older brother bsf!rafe cameron x sweetheart!kook!reader
an: this is a mix of this & this but each willl develop (by age) but also with it's own events !! miss the time when i used to write 7k+ word fics need to bring it back 🥺
the first time you saw rafe, you was stunned that topper even had friends that looked like that. even at six years old, you could recognise handsome. rafe was only two years older than you, but still. every single time topper would have him over, there was not a single shameful bone in your body that would stare. he was gorgeous. at ten, rafe had already mastered the cameron look. slightly smouldering & puberty was oncoming, you could tell. you, at eight, was already admiring him from afar.
"stop staring." topper scowled at you when he had rafe over, who was cluelessy rummaging in the fridge for juice.
"i'm not." you hissed back, having to physically adjust yourself so you was looking at the TV instead. but you snagged a look at the back of rafe as you did.
rafe quickly grew into your family as the son they never had. your mother adored him: soon it became normal that whenever topper would talk about plans with friends, everyone understood rafe would be there. your father always gave rafe the potatoes during family dinner & actually talked to him, always going with topper and him to play some golf. and though your brother would never admit it to your face at age, already being best friends with rafe for two years, he loved him more than anyone.
and then there was you. you knew that for a very long time, rafe would only ever look at you as a younger sister, that you was foolish to see it as anything else. the first time you got reminded of this was when topper slapped your feet away & rafe scowled at him. "don't be mean."
"dude, the whole table's gonna be dirty because of her."
for a second, you thought rafe was going to profess his undying love for you like you had seen in countless movies. but what he said next made you want to bawl into a bubblering mess and die.
"she's only young."
that phrase alone confirmed everything you had ever feared. that rafe probably only saw you as a convenience & probably something to pity.
the second time was when you was twelve & he fourteen. by now, topper had been teasing you endlessley. as much as you hated your brother sometimes, he wasn't blind either. he wasn't blind to the way whenever rafe hugged you, you hugged him back a little too tight. or the way you sneaked glances at him whenever he was around, or the smile that was a bit too big whenever he gave food to you.
"hey." topper poked you with his foot as you both were laying on your bed after he tackled you. "did you hear about rafe?"
suddenley you was listening a little too keen. "what?"
"he's going out with some girl called sofia..." as soon as he said that, your entire face went blank. topper saw it as much as you felt it. he tried to make the situation seem softer than it was, but you understood it. oh, you understood it too well.
when rafe came over several hours later, he saw how red & puffy your eyes were to the point you could barely see. pulling topper aside on the excuse he needed something, rafe grabbed topper's shoulders, "top, why's your sister crying?"
"dude, i don't fucking know! maybe allergies or something."
"your sister doesn't have allergies. why do i know her better than you & i'm not even in the same family?"
"fine! it's because i told her you and sofia were going out."
rafe wasn't much of an aggressive person then, or in general, but the urge to punch topper in was so strong he ran a hand down his face, which left red marks. after silence, he asked quietly, "and she cried over that?"
"no, her eyes are just red for no reason." topper snarked back.
"don't get like that with me when it's your fault." rafe snapped. "jesus christ, top, what even was the point?"
rafe would never know, because your mother popped around the corner, making the pair jump, "are you two coming down for dinner?" she glared pointedly at topper. "your sister needs to use the bathroom. again."
rafe would always remember that night & how you didn't look at him once. didn't smile at him when he tried some jokes that he knew were shitty but that you normally still laughed at. didn't throw your arms around him when he persuaded topper (who was still being an asshole about it ) to let you watch your recommended movie that night. nothing, and he himself was trying so hard not to cry at your state that he got up halfway through the movie and just walked home.
a week later, topper told you that they had broken up. when you asked why, topper shrugged. "just cause. sofia's a pogue, anyways." but you noticed how rafe never spoke about girls anymore & always expressed disinterest whenever topper would bring up girls.
when they were at 16 & you fourteen, there was this one time when topper was trying to convince rafe to go out with some girl called ruthie.
"bro, i swear, she's really -"
"i don't care." you tried to ignore the flush up your cheeks when rafe glanced at you for a millisecond. "i'm not interested into dating anyone."
topper seemed to notice that glance & fell silent. he never mentioned any girl ever again.
the first time you went to a party was at fifteen. you weren't even supposed to be there. your whole family had gone on a trip that you weren't "of age for" or whatever so you promised kiara that you'd go out with her.
except you actually got drunk, and not even slightly tipsy. just genuienely out of your mind drunk, to the point that when kie made john b call rafe to pick you up, you didn't even notice it was him as you slammed straight into him.
"ow! do you watch where you're going?" you slurred, holding onto strong arms that were already wrapping around you.
"you let her get this drunk?" rafe practically growled at john b.
"kie left her alone for two minutes, in my defence." he protested weakly.
"whatever." rafe muttered, before hoisting you up. "hey. what's your name?" you only muttered the two letters before saying some random shit. rafe sighed at how wasted you was. "topper's gonna kill me."
it didn't stop him for calling a cab & stopping near the shop near your house to buy you some water. he had you piggybacked on him the entire walk as he entered the store and you winced at the flourescent lights from the shop.
"burns." you grumbled with your vodka breath.
"your throat or your eyes?" rafe said immediately, turning straight to look at you.
"both."
rafe cursed under his breath before slamming down a water bottle infront of the machine and swatting his card before propping you down on the sidewalk, kneeling infront of you. "here, drink."
you rested your head in your hands. "no."
"you want me to call topper?"
"no."
"then drink." rafe undid the bottle cap for you, watching you quietly as you missed several times to get it to your mouth. he squatted forward and helped you drink, tilting your head back softly.
later, when you would ask, they would tell you that john b & pope took you home. but what everyone else wouldn't know, including yourself, is that rafe took you home, using the spare key that your mother gave him. no one would know that he set you in your bed and stayed up all night to make sure you wouldn't vomit in your sleep. thank god you didn't, he wouldn't know what to do if he did.
that same year is when rafe fell in love with you instead of just crushing on you. you didn't know that then, still under the assumption he only viewed you platonically, as his "baby sister" as topper always liked to taunt.
that valentines day, everyone in your family but you got flowers for valentines. your parents were celebrating, rafe came over with sarah who topper had gotten flowers for, & you tried to make it not a big deal that you hadn't. who cared anyways? you kept trying to convince yourself. you're fifteen, there's plenty of time.
rafe caught your eye over the family lunch, & the next day he turned up with a bouqet of flowers. lillies, your favourite, which you had said ages ago when you were eleven on a game on what your dream person was. (both you & rafe had been listening intently to each other the whole time.)
as you took the flowers, you hugged rafe so tightly he couldn't breathe. & when he hugged you back tightly too, to which your father coughed a bit too much when it lasted too long, you realised even if you waited forever, unrequited, you would always love him.
because of that promise, you didn't date anyone. didn't matter when you began to grow out of your years of being a teenager, didn't matter how many boys asked you out (to which rafe would always tense when you bought it up in passing). you wanted rafe. and every year, when he would give you your lillies on valentines day, it would only further deepen your love more.
sometimes you would bring home boys out of spite. however it was like your whole family just knew. your father would shake hands politely but watch tv after a few hours, & your mother always found them boring. topper only found it hilarious, which was a polar opposite to rafe, who did not.
"is she dating that guy?" rafe asked topper one time you had a boy called chandler over who didn't even say much to your parents. you were sitting by him on the couch, but it didn't seem like you two were interacting much.
"not yet, why?"
"not yet?" rafe repeated. "he looks way too older for her."
"you're nineteen."
"so? i wouldn't hurt her."
topper raised his eyebrows, "trust me bro, we know."
it was kinda subconscious, the way rafe pressed chandler the following day. you was passing by to get some juice when you heard the whole interrogation.
"what's her middle name?" rafe didn't even give chandler a chance. "favourite color? favourite tv series? flavor? does she —"
"jesus, i don't fucking know. do you wanna date her?" chandler scowled. "leave me alone, man, i only met her like two days ago."
since then, at parties, at bonfires, you noticed every single time when you would be talking to a guy — kook or pogue — rafe would be watching. & not even possessively, like he wanted to grab you away, but softly like he was just wistful.
"bro you're staring." kelce said one night.
rafe dropped his eyes. "i'm not."
"you like her, don't you?"
"shut up, man. i'm not —"
"topper wouldn't get mad."
"yeah." rafe said, getting up and wiping the back of his mouth. "that's the problem."
later that night, while rafe was driving you home once again with topper in the backseat & your sound asleep in the passenger, topper asked, "you like her, don't you, cameron?"
rafe knew a conversation like this was inevitable. his fingers clenched on the wheel. "kelce told you?"
"i'm not blind. it's been eight years."
"i didn't want you to —"
"i'm not mad. i just don't want you to keep stringing her along, you know?"
"stringing her along?"
"are you in love with her?"
"topper —"
"are you in love with her?"
rafe sighed, exchanging a look at you. "yes."
"then tell her. i'm sick of watching the two people i love just being blind."
"fine. when the time's right."
the silence descended over the car, but they both didn't know that you was awake the entire time.
summary : when you're taken by an unsub who holds a peculiar grudge against your father, seven minutes make a hell of a difference between life and death.
warnings : angst with maybe -45% comfort ( THIS MEANS NEGATIVE 45 NOT AROUND 45 PLS USE UR BRAINS I CANNOT KEEP EXPLAINING IT) kidnapping, torture, mentions of harm being done to other people, completely made up plot btw so no spoilers for the actual show, spencer losing his shit, established relationship
word count : 9.5 k
a/n : as usual, not proofread ! probably about season 10-11!reid as in looks reference but the plotline is all over the place so uhm sorry abt that i was legit js pulling shit from my criminal minds memory bank and shoved them all together... so yeah defo not season-wise accuracy. (the crash is based on s13 so lil spoilers on that... and i also looked up every technical term i could think of to make spencer sound accurate so uh) enjoy !
Spencer's hands are careful as he fastens your bulletproof vest over your chest, his brows furrowed. The fluorescent lights of the bullpen wash him pale, catching the faint shadows under his eyes from too many nights spent buried in files.
“You tightened it too much,” you mumble, wincing as he tugs the straps.
“It’s supposed to be tight,” he says automatically, not looking up.
“Pretty sure breathing is also supposed to happen.” That finally earns you a glance. Not amused. Just worried.
“You joke when you’re nervous.”
“And you lecture when you are.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. My lungs would like to file a formal complaint.” His mouth twitches despite himself, but it disappears almost immediately. Spencer smooths his hand over the front of the vest one last time, checking for gaps like he doesn’t trust the fabric to do its job properly. You study him for a second.
“You know,” you say quietly, “most people just say ‘be careful.’”
“I did say that.”
“Three times.”
“Because you ignored me the first two.” A snort escapes you, but it fades when you notice the way his fingers linger near your ribs. Restless. Anxious.The case had gotten ugly fast.Three victims in four days. All connected to the Bureau in some way. Retired agents. Informants. One federal prosecutor. And now the unsub had escalated from taunting the BAU to targeting your father directly. Aaron Hotchner had made enemies before. Plenty of them. But this one felt different.
Personal.
The unsub had been sending photographs for weeks now. Grainy shots of Hotch entering Quantico. Jack at soccer practice. You grabbing coffee outside the bullpen with Spencer. Watching. Waiting. The latest message had arrived that morning.
Tick tock, Hotchner.
And underneath it:
What hurts worse? Losing your team… or your daughter?
Hotch had gone frighteningly still when Garcia read it aloud. You’d watched the muscle in his jaw tick once before he started assigning teams like the world wasn’t tilting beneath his feet. Now the bullpen buzzes around you—agents moving quickly, radios crackling, Emily and JJ arguing quietly over routes—but Spencer still hasn’t stepped back.
“Spence,” you say softly. His eyes flick to yours immediately. “I’ll be okay.” The problem is he doesn’t answer. Because Spencer Reid has seen too many people promise that before bleeding out anyway. Behind you, your father emerges from his office already shrugging into his jacket.
“We hit the road in two,” Hotch says. The entire room shifts instantly into motion. Spencer finally lets go of your vest, though reluctantly, like peeling his hands away from something important.
“You stay with Luke,” he says firmly. “Don’t split up. Don’t go anywhere alone." You blink at him.
“Wow. You and my dad should start a podcast.”
“I’m serious.”
“You’re always serious.”
“That’s statistically inaccurate.” That almost gets a real smile out of you.Almost. Then Hotch’s voice cuts through the bullpen again.
“Let’s move.” You reach up and pull Spencer down towards you, catching his lips in a quick kiss as your dad, Luke, Walker and Emily all walk towards the black SUV's waiting for you downstairs.
The kiss barely lasts two seconds.
Still, Spencer chases it for half a heartbeat when you pull away, his hand catching briefly at your wrist like he’s fighting the urge to keep you there.
“Be careful,” he says quietly. You soften a little at the look on his face.
“Spence, we’re literally just surveilling a warehouse.”
“That statement significantly increases the statistical likelihood something catastrophic is about to happen.” Luke snorts from beside the elevators.
“He’s got a point.” You roll your eyes, backing toward the bullpen doors.
“You’re all dramatic.” Hotch appears behind you, expression unreadable but tired in the way only your father can manage.
“Move.”And just like that, the moment’s over. Everyone scatters into motion.
The unsub’s name is Daniel Kessler.
Former paramedic. Former military. Smart enough to stay ahead of the BAU for six weeks and angry enough to make mistakes.
More specifically: angry at Aaron Hotchner.
Three years ago, Hotch testified in a corruption case involving Kessler’s brother. The brother went to prison. Died there eleven months later.
Kessler blamed Hotch.
And now bodies were piling up across Virginia with surgical precision and handwritten messages left behind at each scene.
The latest lead had come fast—a possible location tied to one of Kessler’s shell companies just outside Quantico. Which was why the team was mobilizing so quickly. Three SUVs. Hotch and Rossi in the first. JJ and Tara in the second. You, Luke, Emily, and Walker in the third. Spencer stayed behind with Garcia to monitor incoming intel. He looked miserable about it.
At first, the drive is almost painfully normal. Walker’s driving. Emily sits shotgun flipping through case notes while Luke scrolls through updates on his phone beside you in the backseat. Rain taps softly against the windows. The highway stretches dark and endless ahead of you. Your phone buzzes.
SPENCE
You forgot your scarf.
You smile despite yourself.
YOU
Tragic. I’ll hold a funeral later.
Three dots appear immediately.
Then:
SPENCE
Funny people are statistically more likely to survive traumatic situations.
You bark out a laugh. Luke glances over.
“Pretty Boy?”
“Unfortunately.” Emily sighs dramatically from the front seat.
“You two are disgusting.”
“You say that like you haven’t watched them stare at each other for ten straight minutes in briefing rooms,” Walker says.
“I have,” Emily replies. “That’s why I said it. I've also watched them pine for each other for years. This sudden shift in dynamics is weird. I honestly liked it better when Reid was all stuttery and shy around her."
"We didn't pine." You grumble, shifting in your seat. Four separate looks immediately get directed at you. Luke actually lowers his phone.
“Be serious.”
“He wrote you a six-page apology because he accidentally snapped at you once,” Emily says to absolutely no one’s surprise.
Walker snorts from the driver’s seat.
“Reid used to look like he was being held hostage every time she touched him.”
“He still does sometimes,” Luke says.
“Okay, wow,” you mutter. Emily twists slightly in her seat to look back at you.
“Sweetheart, he once walked into the glass conference room wall because you smiled at him.”
“That happened one time.”
“Twice,” Luke corrects. Walker laughs.
“Nah, my favorite was the coffee thing.” You narrow your eyes.
“What coffee thing?”
“You brought him coffee every morning for like eight months,” Walker says.
“Because he forgets to eat when he’s working.”
“And Reid started memorizing your coffee order after day two,” Emily adds smugly. Luke points between all of you.
“See, this is why none of us were shocked when they finally got together.”
“You were all shocked,” you argue.
“We were shocked it took this long,” Emily corrects. Emily cackles. “You're dating a textbook.”
“A very pretty textbook,” you mumble before thinking better of it. Unfortunately the entire car hears you. Walker makes a wounded sound.
“Oh, that’s disgusting.” Emily clutches her chest dramatically.
“No, let her continue. This is healing me.” You flip her off from the backseat. Rain continues tapping softly against the windshield as the SUV speeds down the dark stretch of highway. The radio crackles quietly every few seconds with updates from the other cars. Somewhere ahead, Hotch and Rossi are already discussing entry routes. JJ’s voice cuts in briefly over comms before fading back out. For a moment, everything feels strangely normal.
Easy.
Luke elbows you lightly.
“You know Reid almost called Hotch Sr when he asked permission to ask you out.” Your head whips toward him.
“What?” Emily bursts into delighted laughter.
“He did.” Walker nearly misses the curve in the road because he’s laughing too hard now.
“No he did not.”
“Oh, he absolutely did,” Emily says. “Hotch just stared at him for like ten full seconds while Reid visibly aged.” Luke deepens his voice badly in imitation. “‘Agent Hotchner, respectfully, I was wondering if—’”
“Stop talking,” you groan.
“—if your daughter would potentially—’”
“You’re all dead to me.” Emily wipes tears from under her eyes.
“Your father looked so uncomfortable.” Walker grins into the rearview mirror.
“Honestly brave of Reid. I’d rather fistfight a bear than ask Hotch for dating permission.”
“He didn’t ask permission,” you defend automatically. Luke raises an eyebrow.
“He absolutely did.” Luke laughs. And for one perfect, stupid second, everything feels fine.
Then you see it. Up ahead. Small. Sharp. Metal glinting beneath the headlights. Your stomach drops instantly.
“Walker—” Too late. The SUV hits the spike strips hard. The sound is explosive. All four tires blow at once.
"Shit !" Walker jerks the wheel violently as the vehicle fishtails across the slick highway. Emily shouts something.
"Everybody hold on !" Luke grabs for the handle above the door. Your seatbelt locks brutally across your chest as the world spins sideways.
Then— Headlights. Blinding. A truck horn screaming— And impact. Metal shrieks. Glass detonates. Your body whips sideways so hard your vision whites out completely. Something slams into your ribs.
