after you call a come in.
“It’s good to finally see you awake, sweetheart,” the nurse says with a smile. It warms you from the inside out.
“It’s nice to be awake,” you say. Her smile widens and she moves over to the computer in the side of the room—to add some things before she makes her checkup, you assume.
“I’ll give you some time alone,” Aaron says.
Before he can stand up, you grab his hand. It’s fully on instinct, and he looks just as surprised as you feel.
“Don’t go,” you plead, and it’s almost a whisper. “I— just— please.”
Aaron stares at you for a moment, that shock glinting in his eyes before it transforms into something a lot warmer. He nods and sits down.
“Okay.”
And he stays.
This time, he stays.
#i was truly possessed while writing this i can't understand it#i wrote 15k words in 5 days#aaron hotchner x reader#hotch x reader#criminal minds x reader#aaron hotchner x y/n#aaron hotchner fic#aaron hotchner angst#aaron hotchner imagine#sadie writes
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Heya, I don't know it's already done or not but can you please write about the egoistic yandere Tom Marvolo Riddle with a hugeeee obsession and love🤔 on introverted half blood slytherin y/n who doesn't give a f*ck him and his looks like other girls of Hogwarts!🫠
thank you for sending this in, i was really hesitant on writing this bc i’ve never wrote anything like this before so i hope you like it!
know you better | tom riddle
pairing: tom riddle x fem!reader
warnings: yandere!tom, very obsessive and delusional way of thinking, death, even more delusions
To fall in love with you was the easiest thing Tom has ever done. All you had to do was merely be in the same vicinity as him and he’d found himself more than just head over heels over you.
For you to fall in love with him on the other hand, that surely was one of the hardest things he had to do in life. You don’t look at him —not because, unlike the others, you didn’t dare to but because you weren’t interested in him. You don’t offer him a smile when he greets you good morning. You don’t throw yourself at him when he turns a blind eye when he catches you sneaking around the castle at night. You don’t care for him.
And quite honestly, it is driving him insane. What is it that everybody has that he doesn’t? Why does everyone else get to see you smile when you won’t even turn in his direction? Why won’t you just admit you want him as much as he wants you?
Though you don’t show it, Tom can read between the lines. He thinks —no, he knows that you’re acting indifferent to play hard to get. He knows you want him, you just won’t admit it.
He tries to be a gentleman about his intentions at first, sliding up to you whilst you hover your cauldron during potions. He calls out your last name cautiously, careful to not startle you; he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he accidentally hurts you. You turn to him, a small frown appearing on your lips. “Riddle?”
He skips the formalities, not bothering to beat around the bush. “Would you like to go out this weekend?”
You fix him a look, and then, “no.”
You didn’t hear him right. That’s what he tells himself. Or maybe he’s confused, because why wouldn’t someone want to go out with him? Tom clarifies himself, “I meant on a date.”
You turn back to your cauldron, ending the conversation as is. “No.”
He was certain that you’re playing hard to get now. That was until one of his goons —Malfoy, that was his name, started noticing that Tom’s eyes tended to wander whenever you were in the same room as him; until Malfoy tells Tom exactly why you’d said no.
“Macmillan, that’s his name. Walburga says they’ve been going out for a few months now.” You have a boyfriend? No, no, that can’t be right. There’s no way you had a boyfriend when you were so clearly playing hard to get with Tom this entire time.
Was it because your ‘boyfriend’ was holding you back from your true love? Or were you using this ‘boyfriend’ as bait? Had you known that it was time for Tom to create his next Horcrux and had needed a new sacrifice? How thoughtful of you to take care of these little things for him.
Luckily Tom’s smart, he’s known to be smart, and he’s smart enough to read you like an open book even though you won’t spare a second of your time on him. He admires it, how hard you’re playing this role of not caring for him when you’re clearly as indicated with him as he, you.
He’ll take up on your offer, he thinks as he sets out towards his chamber. The Basilisk is a dear friend of his, it’s even dearer when it does these things for him. In Parsel tongue, Tom says his order. “Kill Macmillan. And be careful not to hurt her.”
The Basilisks set out first, setting off after the aforementioned man; Tom a few steps behind. It isn’t hard for him to follow his dear friend, it leaves a wet trail in its wake for him to follow and it’s even easier for him to know when his friend has done its job from the scream you let out.
Tom’s clever enough to hide behind the corridors as he waits for his friend to return back to his home. His heart aches to hold you as you scream time and time again, asking for help and he reminds himself to reward you for your amazing acting.
With the way you’re so desperately clinging onto Macmillan’s body, you almost convince him that you genuinely cared for Macmillan, like Macmillan really was someone you were in love with. But he knows you, he knows you better than you know you. And he knows you love him.
So he schools his expression to one of worry, if you were really playing the part then he should be a good sport and play it with you. “What’s wrong?” He asks you, not sparing a glance at Macmillan’s frigid body.
“This —this thing, it came and it—” you stutter out, hiccuping out each word as you swiped at your eyes. Tom places a hand on your own, removing your grip on Macmillan’s body and ignores it when you flinch at his touch. “—it, I don’t know what it did but next thing I knew he was— he was gone.”
Oh poor you, he sympathises. Such a good girl for him to play your part so well. He pries your other hand away from Macmillan’s body and wraps his arm around you. “It’s okay,” he offers, pressing your face against his chest. “It’s okay, I’m here now. I’ll keep you safe.”
You sniffle, pulling away from him slightly. And when he realises that you could see the red glow in his eyes, neither of you mention it; for you were too afraid of the man holding you, and he too in love for something so trivial to take part of your conversation.
— from bee: this is so so new to me,, i hope you liked it!