When you wake up, you can’t breathe. Pain hits first. Not sharp. Everywhere. Burning agony flooding through every inch of your body like someone poured gasoline into your veins. A broken sound leaves your throat. Smoke curls through the crushed SUV. Your head lolls sideways. Everything looks wrong. The windshield is gone. The dashboard is crumpled inward. Blood streaks the windows. Your seatbelt digs painfully into your chest. For a second you can’t understand why your left arm won’t move properly. Then feeling rushes back all at once and you nearly black out again.
“Fuck—” Your voice comes out shredded. You force your head up. Emily’s slumped against the passenger door, unmoving, blood running down the side of her face. Luke’s crumpled awkwardly beside you.
Walker— Walker’s head hangs at an angle that makes your stomach twist violently. Too still. Far too still.
“Walker,” you croak. No response. You try again, panic climbing your throat. You reach forward, wincing at the pull of your seat belt, shaking him. “Walker!” His entire body slumps forward, head landing on the steering wheel with a deafening thud. You bite back the bile threatening to spew out of you, your vision tunneling as you jerk back. Your chest caves inward.
Oh God. Smoke thickens around you. The car groans. Somewhere outside, people are shouting. You fumble clumsily for the seatbelt release with trembling fingers. It finally clicks. The second it unlatches, your body pitches forward violently and agony tears through your side hard enough to make you scream. Something’s wrong. Something is very, very wrong. You look down. Blood. So much blood. A jagged piece of metal protrudes from beneath your ribs. Your vision flickers.
“No no no—” The driver-side door suddenly jerks open. Cold rain floods in. A man appears beside the wreckage wearing EMT gear. Reflective jacket. Medical gloves. Calm eyes. Relief crashes through you so hard you almost cry.
“Ma'am,” he says firmly. “Stay still.” You nod weakly.
“My-My friends - Please you have to-” Your eyes dart around, trying to catch a glimpse of the other cars. You can see smoke and fire from somewhere behind you, and panic claws up your throat. "Oh, god- my-my dad is in- please, you have to-"
“We’ll get them,” he says quickly. “I need to move you first.” Your brain feels slow. Foggy. He cuts through your vest with terrifying efficiency. Strong hands slide beneath your arms. Pain explodes through your abdomen as he pulls you free from the wreckage. You scream.
“I know,” he says soothingly. “I know. I got you.” Rain pours down around you. Lights flash red and blue across the highway. Your head lolls weakly against his shoulder as he carries you toward the ambulance. You can barely keep your eyes open. Your body feels heavy.
Wrong.
“Dad,” you mumble. “Need my dad—”
“We already got the two other cars evacuated. We have extra RA's en route to escort your friends to the hospital. Your father is waiting for you there.” the EMT says. You nod, rain soaking your clothes. He loads you onto the stretcher. The ambulance doors stand open behind you.
Then— Movement. Across the wreckage. Another SUV. Crushed against the guardrail. And stumbling out of it— Hotch.
Your father can barely stand. Blood runs down the side of his face. One arm hangs limp. But the second his eyes land on you— Pure horror floods his expression.
“Sweetheart !” Your breath catches.
What ?
Your breath catches. The EMT had said Hotch was already at the hospital. Your stomach drops so violently it almost makes you vomit.
No.
No, no—
Hotch stumbles forward through the rain, slipping against the soaked pavement as he tries to run toward the ambulance. Rossi is behind him shouting for medics, for backup, for somebody to stop the vehicle, but your father’s eyes are locked entirely on you. On the man beside you. And suddenly you understand. The EMT’s hand tightens on the stretcher rail.
“Wait,” you whisper. Hotch sees your expression change.
“No!” he roars. The ambulance doors slam shut. The sound nearly knocks the air out of your lungs. Panic detonates through your body. You jerk upright instantly despite the agony ripping through your abdomen.
“Stop the fucking ambulance!” you scream, scrambling backward across the stretcher. Pain tears through your ribs so hard your vision whites out, but adrenaline keeps you moving. “Stop—” The EMT grabs for you. You swing first. Your fist cracks against his jaw hard enough to snap his head sideways. For one glorious second, he actually looks surprised.
“Bitch,” he mutters. You lunge for the door handles. Your blood-slick fingers almost catch them before he hauls you backward violently. Agony explodes through your side and a scream rips out of your throat. Outside the tiny rear windows, you can still see your father. Hotch is running after the ambulance. Actually running. Broken. Bleeding. Desperate.
“Dad!” you sob, slamming your palm against the doors. “Dad!” The ambulance swerves sharply.
The EMT hooks an arm around your waist and drags you back against him with brutal force. You fight instantly, elbows flying despite the pain.
“Get the fuck off me!” you choke out.
“Jesus Christ,” the man snarls, struggling to keep hold of you. “You really are his kid.” Something cold presses suddenly against your neck. A syringe. Your blood runs cold.
“No—” The needle plunges into your skin. You gasp sharply and shove at him harder, but your limbs already feel wrong. Heavy. Slow. “No no no—” The man restrains you easily now, forcing you back onto the stretcher as the sedative floods your bloodstream. Your vision starts swimming almost immediately. Outside, through the blurred back windows, you see Hotch reach the ambulance for half a second— His hand slams against the rear doors as he screams your name.
“No !” The sound breaks something inside you. Then the ambulance surges forward. And your father disappears into rain and flashing lights. Your body stops cooperating.
Your arms feel numb.
Your heartbeat echoes strangely in your ears.
The EMT pulls off his mask calmly while you struggle weakly beneath him.
Not an EMT.
Kessler.
You recognize him now. The eyes. Cold. Empty. Patient.
“You should’ve stayed still,” he says, almost disappointed. Your mouth won’t work properly anymore.
“You…” you slur weakly. Kessler sighs, pushing you flat against the stretcher as your body goes limp beneath his hands.
“Relax,” he murmurs. “You’re bleeding internally. This is keeping you alive.” You try to fight him again anyway. Your hand barely lifts. Kessler watches you with detached fascination.
"Let's see if Aaron Hotchner's precious daughter is more important than putting me behind bars." He grabs another needle and grabs you arm.
You try to fight back- God, you try.
But your body feels like it's been filled with concrete, like your veins are hardening with every passing second, weighing you down.
Kessler grins.
"Sweet dreams."
-----------------
"Aaron- Aaron, listen to me-" Rossi is waving his arms in front of Hotch as real sirens flood the space. Emily crawls out of the car, coughing and bleeding from her temple, her hand pressed to her side as she limps her way over to Luke's side of the car and tugs him out. JJ stumbles from another wreckage, waving her hand in front of her face as she coughs, a large gash running down the side of her arm. Tara doesn't look badly hurt, just concussed as she stumbles down the stretch of highway, her hand pressed to her head in confusion as Derek helps her forward.
And Aaron Hotchner can't fucking breathe.
"N-No, we- we have to go after her." He rasps, shaking his head. "The ambulance didn't have a license plate but-but it was him. It was him, Dave." Rossi grabs Hotch hard by the shoulders.
“Aaron!” Hotch’s chest heaves violently. Rain pours down his face, mixing with blood from the cut at his hairline. His eyes are locked on the empty stretch of highway where the ambulance disappeared into the storm.
“The ambulance didn’t have plates,” he says again, voice shredded raw. “It was him. Dave, it was fucking him.” Behind them, chaos erupts across the crash site. Actual EMTs flood the highway now, shouting over each other as they move between the wrecked SUVs. Red and blue lights flash violently across twisted metal and shattered glass. Somebody yells for extraction tools. Another medic shouts about fuel leakage. Walker’s body is finally pulled from the front seat. Emily sees the tarp being unfolded and stops dead.
“No,” she whispers. Luke catches her arm before she can stumble forward. JJ presses a trembling hand over her mouth, blood still running down her forearm. Tara stands dazed beside Derek, one hand against her temple as she tries to process the devastation around her. For one horrible moment, nobody speaks. Then the highway explodes back into noise.
“Aaron,” Rossi says again, more firmly this time. “Talk to me.” Hotch looks like he can barely breathe.
“She saw me,” he rasps. “She looked right at me.” His voice breaks on the last word. Dave’s stomach twists. Because Aaron Hotchner does not break. Not like this. “She realized it wasn’t real,” Hotch says, staring blankly down the road. “She started fighting him.” Emily looks up sharply.
“What?” Hotch drags a hand over his bloodied face.
“He was dressed like an EMT.” His breathing turns uneven. “I thought she was being transported until I saw—” He cuts himself off hard. Too late. Rossi catches it immediately.
“What did you see?” Aaron closes his eyes for one second too long. When he opens them again, there’s something almost haunted sitting behind them.
“She was hurt.” The team goes still.
“How bad?” JJ asks quietly. Hotch swallows.
“I don’t know.” Lie. Everybody hears it. Aaron’s jaw tightens violently. “There was blood,” he says carefully, like each word physically hurts. “A lot of blood.” Emily’s face drains of color. Luke curses under his breath.
“She couldn’t move properly,” Hotch continues hollowly. “He had to carry her." Nobody says anything after that. Because they all know what that means. Then headlights tear onto the highway. A black SUV brakes hard across the shoulder. Spencer is out of the vehicle before it fully stops moving. Garcia barely gets the car in park before he’s sprinting after him.
“Hotch!” Spencer shouts, panic already threading through his voice as he takes in the wreckage. “What happened?” Garcia steps out behind him—and freezes completely.
“Oh my God.” The highway looks apocalyptic. Smoke. Rain. Crushed SUVs. Flashing lights reflecting off blood-slick pavement. Spencer eyes scan frantically across the scene.
JJ.
Emily.
Luke.
Tara.
Derek.
Rossi.
Hotch.
His stomach drops. Because you’re not there. Spencer’s breathing changes instantly.
“Where is she?” Nobody answers quickly enough. And terror detonates behind his ribs. “Where is she?” Emily looks away. Garcia starts crying immediately. Spencer stares at them.
“No.” Luke steps forward carefully.
“Reid—”
“No.” The word cracks out of him violently. “What happened?” Hotch finally steps toward him, rain dripping from his ruined suit.
“Kessler staged the crash,” he says hoarsely. “He took her.” Spencer just stares at him. Like the sentence physically does not make sense.
“Took her?” he repeats faintly.
“The ambulance was fake,” Rossi says grimly. “He disguised himself as an EMT.” Garcia lets out a broken sob behind them. Spencer’s face goes completely white.
“When?” he asks.
“Less than four minutes ago,” Luke says. “Local units are already searching—” Spencer looks immediately at Hotch. Not Rossi. Not Emily. Hotch. Because Hotch saw her last. And Aaron realizes Spencer already knows that too. Their eye contact lasts half a second. It’s enough. Spencer’s expression changes instantly.
“How bad was she hurt?” Hotch doesn’t answer quickly enough. Spencer takes a step forward. “How bad?” Aaron looks wrecked. Actually wrecked.
“She was conscious,” he says carefully.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Aaron,” Rossi warns quietly. But Spencer doesn’t look away from Hotch. Hotch exhales shakily through his nose.
“There was blood.” Spencer’s breathing stutters.
“How much?”
“I don’t know.” Another lie. Spencer hears that one too. And suddenly he looks furious. Terrified, grieving, furious. “She couldn’t move on her own,” Hotch admits quietly. “He carried her into the ambulance.” Garcia breaks down harder behind them and Derek crosses the space immediately to grab onto her. Spencer physically sways where he stands. For a second it looks like he might actually collapse. Then his face hardens into something sharp enough to cut glass.
“What direction?” Hotch blinks.
“Reid—”
“What direction did he go?”
“Eastbound,” Hotch answers carefully. Spencer immediately turns toward Garcia’s SUV. Hotch grabs his arm before he gets two steps. “You are not going alone.” Spencer jerks free instantly. His eyes are glassy with panic now.
“You let her get in that ambulance.” The words hit like a gunshot. Silence crashes down around the wreckage. Spencer looks horrified the second he says it. Because he knows exactly who he just said it to. A father who watched his daughter get kidnapped while injured and bleeding. Hotch recoils anyway. Not angry. Just devastated.
“I know,” he says quietly. That destroys Spencer more effectively than shouting ever could. His face crumples. Rain pours around all of you in endless sheets as sirens scream across the highway.
And somewhere out there— You’re alone with Kessler.
--------
When you come to, the first thing you feel is that the pain at your abdomen has lessened.
It’s still there.
Deep. Burning. Wrong.
But dulled somehow, like your body’s been wrapped in cotton. Your eyelids feel impossibly heavy as you force them open. Darkness swims above you for a second before dim industrial lights sharpen into focus overhead. Concrete ceiling. Rusted pipes. Water dripping somewhere nearby in slow, echoing intervals. Your wrists jerk instinctively.
Metal rattles. Cold panic slams into you. You're strapped upright to some kind of steel chair bolted into the floor. Thick restraints pin your wrists and chest in place. Your injured side throbs violently when you struggle, making black spots burst across your vision.
“Easy. I bandaged you up but you're still actively bleeding out.” The voice comes from somewhere ahead of you. Kessler steps into view calmly, sleeves rolled to his elbows like he’s in the middle of an ordinary workday instead of holding an FBI agent hostage. Your breathing quickens immediately.
“Fuck you,” you rasp. He actually smiles faintly.
“That’s usually the morphine talking." Morphine. That explains the floating feeling in your limbs. You look down quickly. Your vest is gone. Soaked bandages are wrapped tightly around your abdomen beneath a gray thermal shirt that definitely isn’t yours. There’s dried blood everywhere. Along your arms. Beneath your fingernails. Across the floor near the chair. Your stomach twists hard.
“How long—”
“Thirty-six minutes since the crash,” Kessler answers smoothly. Ice floods your bloodstream. The team. Your dad.
“Where are they?” you demand. Kessler ignores the question entirely. Instead, he walks toward a camera mounted on a tripod across the room. And your blood runs cold all over again. “No.” Kessler adjusts the lens casually. “No no no—”
“You know,” he says conversationally, “your father’s reputation in the Bureau is fascinating. Aaron Hotchner. Untouchable. Unshakeable. Men like him always think they understand sacrifice until it becomes personal.” Your restraints clatter violently as you fight them.
“You’re insane.”
“Probably.” He doesn’t even blink. Then he reaches beside the camera and wheels something large into frame. A timer. Digital.
Bright red numbers glaring through the darkness.
00:59:48
Your stomach drops.
“What is that?” Your voice cracks. Kessler finally looks at you directly.
“The amount of time your team has left.” He grabs your arm, sighing as he squeezes and IV bag and mounts it onto the stand beside you.
“Kessler—”
The dosage is regulated electronically.” He taps the pump beside the bag. “Small increments over time. Once the drip reaches completion…” He shrugs lightly. “Multi-organ failure. Cardiac arrest shortly after.”
Your mouth goes dry instantly.
“No.”
“The fascinating thing about poison,” he continues conversationally, “is how personal it feels. Bullets are loud. Explosions are chaotic. But poison?” He tilts his head. “Poison makes people wait.”
Your stomach twists hard enough to make you gag. You stare at him in horror. Then fury detonates through you.
“You’re a fucking coward.” Kessler hums softly.
“And yet your father still can’t catch me.” He presses a button. The camera light turns red.
LIVE.
—————————
The BAU bullpen is chaos. Medics move between injured agents while tech analysts flood every available screen searching traffic cams, road footage, satellite hits—anything. Nobody’s winning. Hotch stands in the center of it all like a ghost. Still covered in blood. Still soaking wet from the rain. Spencer sits at Garcia’s station beside her, fingers flying across the keyboard so fast they blur. His hands are shaking violently.
“Nothing,” Garcia whispers tearfully. “No ambulance hits, no hospital pings, no traffic cams—he scrubbed everything.” Emily presses gauze harder against the cut on her temple.
“He planned this for months.”
“No,” Spencer says instantly. Everyone looks at him. Spencer’s eyes stay locked on the screen. “Longer.” Before anyone can respond— Every monitor in the bullpen flickers. Static crackles. Garcia startles violently., fingers flying over her keyboard, trying to figure out how this is happening. Then your face appears onscreen.
Bruised. Bloodied. Restrained.
The room stops breathing.
“No,” Hotch says faintly. Your head lifts weakly toward the camera, disoriented and terrified and alive. Spencer goes white beside Garcia.
“No…” The digital timer flashes beside you.
00:58:03
“What the hell is that?” Luke breathes. Then Kessler steps into frame. And the entire room explodes into motion.
“Trace it now!” Emily shouts. Garcia is already typing frantically.
“I’m trying!” Kessler looks directly into the camera.
“Good evening, Behavioral Analysis Unit.” Kessler smiles like he’s hosting a lecture instead of a hostage broadcast. Garcia’s hands fly across the keyboard.
“I can’t get a lock—he’s bouncing the signal through multiple servers—oh my God, oh my God—”
“Penelope,” Emily snaps, though her own voice shakes. “Focus.”
“I am focused!” Onscreen, Kessler slowly circles your chair. The camera quality is grainy but clear enough to show the blood staining the bandages around your abdomen. Clear enough to show the IV line running into your arm. And the transparent liquid steadily dripping through the tube. Spencer goes completely still beside Garcia.
Not calm.
Worse.
The kind of stillness that means he’s trying very hard not to completely lose his mind. Your head hangs weakly forward before lifting slightly at the sound of Kessler speaking. Your eyes look unfocused. Drugged. Terrified. The bullpen falls silent. Even the analysts nearby stop moving. Because this isn’t just being streamed to the BAU.
This is public.
News stations are already picking it up. Social media feeds explode in real time across nearby monitors. Millions of people watching an FBI agent tied to a chair with a countdown beside her.
“Aaron Hotchner,” Kessler says smoothly, looking directly into the camera. “You know, I expected someone taller.” Hotch doesn’t react outwardly. But Rossi sees his fist tighten. Sees the blood dripping from where Aaron’s fingernails cut into his own palm.
“You built your career profiling monsters,” Kessler continues. “You taught agents how to think like predators. How to anticipate violence.” He tilts his head slightly toward you. “But you never considered what happens when someone decides to study you instead.” Your breathing trembles onscreen.
“Kessler—” you rasp weakly.