#— requests#tom riddle fic#tom riddle x yn#tom riddle fanfiction#tom riddle x y/n#tom riddle x you#tom riddle angst#tom riddle x reader#yandere!tom riddle x reader#— blurbs with bee#🧳: my writing#🍰: 600 with patro!
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❛LOVE N’ DEVOTION❜ ( y. jeongin )
p. yandere!jeongin x yandere!reader w. 1.3k+
warnings? dark fic, toxic relationship, minor characters death, mentions of blood, oral sex ( m. receiving ), shower sex, rough sex, unprotected sex,
— 𖦹 ( both of you are willing to do crazy things to show your devotion for each other ) !
freaktober masterlist
you waited for the girl to walk away , excusing yourself , making your way over to the bar. “i'll have another margarita.” you asked the bar tender. “that will be 7.50.” he said. “i'll pay for it.” the boy handed over his card. “coming right up.”
you turned to boy leaning down , to where he could only hear. “she’ll die by the end of the night if she touches you again.” you whispered in jeongin's ear , anger and jealousy laced in your voice making the boy smirked. “really?” he loved seeing you like this , seeing how far he get you.
“and what about him.” He pointed to the guy across the bar who waiting for your return. “can i kill your date , if you kill mine.” the girl came back to the bar , just as the bartender , returned back with your drink. “your drink ma'am.” you thanked him , eyeing the boy as you walked away , still in earshot.
“innie.” you stopped dead in your tracks , jeongin taking notice of this. “innie who was that girl? do you know her?” the boy knew he should’ve chosen his next words wisely , but he couldn’t help himself. “no , just some girl.”
you bitterly made your way back to your table , ready for this date to be over.
jeongin watched you flirt extra hard with the guy , with a murderous glint in his eyes , how fucking dare that guy touch you like that , he’ll cut off every single one of his fingers for touching what’s his.
both of you knew you’d be here with other people , it’s the same routine – you break up , you find a random person to go on a date , knowing the other will show up , and at the end of the night both of you end up back at his house , covered in blood.
“jesus princess , all this blood.” he chuckled opening the door for you. “had the bitch not called you innie i may have let her live.” You took your heels off throwing them to the side. “keep it up and the cops will be sure to find you.” He closed the door.
“where is he?” he pointed to his garage. “i killed him already , he didn’t put up much of a fight.” you shrugged , “too bad he was cute.” he scoffed , his bloody hand wrapping around your throat , slamming you against the wall.
“princess you may have a few loose screws in your head , but you aren’t stupid , say some stupid shit like that again and i'll cut your tongue out.” he growled , squeezing. “you understand.” You nodded , and he let you go , you coughed. “now be a good girl and get on your knees.”
you obeyed , looking up at him through your lashes. “you’re hard even after killing someone.” You undid his jeans , letting them pool at his ankles , pulling at his boxer , his cock springing out , hitting his stomach. “says the slut covered in blood about to suck my cock.”
you took him into your mouth , but he quickly grabbed your hair. “if you bite me , i'll kill you.” he slowly moved your head , letting go while you kept going , bobbing your head up and down. “f-fuck that’s it suck my cock.” he groaned.
“if you don’t speed up , im gonna fuck your throat.” he grunted , but you ignored his request. “you’re really being a brat tonight.” he yanked on your hair , keeping it still as he thrusted into your mouth. “is it that girl -fuck- is it what she said?” he didn’t even let you answer before he , came with a grunt. “ngh , fuck!”
he let you go , spit and his seed dripping down your chin. “don’t mention that bitch.” you spat bitterly. “even her blood is making me angry.” he smirked , you truly were just as crazy as he was.
you weren’t always like this , you were once normal – that was until jeongin , he did this to you. when you first started dating , he was nice , but then as time went off , he began to slowly remove people out of your life , gaslighting you into thinking they were bad for you , and that you only had him.
you didn’t know how dangerous he was until one night he came home covered in the blood of some random guy he thought was looking at you. that’s when you should’ve left , called the cops , but you didn’t and everything just went to hell.
he'd find ways to break you , little by little , until those no longer worked , then he up the ante. while you continued to stay at his house , no one to go to , only having him , and he knew that – that’s when the girls came in.
he’d bring home random girls , not to sleep with them , but to put fear into your heart , that he could find someone better , when he knew he couldn’t , he was addicted to you , he just wanted to see what you’d do.
eventually , that fear boiled over and turned to anger , and that’s when you killed for the first time , and jeongin knew he had you forever , you were tied to him , you loved him and was devoted to him so much , that you’d kill just to be with him.
“you get so angry princess.” he pressed your naked wet body against the shower door , the blood mixed from your bodies making it’s way down the drain. “it’s so sexy.”
he held the flesh of your cheeks , spreading them , lining his cock with your hole. “fuck such a messy pussy , i can just-" you moaned as he slammed into you. “slide right in.”
he pulled out , pushing himself back into you. “fu-fuck jeongin!” you screamed as he fucked you , you gripped on to the side. “harder.” he slapped your ass. “you truly are my little pain slut.” he reached around squeezing you boobs , rutting his hips into you. “my crazy little pain slut.”
He pulled out of your hole , flipping you around , holding you up against the wall , wrapping your legs around his waist , filling you back up with his cock. “innie!” your nails raked down his arm , scratching his back.
“fuck.” he hissed , his hand once again coming up to your neck , his thrust hitting deeper. “my crazy girl , you’d kill for me wouldn’t you.” he squeezed. “y-you know i would.” you managed to get out. ��say it then." he said. “say you’d kill for me.”