“Shh.” He adjusts the IV line almost tenderly. “You don’t need to talk right now.” Spencer physically flinches. Luke swears violently under his breath.
“The poison entering Agent Hotchner’s daughter’s bloodstream,” Kessler says calmly, “is administered incrementally through an automated pump system. By the time the timer reaches zero…” He smiles faintly. “Well. I imagine your Dr. Reid can explain organ failure better than I can.” All eyes snap toward Spencer automatically. Spencer’s face has gone corpse pale. But his voice still works. Barely.
“It depends on the toxin,” he says mechanically, eyes glued to the screen. “If it’s ricin-based or synthetic colchicine compounds, systemic collapse would begin gradually. Respiratory distress first. Then cardiovascular instability. Seizures. Multi-organ failure—”
“Spencer,” JJ says softly. He cuts himself off instantly. Onscreen, your eyes flutter shut for a second too long.
“Hey,” Kessler says sharply, gripping your jaw hard enough to force your head back up. “Stay awake. It's not fun for our viewers if you die right now." You whimper, trying to inch away from him. He chuckles, low and mean. A broken sound leaves your throat as your body jerks weakly against the restraints. Spencer’s breathing changes instantly.
“What just happened?” Emily demands. Spencer stares at the screen.
“The poison’s already active,” he says quietly. Garcia looks horrified.
“But there’s still fifty-seven minutes left—”
“The timer isn’t for symptom onset.” Spencer swallows hard. “It’s for fatal dosage completion.” Nobody speaks. Onscreen, Kessler steps back toward the camera.
“You have one hour,” he says conversationally. “Find me before the drip finishes…” He shrugs. “And maybe she lives. But I should warn you,” he continues. “Removing the IV incorrectly triggers the failsafe.” He taps the side of the electronic pump. “And if the line stops prematurely…” Another small shrug. “The dosage accelerates.” Garcia lets out a strangled noise.
“That’s impossible,” Luke snaps.
“No,” Spencer says faintly. Everyone looks at him again. Spencer’s eyes stay locked on the screen. “It’s not.” Hotch spins around, his chest heaving.
"Garcia, get me a list of Kessler's known adressesses, a list of his spending info- maybe he rented out a place- i want everything you have on him, now !"
Garcia is already moving before Hotch finishes the sentence.
“I’m on it, I’m on it - okay- okay - ” Her voice is high and strained, fingers slamming across the keyboard like she’s trying to outrun panic itself. Multiple windows open and collapse across her monitors. “Known addresses are mostly burned, he went dark after his brother's death but - there’s financial ghosting here, offshore shells, prepaid infrastructure - he’s not staying anywhere with a paper trail -he’s not staying anywhere period -”
“Focus,” Rossi says sharply, but even he sounds strained now. Emily is already leaning over her shoulder.
“What about municipal access points? Abandoned government facilities?” Luke shakes his head.
“We’re checking transit grids already. He’s not static - he’s moving through infrastructure, not occupying it.” Spencer doesn’t blink.
His eyes are locked on the screen. On you.
00:53:18.
Your head droops again, just slightly, and Spencer’s breath catches so hard it sounds like it hurts.
“Hey,” JJ says quietly, noticing him. “Reid, stay with us.” But he doesn’t answer. Because his brain is already somewhere else. Already rebuilding everything Kessler just showed them.
The IV pump. The feed latency. The lack of metadata. The stabilization pattern. Spencer swallows hard.
“He’s not in a building,” he says suddenly. Garcia looks up.
“What?” Spencer’s voice tightens.
“The signal stability - there’s too little fluctuation for a fixed structure. No HVAC interference, no power grid variance, no reflective bounce patterns consistent with concrete reinforcement -” Emily frowns.
“Then where is he?” Spencer doesn’t look away from the screen.
“Mobile containment unit,” he says. “Or a retrofitted transport shell. Something insulated enough to mask environmental noise.” Luke curses under his breath.
“Like a van.” Spencer shakes his head once.
“Bigger.” Silence. Hotch turns slowly.
“Bus?” Rossi suggests grimly. Spencer finally looks at them.
“No,” he says. “Something that can support medical-grade equipment, power draw for a stabilized livestream, and internal temperature control without drawing attention.” Garcia’s hands freeze mid-type.
“Ambulance.” Spencer nods once. But it doesn’t feel like relief. It feels worse. Because that still leaves too many possibilities. Too many jurisdictions. Too many vehicles. Too much ground to cover while the clock keeps bleeding out.
00:53:04.
Onscreen, Kessler steps back into frame briefly—just enough to adjust something near the IV stand. You flinch sharply. Harder this time. Hotch makes a sound low in his throat—barely audible, but it cuts through the room anyway. Spencer’s hands curl into fists at Garcia’s station.
“Garcia,” he says quickly, voice suddenly urgent. “Cross-reference registered medical transport units within a fifty-mile radius of the crash corridor. Anything that went off-route in the last hour.”
“I’m already - ” Her screen updates rapidly. “Got it, got it - Okay, there’s twelve possible matches - ”
“Twelve,” Luke repeats sharply.
“We don’t have time for twelve,” Emily snaps. Hotch steps forward again.
“Cut it to three,” he orders. “Now.” Garcia swallows hard.
“I can filter by signal - give me thirty seconds - ”
“Twenty,” Hotch says. Nobody argues. Because on the screen— You shift again. Barely conscious. Barely holding on. And Spencer Reid, who has spent his entire life turning chaos into patterns, suddenly looks like he’s staring directly into something he cannot solve fast enough.
Garcia’s screen updates again. Once. Twice. Then locks. Her breath catches so hard it hurts.
“I’ve got him,” she says. Nobody speaks. Hotch turns instantly.
“Where.” Garcia swallows.
“Abandoned agricultural zone outside Leesburg—old county service land. There’s a decommissioned livestock processing facility on the property. Signal’s cleanest there—he’s stationary.” Spencer is already there before she finishes the sentence.
“How far?” he asks immediately. Garcia glances at the route mapping.
“Forty-six minutes,” she says quietly. The number lands like a gunshot. Silence. Emily shakes her head once.
“We don’t have forty-six minutes.” Rossi is already moving toward the SUV.
“Then we don’t waste a second.” Hotch stares at the map like he can force the distance to shrink through sheer will. Spencer’s voice breaks through again, sharper now.
“How long—how long until completion?” Garcia’s fingers tremble over the timer feed.
“Fifty-three minutes,” she whispers.That finally shifts the math in the room. Because everyone understands it at the same time. Forty-six minutes to reach you.Fifty-three minutes until the drip completes.
Seven minutes.
That’s all they’ll have once they get there. Seven minutes to find you. Seven minutes to neutralize Kessler. Seven minutes to keep you alive. Hotch exhales once, slow and controlled—but his eyes are shattered.
“Let's move,” he says. The SUVs tear down the highway in formation, sirens splitting the night open. Inside Hotch’s vehicle, no one speaks anymore unless they have to. The countdown is on every screen.
Every phone. Every live feed Garcia refuses to close.
00:52:41.
Spencer stares at the map overlay like he can bend it into something faster. Luke grips the seat hard enough to go white-knuckled. Emily keeps her eyes forward, jaw tight, blood still drying at her temple. Rossi drives like a man refusing to accept physics as final. Hotch doesn’t move.
Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t look away from the road even once.
“Forty-six minutes,” Luke says quietly, almost to himself. Spencer’s voice is barely audible.
“That’s if nothing goes wrong.” Nobody responds to that. Because they all know what it means.
------------------
00:07:00.
Your body feels like lead.
Your veins are on fire.
Your mouth has gone dry, and you can barely breathe- every breath sounds like a rusty rattle of child's mobile. Your vision flickers in and out like a broken signal. Your body isn’t yours anymore. It’s heavy in the wrong places, light in others. Your fingers twitch weakly against the restraints, but there’s no strength left behind it.
The IV pump beeps steadily beside you. Too steady. Too calm. Like it doesn’t care that you’re dying.
You groan, trying hard to stay awake, to stay concsious.
They're coming for you. They have to be.
The room hums with fluorescent light and something worse underneath it—your heartbeat, irregular now, stumbling against the poison like it’s losing the argument. Kessler circles you slowly, hands behind his back like he’s inspecting something he built.
“Do you know what your father hates most?” he asks lightly. Your head lolls a fraction toward him. It takes effort just to keep your eyes open.
“People like you,” he continues. “Not weak. Not careless. Just… loved.” Your throat tightens. Spencer’s name tries to form in your mind and doesn’t quite make it. Kessler steps closer, studying your face like he’s waiting for something interesting to happen.
“You’re very difficult to break,” he says thoughtfully. “That’s what makes this worth watching.” The IV pump beeps again. Too steady. Too final.
Your fingers twitch weakly against the restraints. Kessler leans in just slightly.
“I wonder how long it takes,” he murmurs, almost curious. “For Aaron Hotchner to choose between duty and family.” Your stomach drops hard.
“Don’t,” you rasp, but it’s barely sound. He smiles faintly.
“Oh, he already has.” And then— The doors behind him explode inward. Not an opening. An impact.
Wood and metal snap as tactical force hits the room like a wave.
“FBI! DOWN!” The shout is immediate chaos. Hotch is first through, weapon up, eyes scanning—locking instantly on you like everything else in the room ceases to exist.
“Aaron!” Rossi calls, sweeping left. Emily and Luke split right. Derek comes in hard behind them, already moving. Kessler barely has time to turn before Hotch has him pinned against the nearest surface, gun pressed high, voice ice-cold.
“Don’t move.” Kessler actually laughs once. Spencer doesn’t even look at him. He’s already across the room. Everything else collapses into noise and motion behind him—Hotch securing Kessler, Rossi shouting commands, Emily cuffing him down—but Spencer doesn’t register any of it. He reaches you like gravity finally remembered him.
“Hey—hey, hey,” he breathes, hands shaking as they go to your face immediately. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” Your eyelids flutter.
"Spence ?" He nods, hands working at your restraints atfer he softly tears the IV out of your arm.
"Yeah, yeah, it's me. I'm here, alright, i'm here." Your body falls forward, exhausted, the second those restraints stop holding you up, your body folding like it’s been waiting for permission to collapse. Spencer catches you before you hit the ground. Immediately. Completely.
“No - no, no, no - hey, hey, hey - stay with me,” he says, voice cracking violently as he pulls you into him. “Stay with me, okay? Stay with me-look at me.” Your head lolls against his chest. He’s on the floor now without even realizing it. One arm under your shoulders. One hand pressed hard against the bandages on your abdomen like he can physically stop what’s happening inside you. He looks up, his eyes frantic.
"Derek ! Derek !" He calls as Hotch and the others disappear outside, pushing a cuffed Kessler with them. Derek's head snaps over and his face drains of color.
"Holy shit." He gasps, his chest heaving. Spencer chokes on a sob, pushing your hair away from your face.
"We-We need an ambulance. She-She's losing blood, she-" He gasps in a breath, shaking his head. "He’s got to have—he’s not carrying something like this without a reversal agent.” Spencer doesn’t look away from you. “Shelves,” he says instantly, voice raw but focused only on survival. “Look—look everywhere. Cabinets. Lockboxes. He wouldn’t leave it unbalanced.” Derek moves immediately. The timer ticks down like a taunt.
00:04:53.
Derek rummages through shelves, cabinets, drawers, cursing under his breath as he throws things on the ground. You clutch weakly at Spencer's vest, your hands shaking.
"Spence.." He shushes you, pressing his lips to your forehead.
"Hey, hey, don't talk, okay ? You're going to be fine. Just fine, okay ?"
"I-I'm so cold." You manage, shivers coursing through your body. Spencer grimaces.
"I know, baby, i know." He looks up. "Derek, where the fuck is that antidote !" Derek rips open another metal cabinet so hard the hinge screams in protest.
“I’m looking, I’m looking!” he snaps back, breathless, scanning shelves packed with medical bags, vials, and sealed containers that absolutely should not be here. “This guy is insane—”
Spencer hears none of it anymore. All of it narrows down to you. To the way your fingers are trembling against his vest. To the shallow, uneven rise of your chest. To the way your skin feels wrong beneath his hands—too cold, too fast to lose heat.
“I’ve got you,” he repeats again, but it’s not steady anymore. It’s breaking apart at the edges. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you—just stay with me, okay? Just—just stay with me.” Your head tips slightly against him. And for a second, his entire body goes rigid.
“No,” he whispers immediately, like he can undo it with the word alone. “No, no—hey—look at me. Look at me.”
Your eyes barely open. Barely there. But they do. And it ruins him.
“Got something!” Derek suddenly shouts from the far side of the room. Spencer’s head snaps up so fast it hurts. Derek holds up a small locked case - medical-grade, reinforced, labeled in a way that makes Spencer’s stomach drop immediately. “Is this it?” Derek demands. Spencer doesn’t even hesitate.
“Yes. Yes, that’s it - bring it here, now!” Derek slams it down beside them and Spencer’s hands are shaking so badly he almost fumbles the latch. The lock clicks open.
Inside: syringes. A sealed ampoule. A vial clearly marked in clinical print- ANTIDOTE.
He’s already drawing it up.
“Where do I—”
“Her arm,” Spencer says instantly, tearing his own focus into something sharp and functional because if he doesn’t, he’s going to fall apart completely. “Right arm - no, no - left - there, there - ” Derek moves in, steady hands taking over what Spencer can’t control anymore.
“I’ve got it,” Derek says low. Spencer nods too quickly, not letting go of you for even a second. His other hand stays pressed to your shoulder like an anchor. “Okay,” Derek says. “Injecting now.” The syringe depresses. For half a second, nothing happens. Then your body jerks—just slightly. Spencer makes a sound that’s halfway between a gasp and a sob.
“Hey - hey, hey,” he says immediately, hand cupping your cheek. "You're gonna be okay." But you're still slipping somewhere he can’t follow fast enough. “I’ve got you,” he repeats again, but now it’s desperate. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’ve got you - please - please don’t do this - ” Derek looks up sharply at the doorway, where JJ stands frozen.
"We need medical backup now!” JJ nods, rushing away.
Spencer sobs, then immediately chokes on it, pressing your hand tighter against his chest like he can force you to stay by sheer will alone. Footsteps thunder back in—Hotch, Rossi, Emily. Hotch sees you on the floor. And something in his face breaks cleanly. But Spencer can’t look at him. Can’t look at anyone. Because you’re right there in his arms and still not safe.
“Hey,” he whispers, voice collapsing completely now, tears spilling down without permission as he holds you closer. “Hey, hey- don’t leave me. Don’t leave me, okay? Please - please don’t leave me.” Your fingers twitch once.
Weak. Barely there. But it’s enough. Spencer grabs your hand immediately like it’s a lifeline.
“Yeah,” he chokes out, crying openly now, forehead pressing to yours. “Yeah, that’s it. That’s it. Come back to me. Come back—please, just come back to me.” Your shiver, a soft whimper drawing from your lips.
"I-I'm tired." You manage, shaking your head. Blood from your abdomen is still soaking your shirt, your pants, and Spencer is shaking.
"You-You can't sleep, baby. You have to- You have to stay awake. Keep your eyes open." The antidote has taken effect. The colour that had drained from your skin over the hour is coming back, and your breathing has returned to a normal pace. And the pain flooding back into your body is unbearable. You can feel the blood pumping out of you from your abdomen, and you groan weakly as you try to press your hand over the wound, only to find Spencer's hand already lodged there. You gulp, bringing your hand up to softly touch Spencer's cheek.
"Yo-You came for me." You rasp. Spencer chokes on a laugh, a desperate, wet thing.
"Of course I did." He mumbles. "How could I not ? God.." He gulps, shaking his head. "I love you." You smile, holding back tears as you cough. Your body trembles with shivers, and you groan.
"I-I'm sorry." You rasp, shaking your head. Spencer's heart drops. He shakes his head.
"Hey, hey- no. Don't apologise, you're going to be just fine, okay ? Y-You're going to be fine." You nod, smiling through the pain. You want to believe him.
You really do.
The antidote is working.
Derek said it is. Spencer knows it is. But you’re still so cold. Still shaking in his arms like your body can’t decide whether to stay or let go.
Spencer sniffles, brushing your hair away from your face.
"The ambulance is gonna be here any minute. They're going to make you all better. Okay ?" You nod.
"Okay." You say, forcing a smile, choking on the blood that creeps its way up your throat. "I love you, Spence." You rasp, shaking your head. Spencer’s heart hammers against his ribs, a frantic, desperate drumbeat of denial. He tightens his grip on your hand, bringing it to his lips, pressing a kiss to your cold knuckles.
“Don’t you dare say that like it’s a goodbye,” he orders, his voice a raw, broken thing. “It’s not a goodbye. You hear me? It’s an ‘I’ll see you in a minute.’ We’re going to have so much to talk about. Y-You're gonna rub this in my face, yeah ? Brag about how you-you survived this and i panicked for nothing.” He’s rambling, his brilliant mind reduced to a single, primal function: keep you here. Keep you with him. Your eyes are still on him, but they’re starting to lose focus, the light in them dimming like a candle in a draft. The smile on your lips is a ghost, beautiful and terrifying.
“Spence…” you whisper, and it’s the worst sound he’s ever heard, thin and reedy, threaded with the liquid rattle of fluid in your lungs. “It’s… so quiet.” He doesn’t understand what you mean. The room is chaos-Hotch’s clipped commands, Derek’s frantic pacing, the sound of JJ’s voice on the phone with dispatch. But then he realizes. For you, the world is collapsing. The sounds are fading, the pain is receding, and all that’s left is this.
Him.
“No, no, it’s not quiet,” he argues, his voice rising in panic. “It’s not. Just listen. Listen to me. I’m right here. I’m so loud, remember? You say I never shut up. So just… listen to me. Stay with me.” He’s pressing harder against the wound in your abdomen, a futile, desperate attempt to physically hold your life inside you. His hand is slick, warm, and the smell of copper fills the air, thick and suffocating. It’s the smell of his failure. Your breath hitches, a shallow, wet gasp.
"Tell… tell my dad… I’m sorry.” The words hit Spencer like a physical blow. Dad. Hotch, who is standing just feet away, right behind that door, pacing and shouting orders. Spencer can’t call for him. He can’t give him that. He can’t acknowledge the world beyond the circle of his arms.
“You’ll tell him yourself,” Spencer chokes out, tears streaming down his face, dripping onto your cheeks. “You’ll tell him tonight. When we get home. We’ll order Chinese food and you’ll tell him you’re sorry for worrying him, and he’ll pretend to be mad but he won’t be, and we’ll all be fine. We’ll be fine.” Your fingers, the ones he’s holding, twitch weakly. Your grip loosens. The pressure is gone. “No,” he whimpers, a sound so pathetic and full of pain it doesn’t even sound like him. “No, hold on. Hold my hand. Don’t let go. Don’t you let go of me.” Your eyes open again and you nod. He smiles, kissing your forehead. And then, through the cacophony of his own despair, he hears it. Faint at first, then growing stronger, clearer. A high, insistent wail that cuts through everything else.
Sirens.
Relief so profound it’s dizzying crashes over him. It’s the cavalry. It’s the answer. It’s another chance.
His head snaps up, his tear-blurred vision finding the window ahead.
“Did you hear that? They’re here. They’re almost here.” He looks back down at you, his face breaking into a wild, desperate grin. “You hear that, baby? You hear that? The ambulance is here. They’re here. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.” He’s laughing now, a wet, hysterical sound of pure relief, staring at the window as the red and blue lights start to show.
“We did it. We made it. Just hold on. Just a few more seconds. Please, just a few more seconds for me.” He looks back at the doorway, expecting to see the paramedics burst through with their bags and their machines and their magic. But the sirens are still distant, screaming down a street that’s too far away.
He looks back down at you. And the world stops. Your eyes are still open, but they’re not seeing him anymore. They’re fixed on a point just beyond his shoulder, glassy and vacant. The shallow rise and fall of your chest has stilled. The hand he’s clutching is limp and cool in his.
The silence in the room is absolute.
“No,” he whispers. The smile is gone from his face, wiped clean away. “No… no, no, no, no, no.” He shakes his head, a sharp, jerky motion of denial. “Hey… hey, look at me. Look at me. They’re here. The ambulance is here.” He shakes you gently, then a little harder. “Hey.. hey, look at me. You’re not allowed to do this. You’re not allowed to leave me. You hear me? C'mon, this isn't funny." He shakes you."Come on! Look at me.” But you don’t. You can’t. The sirens are closer now, screaming, a piercing, torturous sound. They’re the sound of hope arriving seven minutes too late. The door bursts open. Emily is the first one in, her face flushed and triumphant.
“Spencer! The ambulance is here, they’re coming, they’re—” She stops. Her eyes find Spencer, cradling your still body on the floor, and she sees everything. The blood. The stillness. The absolute, soul-crushing devastation on his face. Her triumphant shout dies in her throat, replaced by a small, choked gasp. Hotch is right behind her. He takes in the scene with one sweeping, all-seeing glance. He sees Kessler’s handiwork, he sees the discarded antidote, he sees Spencer on the floor. And then he sees you. He doesn’t make a sound. The unit chief, the man who faces monsters for a living, simply breaks. His shoulders slump, his face goes slack, and all the color drains from his skin. He stumbles forward a half-step, his hand reaching out, then falling back to his side. He knows. Emily rushes to Spencer’s side, her hand hovering over his shoulder, afraid to touch.
“Spencer…?” He doesn’t answer. He’s lowered his head, burying his face in the crook of your neck, his body wracked with huge, silent, violent sobs that shake him to his core. He holds you tighter, rocking you back and forth, a desperate, rhythmic motion.
And Spencer Reid - who has spent his entire life understanding loss in theory before he ever had to survive it in practice - lets out a sound that is not human.
It rips out of him.
Raw.
Shattered.
“No - no, no, no, please - please, please - ” He pulls you closer instantly, like he can reverse it if he just holds you tighter.
"Reid." Derek's voice echoes around the small space. Spencer shakes his head. Spencer doesn’t hear him anymore.
Doesn’t hear Emily crying.
Doesn’t hear the radio chatter suddenly erupting outside as the medics arrive too late.
He just holds you. Like if he stops, even for a second, the truth will finish settling. Sirens flood the building outside. Red and blue light strobing through the broken doorway.
And still -Spencer is whispering your name into your hair like it’s a spell.
Like it’s the only thing left that still makes sense.
The paramedics finally burst through the doorway, their practiced efficiency grinding to a halt as they take in the scene. No one moves. No one breathes. The paramedics slowly back out of the room, hushed whispers echoing in the small space.
Spencer looks up, devastated.
"No.. No, where are they going ? They-They have to save her, they-"
"Reid." Derek rasps again, wiping at the tears falling down his face. He looks back down at you like it’s instinct, like he can anchor himself in you. But you don’t move. Not even a tremor. Not even the smallest betrayal of life returning. Just stillness. Heavy and final.
Spencer’s breath stutters.
Once. Twice.
Then completely stops behaving like it belongs to him.
His hand shakes as it smooths over your hair. So careful. So tender. Like you’re made of glass and he’s terrified of what happens if he presses too hard.
Emily makes a sound behind him—small, broken, human.
“Spencer…” she tries again, stepping closer like she might physically pull him out of it. But he flinches at her voice like it burns.
“No,” he snaps instantly, sharper than he means it. Then it collapses immediately into desperation. “No, no—don’t—” Hotch is still at the doorway. Still completely still. Like something inside him shut off in self-defense the second he understood. But his eyes don’t leave you. Not once. Not even when Rossi puts a hand on his arm and squeezes like he’s trying to hold him together by force. Spencer presses his forehead to yours again.
Harder this time. Like proximity alone can reverse biology.
“I got you,” he whispers, voice breaking into pieces now. “I got you, I got you, I got you—” His sentences stop making sense. They turn into fragments. Into breath. Into something raw and animal and terrified. “I didn’t—” he chokes, pulling you closer like he can physically shield you from the truth, “I didn’t get here fast enough. I didn’t—I didn’t—”
Derek steps forward again, slower this time. Careful. Like approaching something sacred and shattered.
“Reid,” he says quietly. “Kid…” Spencer shakes his head violently again.
“No,” he says again, but weaker now. So much weaker. “No, no, no- Just - just help her. Just - just fix it. Fix it - please - ” His voice breaks completely on the last word. And then he tries again, because Spencer Reid has always believed that understanding something well enough means you can change it. “If I - if I give her CPR - if I - if we - ” His hands move like they don’t belong to him anymore as they lay you down on the ground, flat on your back.
One presses to your chest. Wrong. Desperate. Begging.
“No!” he shouts suddenly, panicked, frantic. “No, no, I can— I can do it. I can fix it. I can- I can-” His voice disintegrates mid-sentence. Because your body doesn’t respond. Because nothing changes. Because time doesn’t care how hard he tries. And that’s when it hits him all at once.
Not gradually. Not gently. All at once. Spencer goes completely still.
His hands freeze where they are on you. His breath catches like it’s been hooked on something sharp. He falls backwards, his hands coated in blood coming up to press against his eyes as he sobs. Emily is by his side in an instant, pulling him into her, rocking him as Derek sniffles and gets to his feet, walking over to your and softly guiding your eyes shut. Hotch swears under his breath, wrecked sobs escaping him, and he turns away from you, gasping for air as he rushes out into the night. Luke, Tara, JJ and Rossi have gathered in the doorway, watching as Derek grabs a folded sheet from one of the drawers and lays it down over you, clearing his throat.
"The- uh, the EMT's should come back in here. Take-" He clears his throat, "Take her to the morgue."
The timer beeps behind them like some sick alarm clock. They all look back and the flashing numbers.
pairing: brendan bennett franklin x f!reader, background bobby franklin x f!reader
wc: 9.9k+
summary: brendan bennett franklin falls in love with his twin brother's girlfriend at sixteen and never quite stops.
contents/warnings: twins au, unrequited love (?), pining, jealousy between siblings, parental infidelity/divorce (referenced), sexual fantasies, masturbation, guilt && self-loathing, social isolation/alienation, touch aversion/sensory issues (undiagnosed neurodivergence), feelings of brokenness around sexuality && attraction, heterosexuality-adjacent distress, emotional anguish, one instance of homophobic slur (from a bully), heavy angst.
notes: i've created many characters in my time. brendan/bb might genuinely be amongst my absolute favourites i've ever written. i've very purposefully kept this highly unedited to try and capture the raw nature of his feelings. i've also been writing this nonstop all day, so any mistakes are my own. might have also cried but that's neither here nor there. enjoy.
✶ better bobby series.
private property of brendan bennett franklin.
do not read. i mean it, bobby.
1985–1990.
september 3, 1985
new girl transferred today. junior, like us. you walked into homeroom twelve minutes late with your bag strap sliding off your shoulder and sat down in the empty desk by the window and i forgot what mr. hendricks was saying. i still don't remember. it might have been about the civil war. it might have been about literally anything. you glanced out of the window, sunlight golden on you, and opened your notebook. i missed twenty minutes of american history.
this is probably not important enough to write down.
i'm not sure why i did.
september 8, 1985
i have three friends. bobby, terrence, and the library.
i'm not popular. i'm the thing that happens to popular when you drain all the charisma out of it and replace it with advanced calculus and the inability to make eye contact. bobby got the face AND the personality. i got the face and a brain that won't stop noticing details nobody asked for and a body that flinches when people touch it without warning.
identical twins. completely different experiences of being alive.
bobby walks into a room and the room lights up around him. i walk into a room and can't figure out where to stand. people talk and i miss the cues. the pauses where i'm supposed to laugh, the shifts in tone that signal a joke, the invisible dance of human interaction that everyone else learned naturally, and i'm still studying from the outside like a foreign language i can read but can't speak.
most people forget i'm in the room. teachers mix us up. girls look through me to find him. i've been called "bobby's brother" so many times it might as well be printed on my birth certificate.
i envy him sometimes. the effortlessness of it. the way connection comes to him like breathing. for me every conversation is a translation exercise: hear the words, decode the meaning, calculate the appropriate response, deliver it, check the face for signs i got it wrong. and it's so exhausting.
the library doesn't require any of it. the library doesn't care if i'm awkward.
september 11, 1985
her name is—
actually, i don't think i should write your name in this. just in case bobby finds it despite the very clear warning on the cover. i know you. that's enough.
bobby talked to you first because bobby talks to everyone first. you were sitting alone at lunch and he just walked over and sat down and said something that made you laugh (this startled, bright, involuntary sound) and by the time i got to the table you were already part of the group.
terrence likes you. bobby likes you. everybody likes you. you're warm in a way i don't have a word for. not loud-warm. just warm.
you said hi to me and i said hi back and that was the entire interaction.
i've been replaying it for three hours.
september 17, 1985
you sat next to me in calculus today. not because you had to. the desk was open and you chose it from three others, and sat down and smiled at me. you said, "hey, benny" like we've known each other for years.
benny.
nobody calls me benny.
september 29, 1985
you asked me to help you with calc after school. we sat at the kitchen table for an hour and a half and you leaned into my shoulder while i walked you through derivatives. your hair smelled like vanilla and you looked at me like i'd performed a miracle when you finally got it right.
nobody looks at me like that. bobby gets those looks. terrence gets those looks. i get the polite nod. the strained, patient smile. the "oh, you're bobby's brother" face that i've learned to expect.
you looked at me like i was a person who knew things you wanted to know. like the knowing mattered. like i was someone and not just adjacent to my twin.
i am in so much trouble.
october 14, 1985
you call me brendan. full name. sometimes benny when you're teasing. never BB, which is what everyone else calls me. never "the other twin." never "bobby's brother."
brendan.
i could live off the way you say it for a very long time.
october 22, 1985
kyle weber called me a freak in the hallway today. not the first time. i was carrying a stack of AP textbooks and he shoulder-checked me and they went everywhere and he laughed and said, "watch it, freak." i was on my knees picking up books and trying to disappear into the linoleum.
and then you appeared out of nowhere. i don't know where you came from. one second i was alone on the floor and the next you were crouching beside me, stacking my books, and then you stood up and turned to kyle. you said something so quiet i couldn't hear it and his face went white. paper white. he looked at you and then at me and then he stalked away and he hasn't spoken to me since.
i asked you what you said to him. you handed me my books and shrugged. "i told him if he touches you again i'll make sure the whole school knows he cried during the sex ed video in freshman year."
"...did he?"
"oh, absolutely. terrence told me. the power of information, benny."
and you linked your arm through mine and walked me to class.
people touch me and i flinch. always have. bobby's arm around my shoulder makes my skin crawl. terrence's back-slaps make me clench my jaw. casual contact (a stranger's elbow on the bus, a classmate brushing past in the hallway) registers in my body as a low-grade alarm.
i don't know why. i've never known why. my skin has always been too loud for other people's hands.
you linked your arm through mine and i didn't flinch. i didn't tense. i didn't have to override the instinct because the instinct wasn't there. your touch landed on my skin and my whole nervous system went quiet. warm. calm. like coming inside after hours in the cold and standing next to a fire and feeling the tightness in your muscles release one strand at a time.
you're protective of me. you took one look at the quiet twin who can't make eye contact and decided he was yours to defend and nobody asked you to and you did it anyway.
i have never felt warm the way i feel warm when you do this. like the warmth isn't just temperature but a person. like i've been standing outside in the cold my whole life and you opened the door to a warm house.
november 2, 1985
you found me in the library during a free period. everyone else was at the pep rally. i was reading and you sat down across from me and said "i don't really do pep rallies" and opened your own book and we sat there in silence for an hour.
i've never been quiet with another person and had it feel like a gift before.
silence with other people feels like a failure. like i'm supposed to be filling the space and i can't find the right thing to fill it with. every pause is a question i'm getting wrong. with you the silence felt like a room we were sharing on purpose.
the noise in my head (the constant humming calculation of how to be a person in front of other people) it stops when you're near. just stops. like a machine powering down. and underneath the silence there's this calm i don't have a name for. this sense that i can stop performing and just exist and you won't find the existing strange or off-putting.
when you left you squeezed my shoulder and said, "this was nice, benny."
i put my forehead on the table and stayed there for a while.
november 9, 1985
a thing i've never told anyone:
i hate being touched, and i am desperate to be touched. both at the same time. all the time.
other people's hands on me feel like static. wrong pressure, wrong temperature. i pull away from hugs. i stiffen under friendly arms. mom stopped trying to hold my hand when i was eleven because i kept pulling free without meaning to and the hurt on her face was worse than the contact.
but when you touch me (your hand on my arm, your head on my shoulder, your fingers fixing my collar) my body does the opposite thing. it leans. toward you. into you. like i've been cold for sixteen years and you're the first source of heat and the relief of it is so overwhelming i could cry.
i want more. always more. every touch you give me i hoard and replay and it's never enough. i want your hand in my hair. your arms around my waist. your forehead against mine. i want to be held by you until the static stops and it only stops with you and i don't understand why.
i don't think i need to understand why. i just need more.
november 15, 1985
i can see it happening. you and bobby. the way you orbit each other is starting to change shape.
the group hangs out and i watch your eyes find him across the room. i watch his find you. there's a gravity forming between you two that everyone can feel and nobody's named yet but they will. terrence already calls you bobby's girl behind your back and you're not, not yet, but the "yet" is so, so heavy.
you light up when he walks in. i know that brightness because i feel it when you walk in and i have to look away before anyone sees.
you're going to end up with bobby. everyone in this school can see the shape of it forming. bobby and the new girl. the twin everybody notices and the girl everybody likes.
i'm being dramatic. it's only been two months. i barely know you.
except i do. i know you hate the crusts on sandwiches but eat them anyway because wasting food makes you feel guilty. i know you hum when you're concentrating and you don't realise you're doing it and the song is never one i recognise. i know you bite your bottom lip when you're nervous and the left side harder than the right.
i know you. i've been paying attention since september.
i need to stop.
december 19, 1985
christmas party at terrence's. you wore a red sweater too big for you and had a stupid reindeer pin on your collar. bobby was doing his thing. arm around you, charming and bright, making the room laugh. i watched you lean into him. two bodies learning how to fit together.
you found me hiding in the kitchen and bumped your hip against mine with a crooked smile. "you're hiding."
"i'm making a drink."