“fu-fuck innie , im gonna cum!” you screamed. “hold it , you’re not cumming until you say it.” You whined. “sh-shit , i will kill for you innie.” you cried tears spilling down your face. “good girl , you can cum.” you gripped his shoulders leaving more marks as you came.
he didn’t stop once you came , his thrust became more erratic , he was close to cumming himself. “you don't have to worry princess, im -fuck- im all yours , how many people do I have to kill to prove it to you.” he groaned. “i'll do it , i'll kill anyone I have to.” he felt the band snap in his stomach , cumming.
he let you down , holding you up due to your jelly legs. he helped you wash the rest of the blood off your bodies , turning the shower off. he carried your body to the bed , both of you not bothering to put on clothes.
“you have to get rid of his body.” you said. “i will later.” he wanted to wait for you to go to sleep. “you shouldn’t bring them back here anymore , im tired of cleaning up blood.” you whined. “i'll do it this time crazy girl.” you pouted. “don’t call me crazy , you’re just as crazy.” he chuckled.
“whatever you say darling.”
©LUVYENI
#kpop x reader#kpop smut#stray kids smut#skz hard hours#stray kids hard hours#stray kids hard thoughts#skz hard thoughts#stray kids x reader#skz smut#skz x reader#stray kids fic#skz fic#yang jeongin fic#yang jeongin smut#yang jeongin scenarios#yang jeongin x reader#jeongin smut#jeongin imagines#jeongin x reader#jeongin scenarios
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I love regretful yans as well. I think it would work really well with Illumi and a chatty and outgoing Darling. He realizes that the routine and insolation is killing her when she doesn’t talk anymore “every day is the same”
i love the idea that he doesn’t realise how much he enjoys the talkative and outgoing nature of his darling, not until it’s gone.
he’s the one that stays pretty quiet at times, just hanging onto every word that you say. he seems the type to appear as though he doesn’t care all that much when you go on and on about some comic you used to read, only for the week after it to appear on your bedside table when you wake up.
little things like that aren’t good enough, though.
the routine slowly kills you; having to get up just to be treated as though you have no qualities other than being a wife and future mother definitely hurts a lot more than you’d like to admit.
despite the fact that you borderline hate illumi for taking you away, he’s also your only lifeline to talk and share things to, as he is really the only person that cares, even just a little bit. in his own way, at least. he’ll probably find a way to ruin it, though.
you might be in the midst of a breakdown, tired of these routines and being treated like nothing but a womb and a wife, only for him to tell you in an airy voice that that is all you are. you don’t know that he thinks it’s a good thing, and he doesn’t know why you think it isn’t.
you grow quieter soon after that.
he unconsciously makes sure every night that he gets home before you go to bed, so that he can hear you ramble on about small things in your otherwise very boring day. this time, he watches you go about your routine before getting into bed next to him. he turns his head towards you and- oh. you’ve lifted the covers over yourself and faced away from him. he stares at you for a couple minutes. you don’t turn around.
the next night is the same. and the next. and the next.
even on days where he can spend it by your side, you’re almost silent. he eventually forces himself to try and get you to talk, but you only answer his questions with nods or shakes of your head.
he starts to realise it’s the routine that’s killing you. he doesn’t understand why.
he tries breaking the routine he has you on occasionally, but to illumi a change in it is simply getting to lay in a bit longer, or to have half an hour to yourself (he’s secretly watching you but you don’t need to know that) in the garden or library.
it isn’t enough.
he starts telling you about his day, about where he went and who he met (and not what he did with them). this only makes you worse.
it might get to a point where he’ll allow you out of the house, with him, for a few hours, maybe even an entire day.
he hates every minute of it, up until he catches a ghost of a smile on your lips. maybe a break in the routine isn’t so bad, after all.
#tw yandere#tw.yandere#yandere#yanderecore#yandere hxh#yandere hxh x reader#yandere illumi#yandere illumi x reader#yandere illumi zoldyck x reader#yandere illumi zoldyck#tw kidnap mention#tw kidnapping#tw reader depression#tw depression
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Sully!family with your children HEADCANONS (1)
⇀ When The Time Comes AU!
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Jake and Neytiri:
They would both be oh so happy to see their first grandchild for the first time.
Jake would feel himself getting a little old at the news of your bearing, but he would be happy nevertheless.
He can feel his forehead creases triple in amount each him he’s on babysitting duty. He’s had too many children to care for and it’s taking a toll on our poor man.
Neytiri’s the best grandma bye.
She will feed that baby until it gets a chubby lil stomach.
Jake wanted to murder mo’rata, your mate after hearing that you were pregnant.
Like he accepts that the both of you are adults and adults just can’t keep their hands off of each other but nuh uh not with his daughter.
Neytiri understands what it’s like to be a tired mom, so now that nearly all of her children have left her tent to their own, she offers to take care of your baby once in a while.
Jake carves new toys for them because their hand-down ones are lowkey crusty.
He WILL tell your children about the great Toruk Makto.
it feeds his pride as a parent to see your children so engrossed in his stories.
Your children loves Neytiri’s cooking, probably more than yours.
Lo’ak
Eywa, please fear leaving your child with him for even one day.
Your child probably thinks he’s the most fun out of all of their aunts and uncles.
Brings your kid out on adventures.
Probs tells your child to never listen to their father because he didn’t and look at how amazingly he turned out.
Most probably will get in deep shit with your mate afterwards😭
Your children love him so much it’s insane.
Doesn’t teach your kids to be reckless like him tho, that shit nearly killed him too many times.
Ngl he’ll probably have beef with children that your children have beef with. 
Like full on arguing in public and all.
Winds up your children so much like they’re fucking dogs with pent up energy💀.
When he brings them back at the end of the day, one of hanging halfway on his shoulder and the other has their body dangling off his arms.
You’re happy though because sleepy children=calm evening.