"you're hiding. come back out. i miss you."
you said i miss you and i'd been in the other room for ten minutes.
you dragged me back by my sleeve and sat me down next to you and kept your hand on my knee for the rest of the night. i don't think you noticed you were doing it.
i noticed nothing else.
january 9, 1986
i've started dreading the question. the one bobby and terrence throw around like a football. "so when are you gonna get a girlfriend, bennett?" bobby grins when he says it. means it lovingly. doesn't know the answer is a slow knife.
terrence is worse. "bro there are girls literally lining up for the bobby franklin face and you're just... sitting there. reading. with that face. it's criminal!"
i laugh it off. they laugh. everyone laughs. good old brendan. hopeless with girls. still a virgin. probably going to be a virgin forever because he can't string two sentences together in front of a pretty girl.
except that's not it. that's not it at all.
something is wrong with me.
i can't find anyone attractive. i've tried. jenny park is objectively beautiful and when she talked to me at lunch i felt nothing. matt from chem lab is objectively beautiful and when he sat next to me i felt nothing. the magazine under bobby's bed that he thinks i don't know about—nothing.
my body doesn't respond to people. it doesn't want anyone. i look at classmates the way i look at furniture. vague acknowledgment that they exist. no heat. no pull. no interest.
except you.
you walk into a room and every nerve ending in my body lights up. you touch my arm and my skin hums for an hour. you lean into my shoulder and i stop breathing. you, exclusively. only you. like my body was made with a single setting and the setting is you and there's no alternative use.
i don't know what this means. i don't know if this is normal.
i'm really scared it isn't.
march 8, 1986
bobby asked you out today.
he told me first. came into my room and sat on my bed and said "i'm gonna ask her" and his voice was trying to hide the fact he was scared. going casual, going loose, like if he holds the words lightly enough they won't be able to hurt him. and i knew what he was really asking. because dad is still fresh. the cheating. the years of lies, mom finding out, the divorce that split the house in half.
bobby was fourteen when he decided love was the thing that wrecks you. swore he'd never open that door. never let anyone close enough to do what dad did to mom.
and now he wants to try. for you.
he deserves this. after everything dad did, after watching his ability to trust get gutted by a man who was supposed to teach him how to love, bobby deserves someone who makes him brave enough to try.
i told him to go for it. meant it.
he came back an hour later. grinning so wide his face couldn't hold it. you said yes.
of course you said yes. you've been saying yes to bobby since the day you sat down at our lunch table.
i hugged him. told him congratulations. meant it.
went to my room. closed the door. sat on the floor with my back against the bed and stared at the wall until my eyes ached.
march 22, 1986
movies. bobby and you, me and terrence. your first group outing as a couple.
bobby had his arm around you. you had your head on his shoulder. you shared popcorn. your leg was pressed against mine the whole film. probably because the seats were small. i didn't move.
i should have moved.
april 5, 1986
you had a fight with your mom. showed up at our house at 10 pm, crying. bobby wasn't home.
you stood on the porch and i opened the door and your face crumpled and you blurted out, "is it ok if i just sit with you for a while?"
i made you tea. you talked and i listened. after an hour you ran out of words and leaned sideways and put your head on my shoulder and fell asleep.
you slept for two hours. your hand curled in the fabric of my shirt. your breathing slow and deep. i sat perfectly still. did not adjust my position even when my arm went completely numb. i would have let my arm fall off before disturbing you.
bobby came home at midnight. "thanks for taking care of my girl, man."
my girl.
the dent where your head rested stayed warm for a long time after you left.
april 12, 1986
short entry.
you fixed the collar of my shirt in the hallway today. just reached up and folded it down. your knuckles brushing my neck. "there. can't have you walking around looking rumpled, benny."
i can still feel your knuckles. four hours later. a stripe of contact burned into the side of my throat.
june 18, 1986
pool party at terrence's. you were in a bikini.
i'm not going to describe it. i'm going to acknowledge that you were in a bikini and that i spent four hours in a california swimming pool and was never warm. because all my blood had relocated to the problem of not looking at you and the secondary problem growing in my swim trunks from the failure of the first problem.
you asked me to put sunscreen on your back. i did it. my hands were steady. nobody watching could have told that the inside of my head was a five-alarm fire.
"thanks, benny." and you went back to the pool and bobby threw you in. you screamed and laughed and i excused myself to the bathroom and put my head between my knees.
august 30, 1986
senior year. last year of being in the same building as you every day.
bobby and you are solid. you're good together. he opens up around you in ways he doesn't with anyone else. you soften him. you make his edges less defensive. when he's with you, bobby is almost the person he'd be if dad hadn't shattered his faith that the people who love you will stay.
i want to be selfless about this. the good brother. the one who steps aside and means it.
i'm not that person.
i love you. i love you and it's getting worse. it was supposed to fade. crushes fade. this isn't fading. this is setting foundations, pouring concrete into the ground floor of my chest and building upward.
september 14, 1986
bobby made a joke today at dinner. mom was asking about girls at school and bobby grinned and elbowed me and said, "bennett here is saving himself. for what, we're not sure. science, probably."
everyone laughed. mom. bobby. even terrence, who was over for dinner.
i laughed too. good old brendan. the virgin. the nerd. probably going to lose it to a textbook.
i went upstairs and sat on my bed and thought: there is something seriously wrong with me. because i'm seventeen and i've never kissed anyone and i don't WANT to kiss anyone. i look at every other person in my school and my body is silent. flat. dead. no heat, no curiosity, no pull. and then you walk into a room and i can feel my heartbeat in my fingertips and my mouth goes dry and i want to put my hands on you so badly my joints ache with it.
it's only you. it has only ever been you. and the exclusivity of it terrifies me because what if this is broken? what if i'm wired wrong? what if the reason i can't want anyone else is because something in me got stuck, got fixed in place the day you sat down in homeroom, and it will never unstick?
what if i'm going to want you, only you, for the rest of my life?
what if i already know the answer?
october 31, 1986
halloween. you dressed as an alien. green face paint, antennae that kept falling sideways. you asked me what i was and i said "a serial killer, they look like everyone else" and you laughed so hard you doubled over and grabbed my arm.
"brendan that's the funniest thing you've ever said. you have to say that to everyone who asks."
so i did, and people laughed. because you told me to deliver the line and so i did and the fact that people laughed at my joke felt good but the fact that you gave me the joke felt like being handed a lit candle in a dark room.
you fixed my hair at one point. reached up and pushed a strand off my forehead. casual. meaningless to you. your fingertips grazed my temple and i can still feel it hours later. a warm line where your hand was.
november 8, 1986
some senior from the baseball team cornered me after school. not kyle, a new one. shoved me into the lockers and called me a faggot because apparently reading in public is a sexual orientation now.
i didn't tell anyone. didn't need to.
you found out anyway. i don't know how. terrence, probably.
you didn't say anything to me about it, but two days later the senior apologised. to my face. in the hallway. with stiff, terrified demeanour. an angel of wrath had informed him of the consequences of future behaviour.
i asked you what you did.
"nothing." you were doing your homework, not looking at me. "he just had a change of heart."
"a change of heart."
"people grow, benny."
you're terrifying when you want to be, and i'm so in love with you i could die.
november 21, 1986
a guy at terrence's party wouldn't leave you alone. i don't know his name. some friend of a friend from out of town. he kept touching your arm after you pulled away. kept leaning into your space. you smiled politely and shifted sideways, and he followed.
bobby was across the room with a group of guys smoking something he shouldn't be and didn't see it. and you did that thing you do. that swallowing thing. that "it's fine, i can handle it" thing, and i watched your shoulders tighten, your smile going strained, and my vision narrowed.
i don't remember crossing the room. i don't remember what i said.
i remember his face. the way his expression shifted when he looked at me. i'm used to people looking through me, looking past me. this was different. this was a person looking at me and seeing a locked door they did not want to open.
i don't know what i said. that should scare me. it doesn't.
you found me in the kitchen after. leaned against the counter next to me. didn't ask what happened. just knocked your shoulder against mine and said "my hero" in that teasing, soft voice and i felt the anger drain out of me so fast it left me lightheaded.
but it's still in there. i felt it. a cold, patient, completely calm willingness to do damage if anyone puts their hands on you again. it doesn't feel like rage. rage is hot and loud. that's bobby's territory.
this is different. this is a door i didn't know i had, and behind it is a version of me that would do very quiet, very permanent things to protect you.
i don't know what to do with that information. so i'm putting it here.
december 1, 1986
i hate this
why can't i just be normal
everyone around me is dating. kissing. losing their virginity in backseats and bedrooms and talking about it at lunch like it's a rite of passage i keep failing to reach.
and i sit there and i listen and i feel nothing. no envy for the act itself. only this hollow awareness that i'm watching a movie everyone else is in and i'm still in the audience.
bobby asked me last week if i'd kissed anyone yet. gentle about it, for once. no joke. just "hey man, you doing okay? you know it's fine if you haven't, right?" and the kindness of it made it worse because he was being a good brother and i couldn't tell him the truth.
the truth is that there is one person i want to kiss until my lips go raw, and she's dating you and every other mouth on earth repulses me and i don't know why i'm built this way. i can't talk to anyone about it because the answer ("i'm not attracted to anyone except my twin brother's girlfriend") sounds like a confession that would get me committed.
what is wrong with me? genuinely. is this a disorder? is there a name for wanting one person so completely that everyone else might as well be furniture?
is this what love is or is this what obsession is and how do you tell the difference when you're eighteen and you've never been touched before
december 24, 1986
christmas eve dinner. you gave me a book. wrapped in paper you decorated yourself. little silver stars drawn by hand all over the blue.
"i saw it and thought of you."
six words. i saw it and thought of you. six words now living inside my chest cavity.
it was a first edition of a book i mentioned wanting three months ago. in passing. once. you remembered.
i held on to the wrapping paper after. folded the stars inside a textbook. i'll keep them.
february 1, 1987
i woke up at 3 am from a dream about you and i can't go back to sleep.
i'm not going to write down what happened. i'm not going to describe the way you looked or the sounds you made or what i was doing to you when you
no.
cold shower. stood under the water until my teeth chattered. didn't help. i can still feel the ghost of your body against mine. my brain invented the weight of you, the heat, the way you would arch into me if i
STOP.
this is just biology. i'm eighteen. this is normal.
it's not normal. nothing about how i want you is normal. the depth of it, the weight. i didn't dream about a body. i dreamed about YOUR body. your curves. the pitch of your laugh gone breathless. the way you'd say my name, not bobby's, mine, brendan, with your hands in my hair.
i want you so badly i can't breathe and i have no right to and the wanting is going to eat me alive.
february 14, 1987
valentine's day. bobby gave you a necklace. you nearly cried and kissed him and terrence heckled you both.
i watched from the kitchen doorway.
i didn't get you anything. getting you a valentine would be insane.
march 15, 1987
you told me today that you think i'm going to change the world.
we were sitting on the back porch. just us. you were eating an apple and reading over my harvard application essay and you put it down and looked at me and said seriously, "brendan, this is incredible. you're going to get in and then you're going to change the world and i'm going to tell everyone i knew you when you do."
and i thought: you know me now. you're the only person who knows me now.
may 14, 1987
bonfire at the beach. bobby and terrence went to get more wood. you were sitting next to me. close. your knee touching mine. the fire was low and orange and the light was painting your skin gold, catching the shadows in the dip of your collarbone, the curve of your neck.
and all i could think was: your throat. the soft patch below your ear where your jaw meets your neck. if i leaned over, if i put my mouth there. just my lips. how you would taste. salt and warmth and the lingering smoke from the fire. how your pulse would feel against my tongue. how your breath would catch.
i sat next to you with the dying fire and the crashing waves and bobby's laugh carrying from down the beach and i thought about putting my mouth on your throat for forty-five straight minutes.
you leaned your head on my shoulder. "i love nights like this."
"yeah," i said.
the fire burned to embers. i could still feel your pulse in my imagination. beating against a mouth i will never put there.
may 28, 1987
you held my hand today. just for a second. we were crossing a parking lot and a car came too fast around the corner and you grabbed my hand and pulled me back and then you didn't let go for the whole walk to the truck. just your fingers laced through mine. swinging between us. you were talking about finals and i was listening and your hand was in mine and it was a tuesday and i would sell my soul to feel this on a wednesday.
june 1, 1987
i want to touch you so badly my hands hurt
not ONLY sexually. i want to brush the hair off your face. i want to hold your hand in the car. i want to fall asleep with your head on my chest. i want the casual touches. the ones bobby gets without asking for them, the hand on the arm, the head on the shoulder, the absent fingers tracing patterns on skin while watching tv.
i want to be allowed to touch you the way he's allowed. not stolen moments dressed up as friendship. real ones. with intent. with honesty.
god i'm so fucking pathetic
june 9, 1987
graduation. we did it. senior year, done.
you found me in the crowd after. pushed through bobby and terrence and your parents and my mom and everyone else and grabbed me in a hug so tight my cap fell off. "WE DID IT BENNY" screamed directly into my ear with enough force to cause permanent hearing damage.
i hugged you tight and you laughed and your gown was billowing in the wind, and your hair was in my face. i could feel your ribs expanding with laughter against my arms and for ten seconds the world was only this. you in my arms. laughing.
bobby got the kiss. terrence got the secret handshake. i got the scream and the spin and i would trade everything i own for a lifetime supply of being the person you run to first.
july 4, 1987
sparklers at the beach. you were sitting next to me in the sand. our shoulders touching. the sky exploding in gold and red above us.
you turned to me, sparkler in hand, gold light on your face. "are you happy, benny?"
"yeah. i'm happy."
and right then i was. the wanting was still there, bedrock-deep, permanent. but for ten minutes it was quiet enough to hear the waves over it.
you put your head on my shoulder. i put my cheek on your hair.
i am never going to love anyone else. i know this the way i know chemical formulas. fact. fixed. tested and proven across every variable.
you are the only constant in my universe.
august 7, 1987
acceptance letter came. harvard. full ride.
you were the second person i showed. bobby first, because brotherhood, but you were right behind him. you took the letter and read it, your hands were shaking and you looked up at me and your eyes were full. you threw your arms around my neck and squeezed so hard i couldn't breathe.
"i knew it," you whispered wetly into my collar. "i knew it. i told you. i told you, benny."
and underneath the pride and the joy, so clear i could taste it... sadness. that's really far away. that's the other side of the country. and you didn't say it but your arms tightened and you held on longer than you needed to and i could feel the grief of it in your grip.
bobby grinned and hugged me. terrence lifted me off the ground cheering loudly. mom cried.
you held my hand under the table at dinner that night. three straight hours. nobody saw. your thumb tracing circles on my palm while everyone talked about the bright, impossible future.
i'm going to remember your thumb on my palm long after i've forgotten the letter.
august 28, 1987
last night before harvard.
you came over. just you. bobby was working late and terrence had a gig down at santa cruz. you knocked on my door and held up a wrapped package and decalred, "before you go."
it was a mixtape, but not just a mixtape. the case was hand-decorated with tiny drawings. inside jokes, all of them. a stick figure at a desk labeled "nerd at work." a tiny calculus equation with a heart instead of an equals sign. a drawing of me with ridiculous oversized glasses. on the spine, in your handwriting: "for benny. so you don't forget us."
i turned it over. on the back you'd written every track title and next to each one a note.
track 3 — this is the one i was humming during the calc final that made you glare at me.
track 7 — for driving at night with the windows down.
track 12 — listen to this one when you miss home. and by home i mean me.
and by home i mean me.
i stared at it for so long you got nervous. "is it stupid? it's stupid. you probably have a walkman with actual good music and this is—"
"it's perfect."
you looked at me. i looked at you. the room was very quiet and very small. you were very close and i could have kissed you. the distance between your mouth and mine was six inches and i could have closed it and everything would have changed.
i didn't. because i couldn't do that to bobby. i couldn't.
"i'm really going to miss you, benny."
"i'll call every week."
"you better."
i listened to the tape in bed that night with headphones on. track 12. over and over and over. your voice in the liner notes. and by home i mean me.
i held the case against my chest and closed my eyes, pretending your hand was there instead.
september 2, 1987
you hugged me at the truck. held on for a long time. your face in my neck and your hands gripping the back of my shirt.
"every week, brendan. if you forget about me—"
"i won't forget about you."
too fast, too serious, too much truth packed into a sentence that was supposed to be light. you pulled back and looked at me and your eyes were searching my face for something.
i don't know if you found it.
you kissed my cheek. close enough that if i'd turned my head half an inch your lips would have been on mine.
i didn't turn my head.
i got in the truck. bobby drove. i watched you in the side mirror, standing in the driveway with your arms wrapped around yourself, getting smaller and smaller.
september 18, 1987
i thought distance would help.
three thousand miles between your body and mine. no more shoulder-touches. no more vanilla smell. no more knee-against-knee in dark movie theaters. the theory was sound: remove the stimulus, reduce the response. basic conditioning.
the theory is wrong.
i miss you like an organ. like something was cut out of me at the airport and i'm walking around with the wound still open. i reach for the phone every hour. i play the mixtape until the ribbon starts to wear. i sit in lectures surrounded by brilliant, interesting people and i feel nothing. flat. grey.
here's what's strange though. i'm getting better at the other thing. the people thing.
harvard is full of people like me. the ones who read too much and talk too little and know the periodic table better than their classmates' names. for the first time in my life "quiet and intense" isn't the wrong setting. it's the default. i can hold a conversation in a study group without running the translation the whole time. i can sit in a dining hall and not feel like i'm performing personhood for an audience that isn't buying it.
i'm finding myself here, in small ways. figuring out which parts of my strangeness are flaws and which are just features nobody had a use for in santa clara.
but you remain the eye of the storm. the one quiet place where everything inside me unwinds.
harvard is teaching me how to exist around other people. you taught me that existing around another person could feel like rest instead of labour. and no amount of social growth, no amount of learning to make small talk in a dining hall, will ever replicate what you give me just by being near.
the silence that isn't empty. the touch that doesn't sting. the calm.
i am homesick for a person, not a place.
october 3, 1987
a girl in my organic chemistry study group asked me out. claire. smart. funny. objectively attractive.
i said yes because i'm supposed to say yes. because normal people say yes. because bobby would say yes and terrence would say yes, and this is what nineteen-year-olds do.
we got coffee. she was kind. she laughed at my poor jokes. she touched my hand across the table.
i felt nothing. absolutely nothing. like pressing my palm against a wall and waiting for warmth that never comes.
she leaned in to kiss me at the end and i let her and her mouth was on mine and all i could think was: wrong. wrong lips. wrong pressure. wrong taste. wrong person. WRONG.
i pulled away and said i was sorry and walked home. stood in the shower and scrubbed my mouth raw, and felt sick with how much i wanted it to have been you.
october 19, 1987
you called tonight. bobby was at work and you were bored and you called. we talked for two hours. my roommate left after twenty minutes because apparently i was "smiling weird."
you told me about your week. clark's being terrible. terrence's band. the stray cat on your porch. you told me everything and i held the phone with my eyes closed and you were there. in my ear. telling me about a cat like it was the most important news in the world.
"i miss you, benny." soft. sleepy.