Would call you and Mo’rata rabbits if you have many children.
If you all move to Awa’atlu together, your kids are the ones to tease him and tsireya. She loves your children bye.
Your kids are probably lo’aks wingmen or wingwomen.
they all practiced this cool ass walk-in intro thing to do when tsireya walks in the room.
He tries to play the cool guy act by swinging your children each at the same time on his shoulders just to impress her.
It fails though because he underestimated how fast they grew and how heavy they are now.
They all fall face first in the sand but it’s ok because it entertained tsireya.
mission accomplished.
Kiri
She loves taking your child in the forest with her.
Don’t think she’s interested in having children of her own for now, but she’ll spoil and love the hell outta yours.
Shows your children her Pandora jesus powers and they’re lowkey so entranced.
She probably charms wild animals that won’t harm your children into playing with them. Like a yerik.
Now that Tuk is too big to appreciate spending time with her sister (angsty teenager era who?), she loves spending it with your children like she used to with Tuk.
Doesnt mean that they replaced her little sister’s place in her heart, never.
She teaches your kids about nature and that they need to respect it.
She always reassures them that it’s ok to have 5 fingers and a pair of eyebrows <3
Neteyam
Best uncle (in yours and mo’rata’s opinion)
Most reliable babysitter that’s always up to the job.
He’ll probably be mated too at this point, so him and his mate always have some entertainment in watching your children while you and your mate escape on a date.
He’ll be happy if you don’t have a whole football team of babies for him to babysit.
He had to take care of his 3 siblings (plus you even tho you were older) growing up, and he still has nightmares about it.
Your youngest child is a troublemaker like lo’ak, and it gives poor Neteyam ptsd.
Teaches your eldest how to wield a bow just so they can be a badass older sibling like him.
mo’rata would be so mad when he heard that Neteyam was the one that had taught his child how to shoot an arrow. That’s his job as a hunter and a father and he might as well go and murder your little brother.
Tuk
She’s not a kid anymore but she’s probably still young.
You refuse to give her any babysitting duties because you want her to live her youth without having to take care of little ones like you had to with your siblings.
She never grew up with little siblings given that she was the youngest. So she adores your children.
Will give them her old toys. Toys that have been carved for you at first, then passed down to neteyam, kiri, Lo’ak and then herself.
Tuk is sorta traumatized after everything that went on with quaritch so she relives the years that she’s closed off as a kid with her nieces and nephews.
Takes your children on her Ikran only for you to scold her when she comes back. She’s still your baby sister after all so you’re allowed
Mo’at
probs dead atp i’m not even gon’ lie to y’all.
-
#sully!reader#sully family#jake sully#jake sully x reader#jake sully x daughter!reader#neytiri sully#neytiri x reader#neytiri x daughter!reader#neteyam sully#neteyam x reader#neteyam x sister!reader#lo’ak sully#lo’ak x reader#lo’ak x sister!reader#kiri sully#kiri x sister!reader#tuk x sister!reader#atwow#avatar#avatar 2#neteyam#atwow x reader#sully!reader x oc
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THE SEEKERS
STARSCREAM
Air commander! Leader of the seeker! And second in command of the decepticons! By far he is the most talented flyer of all the cons. All these decorations sure bumps up his ego, which cause him to go barking up the wrong tree. He’s got a scar on his face to remind him of each failed attempt at dominance.
Decorate that.
In the beginning he knew Megatron and they looked out for each other. Megatron trusted him and viewed him as a friend. But when Starscream had his lil seeklet something clicked in his brain. Starscream began scheming for more power. He started holding his family closest to him and pushing away the rest. He wanted the best for them and was tired of seeing them pushed into battle like common soldiers, they are not common to him. He couldn’t imagine Slipstream being hurt.
One day on the battlefield, Megatron was trapped in a crashing ship. Megatron desperately called out for his friend. Starscream looked him in the eyes and left him. As second in command he would be air to the the throne, he enjoyed it for a while thinking Megatron was dead and his family being the ones to boss everyone around. Knowing that his bitlit wouldn’t have to face battle like a commoner but instead like a commander.
Until of course Megatron came back. Starscream was challenged. He fought and lost badly. Megatron was highly emotional and almost killed him. Slipstream was deeply traumatized by seeing this. She’s scared of him.
Starscream is still second in command. It’s hard to tell what Megatron is thinking.
NOVASTORM
I wanted to make her a girl cause why not. She’s an ass, but what seekers isn’t??
She’s gorgeous and she knows it. She’s constantly flashing her stuff. (Honestly a big ego and being a narcissist is standard seeker behavior.) she has a crush on Thundercracker and has been trying to court him for years. (To her courting is being annoying and mean and accusing him of being a perv.)
She’s constantly picking fights with the rest of the seekers. But she’s nice to Slipstream. (She’s like the the sassy auntie.)
THUNDERCRACKER
He stoic and doesn’t talk to much, he the strongest out of the seeker. He’s also the biggest. He pretty much lets the rest of the seekers walk all over him. However he’ll sometimes put his foot down with Starscream and Skywarp (mostly skywarp.) he reminds them that he could crush their heads with his bare hands.
However he loves the two girls. He recognizes Novastorm is flirting with him. He mostly is just dead pan only because she makes him nervous. She gets away with everything.
Slipstream he sometimes pretends she’s his own. He gets her gifts and when she was very little he actually broke his silent streak and begged starscream to hold her. Slipstream could yell at him to move and he’ll do it fast. He lets her get away with too much.
SLIPSTREAM
The youngest, the smallest, and has the most to prove. She exudes teenage angst. Most soldiers are surprised she screams at the second command the way she does.
She is Starscream’s daughter. Even tho she can be a mean, hurtful little shit, she loves her dad. She hates seeing him hurt. Tho she’s not super affectionate (Starscream isn’t either.) he knows she loves him. And the rest of the seekers (not skywarp). They are her family. The rest of the seekers feel the same way (still not skywarp.) they’ve known her since she was small and looked after her when Starscream couldn’t.
SKYWARP
The seekers resident psycho. Skywarp has a very special power that makes him crazy! I’m sure we all know what it is. He doesn’t care about anyone. Surprisingly a goof tho, doesn’t help his scary appearance.
He has an artifact in his helm that lets him warp. He’s a killer and likes to hunt. He intentionally antagonizes his fellow soldiers. And he will make anyone suffer when they are weakest. He see Slipstream as the weakest.
#transformers#my art#starscream#tf starscream#transformers au#nova storm#tf nova storm#tf slipstream#slipstream#tf skywarp#skywarp#thundercracker#tf thundercracker#seekers#tf seekers
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hello hello hello !!! i just want to say i love love LOVE your fics, esp the oscar ones… the one you posted a few hours ago 🥺 my heart 🥺
i saw your post about oscar requests and i thought it’s meant to be because i’ve been listening a lot to taylor these last few days! could i maybe request osc and “all of the girls you loved before”? 🤭 hope you’re having wonderful day sweetheart!! 💓
-@httpiastri
this song. this man. thank u @httpiastri
ALL OF THE GIRLS YOU LOVED BEFORE. ❨ oscar piastri x reader ❩
despite being young, you weren’t stupid. you knew millions of women would kill to be with your boyfriend. you knew that, before you’d met, he had girls hanging off of his arm every weekend. you knew he’d had girlfriends before, flings and flirtations. but for six whole months, he’d been yours and yours only.
he never spoke about his ex’s, just as you never spoke about yours. you didn’t need to — you were too wrapped up in your love for each other to care about anyone else. that was, of course, until you went home with him.
the australian grand prix meant meeting oscar’s family for the first time. it went perfectly, an absolute dream. his mother adored you, fawning over you every second you stayed in her home. you, too, were her biggest fan. she’d raised the man you loved, bringing him up loyal and kind and everything you had fallen for.
being in his hometown meant bumping into other people from his life, or his past. even the ones you didn’t want to.
“oh, hey! y/n, right?” the bar was loud so you could barely hear the girl over the music. you nodded, smiling, and took a sip of your drink.
“yeah, that’s me! hi!”
the girl smiles back at you, but its one that makes you uneasy. a judging sort of smile, one that takes all over your features. all of a sudden, you hate the dress you chose and the way you’ve done your hair. this girl is stunning, all tanned and beach waves.
“i’m jessica,” she tells you, assured. “i used to go to school with oscar.”
your eyes light up, loving to hear from people who knew oscar long before you did. you look around for your boyfriend, but he’s off somewhere with lando.
“he’s around here somewhere — have you bumped into him yet?” you ask, innocent and sincere.
“no, not yet. i’m dying to see him though.”
you engage in as much painful small talk as you can, your gut twisting uncomfortably as you concur that this girl knows something you don’t. you only relax when you feel a familiar hand on your waist, oscar’s lips pressing in greeting to your head.
“hi, baby,” he murmurs, eyes going a little wide when they find the other girl’s. “jessica?”
“hey, os!” she greets brightly, reaching across to hug him, awkward from where his hand never leaves your waist. “i was just talking to your new little girlfriend here. have you taken her to all of your spots yet?”
your brows furrow towards the girl and she smirks.
“oscar used to take me to all these special places around here when we were going out. i’m sure he’ll show you them, won’t you?”
“oh, you two dated?” you question, glancing between jessica and your boyfriend.
“yeah, for ages.”
“barely.”
the two speak at the same time, jessica’s cheeks going red from oscar’s answer. she was fighting a losing battle, and his grip on you was only getting tighter.
“me and y/n have our own places,” oscar states, gaze cold. “see you, jessica.”
he’s pulling you away from the scowling woman before you know it, out to the empty smoking garden and fresh air. his eyes screw shut, frustration pulling a low groan from him.
“shit, i’m so sorry. we dated for, like, a month when we were sixteen. she cheated a few times and only took interest when i started driving for F1,” he explains, breathless and panicked. “i swear, she means nothing. i can’t believe she tried to talk to you like that.”
“oscar, calm down,” you laugh fondly, taking his soft cheeks in your hands. he returns a pout, eyes all puppy dog like to make you melt. “it’s fine. i’m not bothered about her.”
“you’re not?” oscar sighs, relief shedding from him. “i thought you’d be… i don’t know, annoyed.”
“that you have a few ex—girlfriends?” if you couldn’t already be impossibly in love with him already, he was giving you a million reasons to be. “babe, all of those girls — all of the ones you loved before, they’ve made you the one i’ve fallen for.”
oscar visibly softens, and it fills you with so much emotion that you feel your chest seize. he squeezes at your waist, pulling you into a tooth—rotting kiss. you press against his soft, wine stained lips but he’s smiling too much into it that the kiss is lost in a sea of loving giggles.
“i never loved any girl the way i love you, you know,” oscar whispers, eyes raking over your love stricken face.
“not even your mum?” you smirk, poking his side.
“shut up,” oscar grins, kissing you again. “yeah, but don’t tell her that.”
#🍾 ﹐ becca hits 1k!#🌙 ﹐ drabbles.#formula 1#formula 1 imagine#formula 1 x reader#oscar piastri x reader#oscar piastri imagine#oscar piastri#oscar piastri drabble#oscar piastri fluff
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hi! would you feel comfortable writing up something for a godhood!gale after he assembles the crown of karsus and wields the power for himself, seeking out a vulnerable tav as his chosen? i think the darker aspects of gale’s personality, like his ego and his possessiveness, could be really attractive
I like the way your brain thinks. Keep sending me juicy thoughts like this… I am THRIVING. He 100% would seek you out.