"i miss you too."
the safest true thing i've ever said. because i miss you is allowed. i miss you lives in the acceptable zone. i miss you is what a friend says.
i miss you the way a lung misses air. i miss you so much i have rearranged my entire week around the possibility that you might call again.
but "i miss you too" is what i said.
november 12, 1987
there's a guy in my anatomy class. david. he's been friendly. eating lunch together, studying. today he put his hand on my knee under the table and looked at me with a question in his eyes.
nothing. nothing nothing nothing. i am broken or i am built wrong or i am simply, irrevocably, yours in a way that excludes every other human being on this planet regardless of what they look like or what's between their legs.
i told him i was flattered. i meant it. i am flattered that anyone wants someone like me.
i just can't want them back. the machinery only runs for you. i've tested it now. both genders. kind people, attractive people, people who deserved better than the hollow version of me sitting across from them. and every single time the same flat nothing. the same grey wall.
then you call and the wall dissolves and every colour rushes back in, and i think: oh. there i am. i was here the whole time. i just only exist when you're nearby.
distance was supposed to fix this. i was supposed to get better.
i'm not getting better. i'm getting worse. three thousand miles and i am worse.
november 26, 1987
thanksgiving. came home. you saw me in the doorway and your face lit up. you ran at me and jumped and i caught you. your arms locked around my neck, your face buried in my shoulder. you were laughing and squeezing me so tight i couldn't breathe.
i could have held you like that until the sun burned itself out.
bobby was right behind me. you let go of me and hugged him and kissed him and you stood in the hallway with your foreheads together and i carried my bag upstairs.
you run at me. you kiss him. the running is enthusiastic and warm and genuine. the kissing is intimate and private and his.
i want the kiss. i'd burn for the kiss.
and i hate myself for wanting it because bobby is my brother and he's happy and he deserves this after dad.
he deserves this more than me.
december 3, 1987
i think loving you is going to kill me.
i wish i could take my heart out and set it aside. put it in a jar on a shelf. come back for it when it's safe. but it's never going to be safe, is it? there's no version of my life where loving you is safe. there's only the version where i carry it and i'm going to carry it till my heart stops.
february 14, 1988
valentine's day. i mailed you a book. astronomy. because you said once, in october, that you wished you knew more about constellations. the note said: "saw this, thought you'd like it — B." casual. friendly.
you called to thank me. "brendan bennett franklin, you're the sweetest person alive."
i sat on my dorm room floor with the phone cord wrapped around my finger and thought: i am not sweet. i am a liar. i bought you a valentine and called it casual and you believed me because you don't see me. you look right at me with those warm eyes and you see a friend. a brother. a good person.
you don't see the thing underneath that wants to kiss you until neither of us can stand.
april 16, 1988
a girl at a party. i don't remember her name. i was a little drunk and she was pretty and i thought: just try. just try to be normal. to want someone attainable. someone who isn't your brother's girlfriend.
we went to her room. she kissed me and took her shirt off and i looked at her and felt... revulsion. not at her. at the wrongness of it. at my own body's flat refusal to participate in anything that wasn't you. i made an excuse. left. walked home in the cold.
the distance was supposed to make this better. the new people, the new context. a fresh start without you in every room.
but you're in every room. you're in the phone on my desk and the mixtape in my walkman and the book on my shelf with the silver stars on the wrapping paper that i kept like a goddamn shrine. you're in the way i scan every crowd for your face. you're in the hollow feeling when i don't find it.
what is wrong with me? what is fundamentally, structurally wrong with me that i can't want anyone who isn't you?
i sat on my bathroom floor and put my head in my hands and asked myself if this is what the rest of my life looks like. a series of empty rooms with the wrong people in them. a body that only responds to one person. a lock with one key and the key belongs to my brother's girlfriend.
yes. that's what it looks like. i know the answer already. i've always known.
april 30, 1988
i made a list today. of reasons to stop.
she's bobby's girlfriend.
bobby is my twin.
bobby loves her.
she loves bobby.
i am betraying him with every thought i have about her.
i am betraying HER with every thought i have about her because she trusts me and i'm lying to her.
i am twenty years old and i have never had a normal sexual or romantic interaction with another human being because my body won't cooperate with anyone who isn't her.
this is not love. this is fixation. i'm sick. i'm sick in the head.
if she knew what i think about when i hear her voice on the phone she would never speak to me again.
i am a bad person.
i stared at the list for a long time. each point is factually accurate. logically sound. irrefutable.
you called an hour later and called out happily, "benny, tell me about your day" and the list caught fire and burned to ash before you finished the sentence.
i am a bad person who loves a good person and the loving makes me worse.
may 19, 1988
my roommate has a girlfriend. they have sex in our room while i'm at the library and they think i don't know. i know because the sheets are different when i come back and the room smells like sweat and perfume and he's got that dazed, satisfied grin.
i looked at him last night (happy, spent, normal) and thought: why can't i be like that? why can't i want someone who wants me back? someone available. someone whose last name isn't franklin.
tried again in my head. conjured up every attractive person i've met at harvard. ran through them one by one, tried to imagine kissing them, touching them. like flipping through a catalogue of locked doors.
and then i thought about your hands in my hair and my whole body responded so violently i had to excuse myself to the bathroom.
why am i like this
why am i like this why am i like this why am i like this
three thousand miles. eighteen months of distance. dozens of kind, attractive, available people and my body is a locked room with your name on the door and no other key fits and i have tried every key and they all feel like violations.
i'm so tired of trying and failing and trying and failing and coming back to the same truth every single time:
it's you. it was always you. it will only ever be you.
and i can never, ever have you.
june 7, 1988
summer. home again.
bobby and you have been together two years and the cracks are starting to show. you don't talk about it. that's your flaw, the swallowing. the folding up of hurt into small squares and tucking them away.
i see it though. the way you wait for bobby to call and he doesn't. the way you make plans and he forgets. the way you press your lips together for one second when you're disappointed before the smile goes back on. nobody else catches it.
i catch it every time.
i hate him for it. my twin. who i love more than anyone except you. i hate him for having the thing i would dismantle myself to have and treating it like it'll always be there.
you won't always be there. patience has a floor and one day you'll hit it.
i can't say this to him. he'll hear what it really is. jealousy dressed up as concern.
july 22, 1988
you came over while bobby was at work. back porch. popsicles. you were telling me about a movie and your lips were stained red and a drop ran down your wrist and you licked it off and i—
i need to stop writing these down
"you're staring, benny."
"you have popsicle on your chin."
you wiped it off, laughing.
you don't know. you genuinely don't know what your mouth does to me, what your hands do to me, what the sound of my name in your voice does to me.
if you knew, you'd stop coming over. you'd stop touching my arm and leaning into me and putting your head on my shoulder. and losing those things would end me faster than never having had them.
good old brendan. safe brendan. bobby's quiet brother who helps with calculus and always has a book.
the mask stays on.
august 3, 1988
you fell asleep on my bed today while i was studying. lying on your stomach with one arm hanging off the edge and your face turned toward me and your mouth open and you were drooling on my pillow.
drooling. on my pillow.
the love i feel for you hit me so hard i couldn't move for half an hour.
august 15, 1988
please let me stop loving her
please. whoever is listening. let me stop.
let me wake up one morning and feel nothing when she says my name. let the hugs feel like hugs instead of slow immolation. let me sit next to her without mapping every centimetre between our bodies. let me be the friend she thinks i am instead of the liar i know i am.
i don't want this anymore. it hurts too much. please, it hurts. three years and it's only getting deeper and i can't
i can't switch it off. i don't know how. i don't think there is a how.
i think this is just what i am now. a boy who loves a girl who loves his brother.
september 6, 1988
back at harvard. unpacking. found one of your hair ties tangled in my clean laundry. you must have left it when you were over last.
i put it on my wrist. wore it all day. took it off before bed and put it on the nightstand and looked at it and thought: this is the closest thing i have to wearing a ring from you.
a hair tie. on a nightstand. in a dorm room in harvard.
september 22, 1988
i want to be normal i want to be normal i want to be normal i want to be normal i want to be happy please i just want to be happy
bad day.
october 10, 1988
you called at 1 am. crying. fighting with bobby. your voice thick and wet.
"i don't know what to do, benny. i love him so much and he won't let me in."
and i sat on my dorm room bed with the phone pressed to my ear until it ached and told you:
"you're the strongest person i know."
and you said: "why can't he just say it, brendan? why can't he just say he loves me?"
i love you. i love you. i love you. three words bobby can't get past his teeth and i can't get past my conscience.
"he loves you. he's just scared."
"i know."
"give him time."
"i always give him time."
and i wanted to say: stop giving him time. stop waiting. he's wasting you. he's burning daylight with a girl made of sunlight and he doesn't even see it.
i said: "you deserve someone who says it."
long pause. your breathing slowing.
"thanks, benny. you always know what to say."
i don't know what to say. i know what not to say. there's a vast, dark, freezing difference.
march 30, 1989
spring break. you picked me up from the airport. standing at arrivals in a sundress holding a sign that said NERD in huge letters.
you dropped the sign and ran and i caught you and your laugh was in my ear and the sundress was thin and your body was warm against mine.
you drove us home. windows down. radio on. singing badly. your hand squeezing my arm at a red light.
i would burn harvard to the ground for this. for your hand on my arm, shaking me because you were so happy to see me. for the wind in your hair. for your voice saying my name like it's your favourite word.
i would give up everything. the degree. the future. the carefully constructed life three thousand miles away.
i would give up all of it for one day where you're mine.
one day. and then i'd give you back. i'd carry the memory for the rest of my life and it would be enough.
it would have to be.
HE FUCKING FORGOT, 1989
bobby forgot your birthday.
you didn't tell me. you wouldn't. i found out because terrence called me, and said "dude, bobby got too high and forgot" and his voice was tight with the anger he rarely shows.
i called you from the payphone in the hallway and said happy birthday and you said "thanks, benny" in that voice. that bright, fine, everything's-fine voice that i can see through like glass. and i heard the crack underneath it and the love hit me and the rage hit me in the same breath.
i called bobby after, and i don't raise my voice. i have raised my voice maybe five times in my life. but i said his name in a way that made him go quiet immediately on the other end and i said "you forgot her birthday" and the silence that followed was long and guilty.
"shit," he said. "shit, benny, i—"
"call her. right now. and if you ever do this again—"
i didn't finish the sentence. didn't need to. bobby heard what was underneath it. heard the edge i keep so carefully hidden, the cold thing that lives behind the shyness, and for a second i think he heard the OTHER thing, too.
the reason the anger was so hot, the reason it came so fast, the reason his twin brother was calling from three thousand miles away trembling with fury over a forgotten birthday that wasn't his to remember.
he called you. sent flowers the next day, took you out for dinner. you forgave him because you always forgive him.
i sat in the phone booth for ten minutes after with my head against the glass. my hands were shaking. not from anger. from how close i'd come to saying too much. from the size of the feeling pressing against my ribs. from the knowledge that i would burn my relationship with my brother to the ground to protect you from pain and the fact that this doesn't make me a good person.
it makes me a dangerous one.
may 2, 1989
your voice on the phone tonight, laughing about a terrible customer at clark's, imitating his voice, making me laugh until my stomach hurt.
i pressed the phone so hard against my ear it left a red mark and i thought: i don't want to die without having kissed you. i don't care about anything else. the degree. the career. the future. i just don't want to die without knowing what your mouth tastes like.
that's all.
june 14, 1989
you were lying on a blanket in the back yard. reading. the sun was on your legs and your feet were bare and you was chewing on a pen cap. your hair was pulled up and the back of your neck was exposed.
i sat on the porch steps and watched the back of your neck for twenty minutes.
twenty minutes. the back of your neck.
i am beyond help.
july 4, 1989
short one.
sparklers again. your shoulder against mine. same beach. same sand. same sky.
different year. same ache. same shape. same boy sitting in the dark loving the same girl who doesn't know.
happy fourth of july.
september 20, 1989
second year of pre-med. my hands shake from caffeine. i forgot to eat yesterday.
you called. i picked up on the first ring. i will always pick up on the first ring.
"brendan bennett franklin. eat something, drink water, and go to bed."
"i have a paper—"
"go. to. bed. if you sound this wrecked tomorrow i'm driving down myself."
i ate a sandwich. drank water. went to bed. fell asleep holding the phone.
you mailed me a care package last month. my favourite snacks. a note that said: "don't die. i need you."
i folded the note and put it in my wallet. i'll probably be buried with it.
november 23, 1989
thanksgiving. you saw me in the kitchen and your face did the light-up. the full-body brightening.
my hair is longer, brushing my ears and curling at the nape. you reached up and pushed it back from my forehead. your fingers dragged across my scalp and my whole body went rigid.
"look at you. all grown up and scholarly." you tugged a strand behind my ear. "very handsome, benny."
i said "thanks" to the refrigerator. my ears were burning.
bobby came in. you kissed him. i excused myself.
i sat on my bed and pressed my hand to my scalp where your fingers had been and breathed in through my nose for a count of four, and out through my mouth for a count of four for ten minutes because my heart rate would not come down.
handsome. you said handsome. you touched my hair and called me handsome.
next three lifetimes. i'm carrying this.
january 6, 1990
i had a dream about you. i'm going to write it down because i have to put it somewhere that doesn't judge me.
you were in my dorm room. sitting on my bed. and you said "benny, come here" and i went. you put your hands on my face and kissed me and i could feel it. the pressure of your mouth. the warmth of your breath. your lips parting and your tongue finding mine and the small sound you made when i pulled you closer.
and then you were under me. your legs wrapped around my waist. i was inside you. and you were saying my name. not bobby's, mine, brendan. over and over while your nails dragged down my back and your head fell back and i could feel you around me, tight and warm and perfect. every time you said brendan i went deeper and you arched into me.
i woke up so hard it hurt. sheets ruined.
i lay in the dark and put my hand around myself and thought about you beneath me and came in under a minute with a pained groan, and felt like the worst person alive.
you trust me completely. and i'm lying in the dark getting off to dreams about being inside you.
i'm sick
i'm not sick. i'm in love. but from here they feel the same.
march 2, 1990
your voice on the phone last night, sleepy and warm: "night, benny. love you."
casual. friendly. the way you say it to terrence. the way you say it to your friends.
i hung up and pressed the phone against my chest and stared at the ceiling.
love you. you say it so easily. like the words are light. like they cost nothing.
for me they cost everything.
march 15, 1990
you visited for my birthday. flew out alone. bobby couldn't make it.
you were standing outside my dorm with a bakery box and a toothy grin. "happy birthday, benny! it's lopsided because TSA manhandled it."
three days. you slept in my roommate's bed. wore my harvard sweater because you forgot to pack layers, too used to cali heat. it was too big on you. sleeves past your fingertips. collar slipping off one shoulder. bare legs. padding around my room.
i very nearly put my fist through a wall.
we stayed up until 4 am. lying in the dark on separate beds. your voice floating across the room. you told me things you haven't told bobby. things about your childhood. your fears. you talk to me differently than you talk to him. with bobby you're warm but with me you're open. like i'm the one place you can put things down.
"you're my favourite person." half asleep. murmured. "don't tell bobby."
i won't tell bobby. i won't tell anyone. i will take that sentence and compress it into a diamond and keep it in my chest forever.
on the last morning you hugged me at the airport. held on. your face in my neck and your hands gripping the back of my shirt and i breathed you in. vanilla and that warm unnamed you scent. stored it. another moment that belongs to me in all the wrong ways.
"come home soon."
i'm always coming home. you're there. there is no other reason needed.
april 27, 1990
you called me crying last night. bobby again. another fight. another door closed in your face.
and i sat on my bed and held the phone and listened and said the right things and the kind things and the things a good friend says. but underneath every word was this screaming, roaring, monstrous want to say: LEAVE HIM. LEAVE HIM AND LOVE ME. I WOULD NEVER DO THIS TO YOU. I WOULD NEVER FORGET YOUR BIRTHDAY. I WOULD NEVER MAKE YOU CRY. I WOULD SAY I LOVE YOU EVERY SINGLE MORNING BEFORE YOU FINISHED OPENING YOUR EYES.
i said: "he's an idiot but he'll come around. give him time."
i'm such a coward
i am such a fucking coward
may 15, 1990
two entries in quick succession because i need to put this somewhere before it eats through my chest.
i came home for the weekend. you were at the house. bobby was at work. you were in the kitchen making lunch and you turned and saw me and made that sound (that little happy gasp) and threw yourself at me.
and i held you. my face in your hair. your body against mine. and you pulled back and looked at me with those eyes, and put your hand on my cheek, and said worriedly, "you look tired, benny. are they working you too hard?"
and your hand was on my face. your palm on my cheek. your thumb brushing the skin under my eye. and you were close enough to kiss. and i could feel my pulse in my throat and my fingertips and the backs of my knees and i was drowning in the scent of you, vanilla and warmth and clean laundry. my hands were on your waist and yours was on my face and the kitchen was empty and quiet, and i could have leaned forward two inches and—
bobby's truck pulled into the driveway.
you dropped your hand. smiled. went to greet him.
two inches. i was two inches from ruining everything and saving everything, and i don't know which it would have been and i'll never know. i stood in the empty kitchen and pressed my hand to the cheek you touched and breathed through my teeth until my heart rate dropped.
june 3, 1990
i love my brother. i love bobby since we were born seven minutes apart and he came out screaming and i came out quiet. i love him for his warmth. his courage. the way he tried to shield me from dad even when we were too small to name what was happening. how he always stood up for me, always tried to understand me even when he never could.
but when it comes to you.
when it comes to you i hate him too.
i hate that he has what i want. i hate that he doesn't always value it. i hate that he gets to hold your hand and kiss you and fall asleep with your head on his chest but doesn't understand what a miracle that is because he's never stood on the other side of it watching.
i hate myself for hating him. he didn't steal you. he asked and you said yes and i never opened my mouth. the silence was my choice. every single day i choose it and every day it gets heavier.
i love him. i hate him. i love you. i can't have you.
four facts. a box with no door.
july 14, 1990
i've gotten better at being a person.
three years of harvard and i can navigate a party without wanting to leave within five minutes. i can make friends. i can read a room without running the translation in real time. the machinery is smoother now. the performance takes less effort.
but it's still a performance. everywhere except with you.
you're the only place where i don't have to translate. the only person whose presence makes the noise in my head go quiet instead of louder. everyone else, even the people i've grown to love at harvard, requires a version of me. you just require me. the real one. the strange one. the one who needs silence and can't handle being touched by anyone except you ,and notices too many details, and feels everything at the wrong volume.
you've never once asked me to be different. you've never once made me feel like the way i'm wired is a problem to be solved. you just sit with me in the quiet and let me be strange and call me benny. hold my hand and everything inside me goes still.
the eye of the storm. every time. the one calm place in a world that's always too loud.
july 28, 1990
if i could have one day.
one day where you wake up next to me. where you reach for me in the dark. where you say brendan in the voice i've only heard in dreams. where i can put my hands on your face and say it out loud, in daylight, without shame, without the weight of brotherhood crushing the words before they leave my mouth.
one day where the "i miss you benny" becomes "i love you brendan." where the hugs don't end because you're pulling away to go back to him. where i can press my mouth to the skin on your throat i've imagined ten thousand times. where your hands are in my hair because you want them there.
just one day.
and then i'd give you back, and carry it forever.
i am twenty years old. pre-med at harvard. full ride. a life that looks like everything a person could want.
and every night i fall asleep missing a girl who sleeps in my brother's bed. and every morning the missing is the same size. the same depth. the same fixed point that everything else orbits.
i don't know how to stop.
i don't think i'm supposed to.