I wanted to make this a longer post for one of my follower goal specials. I rewrote this like two or three times because I liked the prompt. Still, was never satisfied with it. I will possibly write something based off this later… but for now enjoy a drabble + some headcanons :)
(also still haven’t finished the game… work is a bitch 🤞)
Gale always sought out knowledge and power. It was how he had gotten so intimately involved with Mystra. He spent his life studying and practicing to ensure he’d be a great wizard- like his mentor Elminster. Yet, nothing ever truly felt like enough to him. The weave in his chest ever-consuming proof of his hunger. That was until the Netherstones. He nearly drooled when you held Ketheric’s in your hand. The power thrumming and sending his veins alight. He thought all to have only a fraction of their power… but these. These stones were unlike anything he’d ever seen.
Everytime he stood near Orin or Gortash, his skin would tingle. He yearned to wield that for himself. To study and debunk everything behind it and nurture his mind with the intellect he could collect. He placed his trust into you. You led the group and held them close to you after killing Orin. Gale was noticeably on edge the entire trip with Gortash. He chalked it up to nerve- partially true. The Elder Brain was a powerful entity and surely would be intimidating. So, you as oblivious as ever, smiled and reassured him. He almost envied you. Once you reached the brain with the Archduke, you handed over the two stones and reconnected the three. Piecing together the Crown of Karsus. After Gortash was slain by Bane for serving his purpose… fate was left in your hands.
He watches as you turn the artifact over to him. He’s trembling as he holds the crown, finally feeling the immense magic coursing through him. He closes his eyes and claims it for himself- finally. When he reopens he is faced with Mystra who is less than pleased. He won’t relent, no, this is what he wanted. She placed a bomb in his chest just to ensure nobody could claim this power. How ironic that he ended up being Karsus’s successor? After winning a mental duel she curses him and banishes him from her realm. Why should he care, though? Mystra was nearly useless to him. He was a god now. When he returns to your realm, his skin glows ever so slightly and his brown eyes are much brighter. You can see his changed form and sense the change of his mind. He takes one of your hands in his- his skin electrifying to the touch. It sends a shiver down your spine. Gale draws the back of your hand to his lips and presses a tender kiss. “Thank you,” he hums, “for bestowing this privilege onto me. I won’t let it be for nothing. Join me, my love. I can give you anything and everything you’d ever want.” Quite frankly, how could you turn down a god?
Gale was different from that day on. He was still tender and caring. So doting for your every need. Yet, he seemed to view you much differently. You were a mortal- so weak in comparison to him. His lips would trail your skin as if you were porcelain and he so despised not having you by his side. What if something happened to his beloved lover? Oh, and don’t you dare imply that he’s changed. His usual gentle and… a little overprotective or possessive nature will morph. He’ll become colder and stare at you. How has he changed, his beauty? What do you mean he doesn’t treat you the same? Isn’t this better? In the lap of power and in the hands of a god?
Careful what you say and do. He would hate having to punish you. Stripping you of your magic abilities or casting a spell to dumb-ify you. That, or how about being trapped in his personal quarters for a couple days? With no-one but himself to keep you company? Oh, don’t worry. Those are only if you disrespect his new placement. He knows it’s a lot to adjust to, he’s still adjusting himself. This is a journey you’ll take on together, hand in hand, just like how you started. He’ll do nearly anything for you, only ask. Just promise to never leave his side, okay? He couldn’t bare to let you go.
And if you did leave… it won’t be for long. He will find you and he’ll ensure that you recognize the mistake. You can’t escape your god, love.
#my asks#anon asks#my writing#baldurs gate 3#bg3#baldurs gate iii#baldurs gate 3 x reader#baldur’s gate 3#bg3 x reader#baldur’s gate 3 x reader#bg3 gale#gale dekarios#gale of waterdeep#gale x reader#gale dekarios x reader#gale x tav#gale dekarios x tav
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Hi! Hope I’m not too late, could I request a Derek Hale x reader where she (already knowing ab the supernatural) gets tired of Derek constantly disappearing from her life whenever he does that Derek thing until finally she’s fed up with it being the one to disappear this time idk how to end it or go from there but I was thinking of an angsty hurt/comfort with a happy ending🥺! Hope it’s enough, thank you!!
'the one who leaves ' - derek hale
masterlist
The hardest part of both being a werewolf and knowing a werewolf is, and will always be, the horrors. The attacks that never cease, the blood always shed. The second hardest part is the strain of being with someone whose life is always in jeopardy purely because of who they are. Although it doesn’t feel nearly as important as the constant threat of hunters, or the latest monster to decide that Beacon Hills should be its new domain, sometimes you swear the second part hangs even more heavily about your heart than the first. Then again, maybe that’s just because of Derek Hale.
Derek is one of the most complicated players on the supernatural chess board. You met him what feels like a lifetime ago, when one of seemingly dozens of supernatural attacks had threatened the lives of Beacon Hills citizens. Derek had saved your life. A month later, you’d saved him from some hunters. The back-and-forth of life saving went on and on until the two of you decided you were better as friends than people a little too important to each other to be acquaintances, and then the boundaries were shifted again when you started dating.
Sometimes, though, on rough nights after long fights and darker ones when you haven’t seen Derek in weeks and he doesn’t seem all that inclined to answer your texts or voicemails, you start to think that entering into a relationship with you is one of Derek’s biggest regrets. It’s not that he doesn’t care for you; Derek has assured you many times over that his feelings for you are stronger even than his loyalties to his pack, his commitment to killing the hunters responsible for the Hale House fire, yet the problem remains.
Derek is all too familiar with the struggle of having a weakness. When his ancestral home burned down with most of his family trapped inside, he learned for the first time that sometimes a mortal blow capable of destroying his life doesn’t have to threaten him specifically. When he loves someone so much that he prioritizes their safety above his own, Derek creates a weakness that hunters and other supernaturals can exploit. He would never forgive himself if you were hurt as a tool to get to him, so Derek has been doing his best to limit the fallout of any supernatural fight onto you.
However, this only seems to drive the two of you apart. Yes, by not being seen in public as often anymore, Derek lowers the possibility that a hunter would try to kidnap you as a hostage, but it also means that you see him less and less frequently. When you do finally manage to meet up, after thoroughly checking to make sure you haven’t been tailed, and only after dark in one of your houses, you’re both exhausted, wrung dry of the same life and spirit that had brought the two of you together in the first place.
It’s not the same anymore. You hate to admit it, but it’s true. Loving Derek is no longer the beautiful victory it had always been. Instead, you feel as if you’ve lost the war. Derek isn’t yours anymore. If he was, you wouldn’t have to hide what the two of you share, you wouldn’t have to constantly stare at the long list of missed calls on your phone and wonder when he’ll ever pick up, if he even wants to anymore. Derek is doing a great job at keeping you safe, but somewhere along the line, the two of you got your priorities mixed up. Now you’re alone and he’s alive, and you don’t know that you’re any happier about it than you would have been if one of you were lost to the hunters.
At this point, why try? Why even bother with the pretense of maintaining the ruse? The two of you might as well not even be together at all. It doesn’t feel like you are, certainly, when you go so long in between visits. Even when the two of you are finally face to face, Derek is harried and brief, hardly staying longer than a few hours before rushing off again, never to be seen for another few months.
It wears away at you like a river at a stone. Your sharp edges, the ones that pierced through his shell so easily at the beginning of it all, have been smoothed to nothingness. Each of your attempts to break through to Derek and coax him into staying even a little longer are brushed off with simple excuses. It’s like you don’t even exist to him anymore.
Fine. Fine. If you’re not a person to him anymore, he will not be a person to you. You pack up your things and leave Beacon Hills early one morning, only telling Scott McCall and Deaton over at the vet so they can contact you if need be. You don’t say a word about your absence to Derek. Why bother? He’s not even in town, hasn’t been for months. When he comes back– if he attempts to come back at all– he can ask one of his friends and hear the same answer that he would from you right now. There’s no point in wasting either of your time any longer.
You’re still engaged in fighting the good fight against the supernatural. Deaton is a longtime friend of yours, and he’d been hearing rumors of a peculiarity a couple of states over. He couldn’t afford to leave Beacon Hills for an extended period of time, being so important to the town as one of its last defenders, so you offered to go instead. It would be good for you, you said. The trip. Being able to clear your head.
Odds are, Deaton had been able to see through that excuse as he has many of your others all throughout your life, but he had just nodded and said that he was grateful for your help. With that, you left town. You’ve been in Beacon Hills for your entire life, excluding brief excursions in the name of school or work or family trips. Never before have you left like this, not entirely sure if you would ever come back, uncertain that the person you love most of all would be there to want you to return.
At first, the trip feels like a terror. Then you roll down the windows and let the early morning light touch your face with soft, bright fingers; then the breeze cools your face, running over your skin in loose circles; then you start to breathe at last, for the first time in what feels like years. Then you remember that you are still a person worth saving, and maybe even if Derek Hale cannot do that, you can save yourself by leaving.
The miles pass by in moments. You’re long gone by the time anyone starts waking up. Scott knew that you were leaving and told the other teenagers in his pack so they wouldn’t freak out, but he still texts you anyway. Hope you find what you’re looking for.
So do I, you message him back at a red light. Stay safe.
Thanks, he responds, then no more.
You end up in the state of your choice by the middle of the afternoon, booking a room at a hotel so you can have a home base while properly surveying the area. You don’t have a supernatural’s knack for telling when something is wrong, but the hairs on the back of your neck prickle anyway, letting you know that the currents of the wind around this city have a magical edge, a certain element that sets them aside from a normal town. Good. You could use something fantastical and uncommon.
You don’t know when you expect to hear back from Derek. Never, maybe. You had assumed that he wouldn’t try to reach out to you until he got back, which might be anywhere from a few months from now to never. Once he returned to Beacon Hills, Derek could hear from Scott as to why you weren’t there anymore. You and Derek hardly spoke at all anymore, except out of an obligation to make sure you were still alive. He probably wouldn’t care at all.
Yet not a week has gone by before you start getting frantic texts from Derek.
Y/N. You in town?
Why is your house empty?
Scott tells me you left town. Why didn’t you tell me?
Y/N. Please text back. I’m getting worried.
Three missed calls.
Please pick up, sweetheart. I’ll drive over there myself if I have to. Just tell me you’re alive.
You stare at the notifications for a long time, reveling in how they build in intensity, then tap out a message of your own at last: I’m alive and well.
Derek immediately responds. And you didn’t tell me you were going?
The bright glow of your phone dulls your senses. Nothing feels right, but nothing feels wrong anymore. Loving Derek used to make you feel invincible. Now, you’re just tired, and wishing this exchange would end.
Didn’t think I would have to. You’ve been away for months, and you never tell me when you’re going. Why should I?
Derek doesn’t like that at all. It’s different with me, sweetheart. You know that.