[undated, late 1990]
i love you
i love you
i'm in love with you
i've been in love with you since september 3rd, 1985, homeroom, twelve minutes late, window seat
i love you and i can't say it and the not saying is killing me, it is actually, physically, killing me
i love you more than he does. i love you better. i would never make you cry, i would never forget, i would never close a door in your face
no. that's not fair. he loves you. he does. he just doesn't know how. and i do know how and i can't and that's
i love you
i love you and i'm so tired of not saying it
i love you and i've never kissed anyone who wasn't wrong
i love you and you call me benny and it's the closest i'll ever get to hearing my name in your mouth the way i need to hear it
i love you and i tried to stop and i can't stop
i love you and i don't want anyone else and i've tried and i will never want anyone else
i love you and you held my hand under the table and i almost told you then
i love you and you slept on my shoulder and i memorised your breathing
i love you and you made me a mixtape and wrote "and by home i mean me" and i have listened to track 12 four hundred times
i love you and i am so afraid you'll find this notebook
i love you and i am so afraid you won't
i love you and bobby is my brother and i love him and i hate him and i love you and i can't
i love you i love you i love you i love you
i should write it down. the real way. once. clearly. not crossed out.
for every time i didn't say it but should have. for every hug where i held on too long and you didn't notice. for every time you fell asleep on my shoulder and i sat perfectly still and memorised the pattern of your breathing. for the mixtape and the silver stars and the way you said and by home i mean me.
for every phone call at 1 am when your voice was the only warm thing in my whole life. for every time you ran at me in an airport. for every time you touched my hair and called me handsome, and i said thanks to the refrigerator because looking at you while you said it would have ended me. for the parking lot where you held my hand. for the two inches in the kitchen. for the dream where you said my name. for the popsicle on your wrist. for your head on my shoulder at every bonfire. for your palm on my cheek and your thumb under my eye and the truck pulling into the driveway.
for the hair tie on my nightstand. for the book with the silver stars i still keep pressed flat inside a textbook. for the three thousand miles that were supposed to fix me and only proved that i am unfixable.
i love you.
i love you. i love you. i love you. i love you. i love you. i love you. i love you.
i love you and i should have said it in the kitchen when your hand was on my face. i love you and i should have said it in my dorm room when you were wearing my sweater and the collar was slipping off your shoulder. i love you and i should have said it at graduation when you screamed in my ear. i love you and i should have said it at the bonfire when you asked if i was happy.
i love you and i have never once been brave enough to say it and writing it down is the closest i will ever come and even now, even in a notebook nobody will read, the words feel too large for the page.
they feel too large for my hands. they feel too large for my chest which has been holding them for five years and is so full the seams are splitting and i am so tired. i am so tired of carrying this. i am so tired of being good and quiet and safe while the love sits behind my teeth and rots there because i will not let it out.
i love you. there. for every time i didn't.
i lo
[the entry ends here. the last two letters trail off the line, the pen stroke dragging sideways across the page before stopping. the ink on this page and the one before it is warped and buckled. the paper has dried stiff and rippled in places, the way paper does when it gets wet and dries again. the distortion is heaviest around the final lines, where the ink has bled and feathered outward, blurring the words at their edges. it is not water damage.]
the day after your boyfriend left your cruise room to room with his ex, he comes back to you. do you take him back or let him face the consequences of his own actions?
Summary: The secret you shared with Neteyam had taken shape, breathing and growing within you.
Warnings: 6k+ words, aged up! neteyam, rivals to whatever that they are now, no smut, angst, a little fluff, you are still an idiot at the start (avoidant final boss), but you got the ending you deserved.
Chapters: friendly fire, friendlier fire, friendliest fire, frozen fire, seed of fire
"He has arranged it," Neteyam finally looked at you, and the sheer agony in his expression made your breath catch. "I'm to be engaged. To the daughter of one of the lead warriors. Someone worthy of the future Olo'eyktan."
The words felt like a physical blow to the chest, harder than any strike you'd ever taken in training. The "we" you had finally started to believe in shattered into a thousand pieces.
You didn't let your hand shake. Instead, you sat down, reached for your sharpening stone, and ran it along the edge of your blade, anything to keep you busy so you don't break. The screech of metal on stone filled the silence.
"Then congratulations are in order," you said. You didn't look up. "A warrior's daughter. That’s a strong match."
Neteyam didn't move. You could feel his heat, his presence pressing into your space, demanding a reaction you refused to give.
"Is that it?" he asked, his voice cracking. "You’re just going to wish me well?"
"What else do you want, Sully? A toast? I’m happy for you. You get the crown, the girl, and the legacy." You finally looked at him, offering a small, hollow smile that didn't reach your eyes. "It’s a win for the clan."
"Stop it," he snapped, grabbing your wrist to pull the knife away. "Don't act like this is a strategy meeting. We are mated. We went to the grove. We joined before Eywa—"
"We didn't join anything," you said, wrenching your arm back. You stood up, tall and unbothered. "It was a just another hookup we did. Don't make it a big deal."
Neteyam recoiled. His ears flattened against his head and his tail went still. "The tsaheylu... I felt your soul. You can't lie about that."
"The tsaheylu is a biological connection, Neteyam. It’s nerves and electricity." You picked up your sharpening stone again, focusing on the blade in your lap. "I’ve connected with dozens of people over the years. You were just the most recent."
"Yeah? Right before you killed them?" his voice was low with a sudden venom. He stepped into your space, forcing you to look up. "You don't connect with people to feel them. You use it as a weapon. You use it to torture them before the end. Are you proud of that?"
You didn't flinch. You met his stare with eyes like flint. "If that's what you need to tell yourself, go ahead. It doesn't change the fact that you and whatever happened in that grove aren't special."
Neteyam went silent. The anger seemed to drain out of him, replaced by a hollow and cold look that made him look older than he was. He stared at you as if he were looking at a stranger, someone he had never shared a breath with, let alone a soul.
"It's tomorrow's eclipse," he finally said. His voice was flat, drained of any emotion.
"What?"
"The engagement party," he said, turning away from you. "It’s during tomorrow’s eclipse. My father expects everyone to be there."
He didn't wait for you to respond. He walked out of your place and into the night, the sound of his footsteps disappearing long before the beat of his ikran's wings hit the air.
The light faded as the eclipse began. The forest took on a muted hue and the bioluminescent veins of the trees started to pulse. You slipped into the back of the gathering, keeping close to the large trunks to blend in.
A small hand slipped into yours. Tuk looked up at you with wide eyes, her expression a mix of confusion and relief. Next to her, Kiri gave you a short nod, her eyes full of a knowing pity that made you want to look away. Lo'ak stood on your other side, his arms crossed over his chest.
"I thought you weren't coming," Lo'ak said under his breath.
"Just watching the show," you replied.
Your eyes went to the center. Neteyam was there, polished and perfect. He wore the heavy mantle of a leader, his braids neat and his posture straight. He was leaning in toward the girl, which you believe is his fiance. Neteyam said something quietly to her, his face close to hers, and she smiled, resting a hand on his arm.
The girl said something that made him chuckle, and he reached out to adjust one of the beads on her shoulder. The gesture was small, but it felt like a knife twisting in your gut. He was playing the part perfectly. He was giving her the same gentle attention he had given you, only this time, he wasn't hiding it.
Tuk squeezed your hand tighter. "She's nice," the little girl whispered, "but she's not you."
"She's exactly who he needs, Tuk," you said, your voice sounding like it belonged to someone else.
The Olo'eyktan stepped into the center of the clearing as the eclipse reached its peak. The shadows deepened, making the glow of the forest floor look even brighter. Jake began to speak, his voice steady and loud, calling on the ancestors to witness the union.
Neteyam stood perfectly still. He kept his eyes fixed on the girl in front of him, his hands resting on her shoulders. He never looked back at the crowd. He never looked at the spot where you were standing. It was like you didn't exist in his world anymore.
Kiri and Tuk let go of your hands. They shared a quick look with each other before walking forward to join the rest of the family. They took their places beside their brother, leaving you standing alone with Lo'ak in the darkness of the trees.
"You don't have to stay for the whole thing," Lo'ak whispered. He shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable as he watched his brother play the role of the perfect heir.
"I’m fine, Lo'ak," you said. You kept your eyes on the back of Neteyam's head. "I just wanted to see the ceremony."
"He's been acting like a statue all day," Lo'ak muttered. "He won't talk to me. He won't talk to anyone. He just does what my father tells him."
"Maybe he's nervous," you said.
You leaned against the bark of a tree, crossing your arms to hide the way your fingers were twitching. Your voice sounded flat, even to your own ears.
Lo’ak let out a short breath. He looked from you to his brother and back again. "He’s not nervous. He’s gone. He’s been like this since he came back from your camp. He looks dead inside."
You turned your head to him. "So you know he's been visiting me?"
Lo’ak looked at you, his tail giving a sharp flick of annoyance. He didn't look surprised.
"I’m his brother," he said. "He’s a terrible liar when he thinks no one is watching. Every night he’d disappear toward the west, and every morning he’d come back smelling like woodsmoke. My parents might be blind, but I’m not."
You looked back at the center of the camp. The ceremonial drums started a slow rhythmic beat, signaling the start of the dance. Neteyam took the girl’s hand. He led her toward the flat stone at the center of the village. His movements were stiff, like a wooden doll being pulled by strings. He didn't have the fluid grace he usually had when he hunted.
"If you knew, why didn't you say anything?" you asked.
"Because he looked happy for once," Lo’ak muttered. He kicked at a loose root in the dirt. "He’s spent his whole life trying to be the perfect son for my dad. When he was coming back from your place, he actually looked like he could breathe. Now? Look at him. He’s a ghost."
Neteyam spun the girl around in the first movement of the dance. The crowd cheered, clapping in time with the drums. He caught her waist to steady her, his face inches from hers.
"He made his choice, Lo’ak," you said. You felt the familiar ache at your gut, a dull pulse that matched the beat of the drums.
"He didn't choose anything," Lo’ak snapped. "He did what he was told. There's a difference. And I believe you made him do that too."
You opened your mouth to snap back, to tell him he didn't know anything about what happened in that hollow. But the words died in your throat. The ground under your feet suddenly felt like it was tilting to one side. The smell of the smoked meat and the heavy incense from the ceremony hit you all at once, making your stomach roll.
You swayed, reaching out to steady yourself against the rough bark of the tree.
"Hey," Lo'ak’s voice lost its edge, shifting to something closer to worry. "You okay? Your face just went grey."
You had been feeling off since you woke up at dawn, you thought it was just because of the lack of sleep you had last night. Now, it was a sharp, localized cramp on your belly that made you hitch your breath. Your vision blurred, the bioluminescent lights of the forest spinning into long, messy streaks.
"I'm fine," you managed to mutter, though the trees were starting to blur into one dark mass. "Just haven't eaten."
"Like hell you are," Lo’ak said. "Let's get you to the Tsahik."
Lo'ak didn't wait for your permission. He hooked one arm under your knees and the other behind your back, lifting you as your head lolled against his shoulder. He moved fast, ignoring your weak attempts to push him away.
The air in the Tsahik’s tent was quiet and smelled of bitter herbs. It was a sharp contrast to the floral scent of the ceremony outside. He laid you down on a woven mat, your breath coming in shallow gasps.
"Wait here. I'll get her," Lo'ak said. He vanished through the tent flap, his footsteps fading into the distance.
You lay there, staring up at the thatched roof. The pain in your stomach making it hard to find a comfortable position. You could still hear the faint thumping of the drums from the village center. It felt like a lifetime ago that you were standing in the shadows watching Neteyam dance.
The tent flap moved. Mo’at stepped inside. She didn't say a word as she sat beside you. Her hands were cool as she pressed them against your neck, checking your pulse.
"Lo'ak says you collapsed," she said.
"I'm just tired," you whispered.
Mo'at ignored you. She moved her hands down, pressing firmly against your abdomen. You winced, your body tensing instinctively. She paused, her fingers lingering over the spot that hurt the most. She closed her eyes for a moment, her expression shifting into something deeper, more focused.
When she opened her eyes, she didn't look at your face. She looked at your stomach.
"A life only exists when the Great Mother gives her blessing," Mo'at said. She pulled her hands back, watching you with eyes that saw everything.
You didn't move. You barely breathed. "What do you mean?"
"You are carrying a life," she repeated. She stood up, looking toward the tent opening where the sounds of the celebration drifted in. "And we know well whose that is."
The air in the tent felt tight. You looked down at your hands, your fingers digging into the mat. This changed everything. The secret you shared with Neteyam had taken shape, breathing and growing within you. A life that tied you to the Omatikaya in a way that your exile couldn't break.
Outside, the drums hit a steady beat. Neteyam was supposed to be pledging himself to someone else, but his blood was already here, in this tent, with you.
You thought about Neteyam’s face when he left your place. You thought about him dancing with the warrior’s daughter. If you told him, he would leave her. He would defy his father and the clan. If you told him, the engagement would end before the eclipse was even over.
He would walk away from the girl, the alliance, and his father’s pride. He would choose you, but he would do it out of a crushing sense of duty. He would spend the rest of his life as an outcast, stripped of his name and his future, just to sit in a cave with a girl the clan feared.
You didn't want him like that. You didn't want to be the reason he lost the only world he knew.
"Don't let him know," you said. Your voice was thin, but it didn't shake.
Mo'at stopped what she was doing. She turned around, her brow furrowed as she looked at you. "What?"
"He has a path. He is the future of this clan," you said, looking at the tent flap. Beyond it, the music was getting louder. "If he knows, he’ll leave her. He’ll fight his father. He’ll give up everything he was born for just to be with an exile."
You knew Neteyam. He was loyal to a fault. If he found out he had a child, he would throw away his crown, his family, and his honor to sit in that damp cave with you.
Mo'at watched you for a long time. The silence in the tent was heavy, broken only by the bubbling of her pot. "You would carry this alone?"
"I could handle it," you said. You sat up slowly. "Tell Lo'ak it was just a fever."
Mo’at stood by the simmering pot, she stirred the liquid, the steam rising to cloud. "This child is my blood," she said. "My daughter's first grandchild. You ask me to bury a branch of our family tree in the dirt of a cave?"
"I’m asking you to save him," you said. You gripped the edge of the mat, forcing the nausea down. "If he finds out, he leaves. He’ll watch the clan look at him with shame every day."
"Please," you pleaded, your eyes stinging. "Let him have the life he was born for. Don't let me be the thing that breaks the Sully family."
Mo'at stayed silent for a long time. She finally poured the medicine into a small wooden bowl and set it beside you. She didn't look at you when she spoke.
"I will tell them it was a fever," she said. Her voice was thick, carrying a weight you couldn't name. "I will tell Lo'ak to escort you back to your shelter. But Eywa sees all, girl. You cannot keep the tide from coming in."
"I just need to keep it back long enough for him to forget me," you said.
You drank the medicine. It was bitter and tasted like earth, but it settled the fire in your stomach. Within minutes, the tent flap opened, and Lo'ak stepped back in, looking anxious. He looked from you to Mo'at, waiting for the verdict.
"It is as I thought," Mo'at said, her voice regaining its sharp authority. "She's just too tired. Take her back to her shelter and see that she rests."
Five weeks had passed since the eclipse. The western cliffs was colder now, the wind biting through the thin skin of your shelter. Without the communal fires of the village, the nights felt twice as long.
Neteyam hadn't come back. Not once. You heard from the occasional passing scout that the wedding preparations were moving fast. The prince was busy. You told yourself it was what you wanted, but some nights the loneliness felt like it was physically crushing your lungs.
The sickness hit you in waves. Some mornings you could barely stand to look at the dried meat you had worked so hard to store. You spent most of your time sitting by the small fire.
"You're just as stubborn as he is," you muttered, your voice raspy from disuse. You were sitting by the fire, skinning a small yerik. The smell of the raw meat made your stomach flip, a sudden wave of hormonal irritation rising in your throat. "Just like him. Sticking around where you aren't wanted."
You dropped the knife and rested a hand over your belly, feeling a faint flutter from inside. "I hope you don't get his eyes nor his ego," you said.
You leaned back against the rock wall, a stray tear sliding down your cheek. "I will take a good care of you. You won't need a clan that hates you. We'll leave before you're even born, and he'll never even know he had a son or a daughter to break."
"He'll never know what?"
The voice was like a physical strike. You bolted upright, the sudden movement making your head spin and your stomach flip.
Neteyam was standing at the entrance of the hollow. He looked terrible. His skin was dull, his eyes were bloodshot, and he had clearly lost weight.
He didn't move. He just stared at your hand, which was still pressed firmly against your stomach.
"I heard you," he whispered, his voice shaking. "I heard what you said."
You scrambled to your feet, your heart hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird. "You heard wrong," you said. "I’m losing my mind out here. I talk to the walls. I talk to the shadows."
"Shadows don't have fathers," he said. His voice was thick, like he was choking on the words. "And shadows don't get his eyes."
You backed up until your shoulders hit the damp rock. "It's just talk, Neteyam. I’m bitter. I’m angry. I say things I don't mean."
"You said he'd never know," Neteyam stepped into the shelter. He ignored the mess of your camp, his focus entirely on you. "You said you'd leave before it was born. That I’d never have to break."
He wasn't angry. He sounded like he was falling apart. He took another step, his hand reaching out but stopping short of touching you.
"I thought you hated me," he whispered. "That night here at the fire... when you told me I was just a hookup. I believed you. I went to the ceremony and I stood there like a corpse because I thought I was the only one who felt the bond."