You don’t bother to grace that with a response. Setting your phone on ‘do not disturb,’ you shove the device back in your pocket. It’s good that Derek is unhappy with this turn of events, you decide. For once, he should be the one panicking when he wakes up alone, when he wants to be with the person he loves only for them to disappear without a trace. Why should it be you all the time?
You carry on with your task. As it turns out, the case at hand, the utter unraveling of the supernatural presence in this town, is due to an overactive ancient curse on the town. Deaton talks you through how to shut it down, and once the job is done, you return home, proud of yourself and your accomplishments.
You’re fully expecting Derek to have left town again by the time you got back. He’s been messaging you non stop, but you’ve been leaving most of those messages on ‘unread’ since they all say pretty much the same things: why wouldn’t you tell me you were going, are you alright, come back ASAP. You message back occasionally to assure him that you’re still alive, but mainly, you think a bit of silence would do the both of you some good.
After arriving back at Beacon Hills, you stop by your house to drop off your belongings before visiting Deaton to debrief. He’s glad to hear of your success, but once both of you have ensured that the town was handled accordingly, he breaks protocol to talk about your personal life instead.
“I think you should talk to Derek Hale,” he says uneasily.
You frown at him. “What?”
Deaton glances around to make sure no customers can overhear you, then continues on. “He’s been a wreck ever since you left. He keeps stopping by the shop to demand information from me. He insisted for a long time that I give him the name of the town you were visiting so he could check on you himself, but I kept it from him because I thought you would need to focus.”
“That was the right call,” you assure him. It would, after all, have been more difficult to juggle both an errant curse and a supremely ticked off boyfriend.
Deaton chuckles good-naturedly. “That was what I had assumed. I would still recommend talking to him, though. These sorts of conflicts are best handled sooner rather than later.”
You nod your agreement, and, after talking a few minutes longer, head out towards Derek’s apartment complex. Although you’ve felt bitterly triumphant in the fact that Derek now knows what it’s like to miss somebody like you’ve been missing him, you fell in love with him for a reason, and that reason was that you liked being around him more than you did with anyone else. You still love him, even if the two of you have been on the fringe of an argument for a while now.
That’s what drives you to his building, what carries you up the interminably long elevator ride, what brings you to knock twice on his door and wait until a quiet voice from inside announces that the door is unlocked.
That’s the first sign that something is wrong. Derek never leaves the door unlocked. Some could call it an overwhelming concern for safety, or just plain paranoia, but Derek’s experienced enough tragedy in his life to go overboard in making sure that he keeps all potential avenues of risk firmly blocked off. The fact that the door is unlocked disquiets you more than you like to admit.
Slowly, carefully, you push the door open. Immediately, you’re struck by the gloomy atmosphere of the place. Derek pulled the curtains over the wide windows of his apartment, making the whole place darker and more lifeless than usual. The lights are off. You can assume that Derek can see thanks to his werewolf senses without needing the fluorescents, but for your human eyes, the whole place just seems as dark and grave as a crypt.
“Derek?” You call out hesitantly.
Silence. Then, a husky voice from the back. “Y/N? Is that you?”
You still can’t see him in the gloom, so you cross the apartment to open the blinds on the large windows, hoping to toss some light on the situation. You know the layout of the place from memory, so many visits here help to solidify your knowledge of each piece of furniture in the apartment. Still, you’re not expecting to see Derek crumpled in a chair on the corner, looking significantly the worse for wear.
You’re at his side in an instant. “Derek? Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” he says listlessly. “Not like you knew a thing about that, though, disappearing like that.”
Your concern for him starts to fade away, replaced instead by a burning irritation. “So that’s what all of this is about? You’re so hurt that I was the one to leave that you’ve become comatose?”
Derek sits up a little, eyes flashing. “You vanished without a trace and didn’t tell me where you went. I thought you were dead, Y/N. I had to pry information out of Deaton so I even knew you were alive, and when I tried to contact you, you ignored my messages. What the hell was I supposed to think?”
You laugh, although it’s not a happy sound. “Finally, you understand. This is what I deal with every time you leave town, Derek. You never tell me where you’re going or what you’re doing. I sat here in Beacon Hills for months, wondering if you’ll ever come back. I was gone for half the time you usually are and yet it’s far too much for you to handle. How do you think I feel?”
Derek’s lips flatten. “I– I didn’t realize you took it like that. I was just trying to keep you safe. You know how the hunters watch me, and–”
You cut him off, feeling the anger coiling through your stomach. “I know that, Derek. I know that every supernatural in your life that isn’t a part of your pack wants you dead. I know that in your head, this is how you keep me safe, by constantly cutting me out of your life, but has it occurred to you that this isn’t what I want? You could have asked me if this was the way to handle it. If you had even talked to me at all, I would have told you that I don’t care about being safe. Not if it means we’re like this. Not if it means I don’t get to have you at all.”
Derek stands up slowly, until he’s hovering just a few breaths away from you. One of his hands reaches up to cradle your cheek. “I never wanted to hurt you,” he whispers. “I’ve lost so many people in my life. I can’t lose you, too.”
“I know,” you murmur back. “But if you keep going on like this, if you keep pushing me away, you’ll lose me anyway.”
He flinches. “I should have asked you,” he admits. “I can’t erase the past, Y/N, but I can apologize for the present. Will you forgive me?”
“Only if you stay with me,” you answer him.
A ghost of a smile plays upon his lips. “I’ve never had a problem with that. It hurts like hell, leaving you. Always.”
“Then don’t do it anymore,” you urge him. “Stay with me, Derek. Keep me safe by staying with me.”
“I will,” Derek promises.
People in love make a lot of promises. Some are kept, some are broken. Some are forgotten about entirely. Looking at Derek in this half-darkness, though, you have a feeling that this one will be cherished for quite a long time indeed.
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