Neteyam looked at the fire, then back at you. His jaw was set and his face was pale.
"I sat through that ceremony," he said. "I let them announce the match because I thought I was nothing to you. I thought the bond was all in my head."
"You can't leave everything for this," you said. You wiped a stray tear away with the back of your hand. "I can raise this child alone."
"I won’t let you," he said. He stepped forward and grabbed your arm.
Neteyam’s grip on your arm was firm. He wasn't letting go.
"I can't let you live alone with my child," he said, his voice dropping an octave. He stepped closer, crowding you against the stone. "You think I’m that kind of coward? That I’d go back and play husband to a woman I don't love while you're out here struggling to breathe?"
"It’s not just yours," you snapped, finally wrenching your arm back. "It’s mine too. If the clan finds out, what then? You want your child to be an outcast? To be treated like a curse just because of who their mother is?"
You looked toward the dark mouth of the cave, your heart racing. "I have to leave. I’ll go as far as I can before the truth comes out. It’s the only way they stay safe."
Neteyam didn't move. He stood like a wall between you and the exit. "You’re not going anywhere."
"Neteyam, think for once," you said, your voice rising. "The village will never accept this. You’re supposed to marry a warrior’s daughter, not harbor an exile."
"Then I'll go with you," he said.
The words were flat and sure. He didn't hesitate. He just watched you, his jaw tight and his hands balled into fists at his sides.
"You’re talking about leaving everything," you said. You shook your head, trying to find the words to make him see sense. "Your family. Your title. You'd be an outcast. You wouldn't be a Sully anymore. You'd be nothing."
Neteyam didn't even blink. "I don't care."
"You say that now," you whispered, the first tear finally spilling over. "But when you're hungry and cold, and you realize you can never go home... you'll hate me for it. You'll look at this child and only see what you lost."
"Never," he said. He stepped forward, closing the space between you.
The weight of it finally broke you. The weeks of isolation, the sickness, and the terror of the future crashed down. You started to sob, the sound raw in the quiet cave. You covered your face with your hands, your shoulders shaking as you let go of the mask you'd been wearing.
He didn't hesitate. He pulled you into his chest, his arms wrapping around you. One hand went to the back of your head, pressing your face into his shoulder while the other held you tight.
"We'll find a way," he whispered into your hair. He held you until your breathing slowed, his own heart beating a rhythm against yours. "I'm not letting go again."
Neteyam sat on the dirt floor, pulling you back against his chest so you could lean your weight on him. He kept his arms wrapped around your waist, his chin resting on your shoulder. The fire had burned down to a pile of red coals, but the heat from his body was enough to stop your shivering.
"The girl," you said, your voice still a rough whisper. "The engagement. What are you going to tell them?"
"Nothing yet," Neteyam said. He rubbed his thumb over the back of your hand. "I just need to be here. Everything else can wait until the sun comes up."
You looked at the glowing coals, feeling the steady thump of his heart against your back. The idea of him walking away from everything felt impossible. He was the heir to the Olo'eyktan, the one everyone looked to.
"Are you sure?" you asked. Your voice was small in the quiet of the cave. "You have to leave everything. Your parents, your siblings... your name."
Neteyam didn't hesitate. He tucked his head closer to yours, his arms tightening around you. "To build a new family with you? Yes."
The honesty in his voice made your chest ache. You wanted to believe it could be that simple, but you knew the world outside this hollow wouldn't let it be.
"Your mother will never forgive me," you whispered. "She’ll see this as me stealing her son."
"She’ll see that I made my own choice," Neteyam said. He shifted his hand, spreading his fingers over your stomach. The heat of his palm felt like a promise. "I'm not letting my child grow up in the shadows because I was too afraid to leave the light. I’m staying, and that’s the end of it."
He sat there with you for a long time, just breathing together. The fire eventually died out, leaving the cave in the dim blue glow of the forest. You felt the exhaustion finally catching up to you.
Your eyes were heavy, and the warmth of Neteyam’s chest was almost enough to pull you into a deep sleep. But then the air changed. A rhythmic thumping started in the distance, growing into a roar that vibrated against the stone walls of the hollow. It was the sound of hundreds of wings beating in unison.
You both scrambled to your feet. Neteyam grabbed his bow, and you followed him to the edge of the cliff.
The sky was crowded. Dozens of ikran riders were sweeping past the ridge, their silhouettes sharp against the moon. You squinted, picking out the patterns on their wings.
"It's the Mangkwan," you whispered, your heart dropping into your stomach. "But why are they carrying rifles?"
Neteyam’s face went hard, his eyes tracking the metal gleaming in the hands of the riders. "That’s Sky People gear," he said. "I think they’ve made a deal."
The riders were diving straight toward the heart of the Omatikaya territory, moving with a speed that meant they weren't there to talk. The peace of the forest was about to be torn apart.
"We have to go," Neteyam said, whistling for his ikran. "Now!"
You grabbed your bow and slung the quiver over your shoulder. You gave a sharp whistle, and your ikran spiraled out of the mist, landing on the ledge with a hiss.
Neteyam was already mounted. "Stay close," he said.
The wind bit at your face as you dived. The village was a mess of orange fire and screaming. You could see the bioluminescent plants being crushed under the weight of the landing Mangkwan mounts.
Neteyam didn't hesitate. He pulled his bow to full draw and let out a sharp cry, letting an arrow fly. It caught a Mangkwan rider in the chest just as the man was raising his rifle toward a group of fleeing children. The rider tumbled from his ikran, his weapon clattering onto the roots below.
"Take the ones on the perimeter!" Neteyam shouted over the roar of the wind.
You banked your ikran to the right, your heart thumping against your ribs. You notched an arrow and released. The shot was clean, catching the enemy in the throat. He slumped over his mount's neck, and the ikran spiraled out of control, crashing into the thick brush.
Gunfire erupted from below. Bullets hissed past your head like angry insects. You saw the Mangkwan were coordinated, moving in groups to pin the Omatikaya warriors down. They knew the terrain. They knew the weaknesses of the village.
Neteyam was a blur of blue and shadow, weaving through the trees and picking off riders with a terrifying speed.
The forest floor was a chaotic map of fire and blood. You could see the Omatikaya warriors being pushed back toward the roots of the Hometree, their bows no match for the rapid-fire rhythm of the rifles. They were losing ground fast, their numbers dwindling as the Mangkwan riders picked them off from the canopy.
Then you saw her.
Varang was leading the charge, her ikran a streak of dark scales against the orange glow of the burning moss. She had a human carbine gripped in her hand, firing with a practiced precision.
"Neteyam!" you screamed, pointing toward the center of the village where Jake was pinned down by three riders. "Go! Help your father!"
Neteyam hesitated, his hand white-knuckled on his bow. He looked at you, then at the fire spreading toward the nursery, then at his father. The conflict in his eyes was agonizing.
"I'll handle Varang!" you yelled, banking your ikran hard to cut her off.
He let out a frustrated snarl, but he saw the logic. He dived toward the ground, his ikran shrieking as he plummeted into the smoke to reach Jake.
You turned your attention back to Varang. She saw you coming. She pulled her mount up, hovering in the heat-shimmering air above the burning trees. A cruel smirk twisted her lips as she recognized the exile who had once been her daughter-in-arms.
Varang didn’t waste time with a greeting. She squeezed the trigger, the muzzle flash of her rifle lighting up the smoke-filled air. You yanked your ikran’s head to the side, feeling the hot whistle of lead pass so close to your ear that your skin stung.
She banked her mount with a violent jerk, her movements far more aggressive than the graceful flight patterns you’d been taught. "Look at you now, fighting your own people."
"You stopped being my people the second you took their metal," you spat back, your voice nearly lost in the rushing wind.
You yanked your ikran's reins, forcing a sharp roll to the left as a burst of gunfire chewed through the air where your wing had been. The heat from the fires below rose in shimmering waves, making the air thin and turbulent. Your stomach lurched, a reminder of the life you were carrying, but you forced yourself to stay upright.
Varang didn't care about grace. She flew like a machine, her ikran screaming under the strain of her brutal steering. She swung the rifle around, using the strap to steady her aim against the wind.
You realized then that you couldn't win a distance fight. Not against a rifle. You leaned forward, hugging your ikran's neck, and forced the bond into a suicidal dive. You were aiming the entire weight of your mount.
Varang’s eyes widened as she realized what you were doing. She tried to bank away, but you were already on top of her. Your ikran slammed into hers with a sickening thud of bone on bone. The force of the impact nearly threw you from the saddle. You reached out, grabbing the edge of Varang's gear, your fingers locking onto the cold metal of her rifle strap.
The two ikran became a tangled mess of wings, talons, and shrieking rage. They couldn't stay in the air. The bond between the mounts and the sky broke, and suddenly, the horizon line vanished.
You were falling.
The wind whipped your hair into your eyes as you and Varang tumbled through the air, still locked in a desperate struggle.
The green canopy of the forest rushed up to meet you. It was a wall of leaves and thick branches.
CRACK.
The first layer of the canopy hit like a physical blow. Branches snapped under your weight, tearing at your skin and your wrap. You lost your grip on Varang as you both smashed through the layers of the forest.
You lost the sky, you lost Varang, and for a terrifying second, you felt nothing but the weight of the fall.
Then, the world turned a deep shimmering violet. You had fallen near the Tree of Souls.
"Get up," a voice rasped.
Varang was ten feet away, staggering to her feet. She looked like a nightmare carved from the shadows. She didn't have her rifle anymore, but she had a long knife gripped in her hand.
You forced your body to move. Every muscle screamed in protest. You rolled onto your knees, your fingers digging into the soil.
You reached for your hip. Your bow was snapped in half somewhere in the canopy, but your knife was still there. You drew it, the blade trembling slightly in your grip as you forced yourself to stand.
"You're bleeding, daughter," Varang sneered, spitting out a glob of dark blood. She took a step toward you, her gait uneven but determined. "What now? You pray to Her? You think the Great Mother cares about you?"
You let out a low hiss, your teeth bared.
"See?" Varang let out a laugh. "You still hate her. I can feel the anger in your skin. Why don't you come back to us? Leave these forest-dwellers to burn in the fire they started."
"It’s between me and Eywa," you spat, your fingers tightening around the hilt of your knife until your knuckles turned white. "And I don't find any fun in killing innocents."
Varang’s face contorted, the mocking laugh dying in her throat. She looked at you with a disgusted clarity, as if she were finally seeing a weapon that had turned out to be a dud.
"Fine," she hissed. "Then die with the rest of the shadows."
She lunged low, her blade aiming for your thigh to ground you. You pivoted, the moss slippery beneath your feet, and slashed out with your own knife. The blades met with a dull clack, the vibration traveling up your arm and jolting your bruised shoulder.
Varang was relentless. She fought with the weight of someone who had nothing left to lose, her strikes heavy and punishing. You were forced onto the defensive, backing up toward the massive, glowing roots of the Tree of Souls.
Varang didn’t give you another chance to find your footing. She lunged with the weight of a falling tree, her shoulder slamming into your chest and sending you sprawling backward. You hit the ground hard, the back of your head snapping against the exposed, glowing roots of the Tree of Souls.
Varang slammed her weight into your chest and the back of your head cracked against a thick root. The world went white for a second. You felt the dampness of the moss soaking into your skin and the heavy pressure of her knee pinning your shoulder down. She leaned in close, the knife hovering just above the pulse in your neck.
You couldn't breathe. You looked up at the violet canopy of the Tree of Souls and for a moment you thought the ancestors were already calling you home.
Your hand scrambled blindly in the dirt, searching for a rock or a branch. Instead, your fingers closed around a vine that had grown out from the main root. Without thinking, you grabbed the end of your queue.
The second the neural filaments touched the tree, the world exploded.
It didn't feel like a normal bond. It felt like a thousand voices screaming and singing at the same time. The history of the Omatikaya and the memories of every person who had died flooded into your mind.
The flood of dead voices almost made you sick, but you shoved the memories back and reached for the raw energy humming in the soil. You didn't care about the ancestors right now. You just wanted Varang off you. You slammed your will into the root, treating the forest floor like an extension of your own nerves.
Thick, cord-like vines snapped out of the glowing moss like traps. They coiled around Varang's ankles and calves in a heartbeat, jerking her backward with enough force to pull her right off your chest.
You pulled yourself up into a sitting position. The connection felt like fire in your veins, but you didn't let go. Varang was pinned flat against the earth.
You looked down at her, your face cold."You despise Eywa because you think she's weak," you said, your voice sounding strange and echoed through the bond. "But I never thought she was weak. Maybe she's just a little unfair."
You reached out with your free hand and grabbed Varang's queue, connecting it with the roots of the Tree of Souls.
The second the filaments locked into the glowing root, Varang’s entire body went rigid. It looked like a bolt of lightning had traveled up her spine.
You leaned over her, your face inches from hers. "Can you hear them?" you hissed, the words coming out as a low, dangerous growl. "Every life you took. They’re all in there."
Varang’s fingers clawed at the dirt, her nails breaking against the stones. She was feeling the weight of every death she had caused. She looked up at you with a face full of raw terror, her bravado completely gone.
You watched her for a moment longer, letting the cold justice of the forest sink in. Then, with a sharp, brutal jerk, you ripped her queue away from the root. You willed the glowing vines to loosen their grip, and they slid back into the moss like snakes.
You forced your legs to stay steady as you looked down at her. "Thanks for raising me, mother," you said. Your voice was quiet and cold. "But please. Leave me and this place alone."
Varang didn't wait for you to change your mind. She scrambled backward on all fours, her hands slipping on the damp moss as she tried to get away from the roots.
You watched her go until the sound of her frantic scrambling was swallowed by the hum of the valley. Your strength went with her. Your legs gave out and you slumped back against the pulsing root, your queue still locked into the neural network of the tree.
The world felt thin, like you were floating in deep water. You looked up at the shimmering canopy, the bioluminescence blurring into a hazy glow. The collective voices of the ancestors were still whispering in the back of your mind, a low roar of memories that didn't belong to you.
"I know you're probably gonna ignore me," you whispered, your voice barely a thread of sound in the quiet valley. You gripped the root tighter, forcing your last bit of intent into the connection. "But please let the people win. I don't ask for me. I don't care what happens to me. But do it for them. For the ones that always devoted themselves to you."
The violet light of the vines started to spin, faster and faster, until the glow turned into a blinding white wall.
Then, the world went black.
The first thing you felt was the heat. Not the searing fire of the burning village, but a thick, humid warmth that smelled of crushed ginger root, dried sage, and old earth.
You tried to sit up, but a hand immediately pressed down on your shoulder, firm and steady.
"You’re awake," Neteyam’s voice was a low rasp.
"Where am I..." The word felt like sandpaper in your throat. You tried to swallow, but your mouth was too dry.
"It’s the Tsahik’s tent," Neteyam whispered. He reached out, his thumb brushing over your knuckles.
"How is everyone?" you asked, your voice cracking. "Did we win?"
Neteyam nodded slowly, a small, hollow smile touching his lips. "We did. But it wasn't the warriors who finished it. In the middle of the fire, everything changed. Dozens of palulukan and unbonded ikran came screaming out of the trees. It was Eywa. She heard someone."
"Someone called to the Great Mother," Mo'at said from her place, her voice deep and resonant. "The spirits were screaming in a way I have not felt since the Great Sorrow. We wondered why the forest rose to protect us when we were so close to falling. Then we went to the Tree of Souls and saw you there, passed out in the dirt with your queue still fused to the roots."
"People are respecting you now," Neteyam said, his eyes searching yours with a desperate kind of hope. "You don't have to go back to the cave. You don't have to hide in the shadows of the cliffs. We can live here. Together. As we were supposed to."
The thought of it made your heart ache. For months, you had survived on scraps and silence, watching the village from the treeline like a ghost. Now, the idea of sleeping under a roof and walking the common paths felt like a dream you were about to wake up from.
The tent flap moved aside, Jake was the first one in. Behind him, Neytiri stepped in, then came the others, Kiri, Lo'ak and little Tuk, who looked like she wanted to jump on the bed but was holding herself back.
Neytiri walked closer, she reached out, her cool fingers brushing your forehead. "Are you okay now?" she asked. Her voice didn't have the sharp edge it used to. It was soft, almost like the way she spoke to her own daughters.
You nodded and swallowed hard, looking at the family gathered around you.
Jake stepped forward. "People are apologizing for what they did to you," he said. "The hunters, the warriors, they know what you did at the Tree. They'll be happy if you're willing to stay. There is a place for you here. A permanent one."
You felt a lump form in your throat. You looked at Neteyam, who was still holding your hand, his face glowing with a relief so bright it almost hurt to see. You took a shaky breath and nodded.
"I'll stay," you whispered.
A small sigh of relief seemed to ripple through the tent. Tuk finally couldn't help herself and leaned against the edge of your mat, her eyes wide.
Neytiri sit down beside you, her hand moving from your face to rest gently on the blanket covering your stomach.
"Also," Neytiri said, her lips curving into a genuine smile for the first time since you had known her. "We cannot wait for the birth of our first grandchild."
You looked at Neytiri, your eyes wide with shock, then slowly turned your head to look at Neteyam. He was still sitting right next to you, but his ears suddenly flicked back and he refused to meet your gaze.
"You told them already?" you asked, your voice a mix of disbelief and a tiny bit of a smile.
Neteyam rubbed the back of his neck, looking completely sheepish. "I didn't mean to," he muttered. "When they brought you in... you were so pale. I just panicked. I kept asking the Tsahik if the baby was okay."
Neytiri let out a soft laugh, and even Jake chuckled, shaking his head at his eldest son's lack of a filter.
"He was very loud," Jake said.
You looked at Neteyam’s burning cheeks and the way his tail was twitching in embarrassment. For the first time in months, the weight on your chest was gone, replaced by a warmth that had nothing to do with the fire.
"Well," you said, leaning your head against his shoulder. "At least I don't have to worry about how to break the news."
Neteyam finally looked at you, his eyes bright with a joy he didn't have to hide anymore. He leaned down and kissed your forehead, the rest of the family settling in around the mat, finally whole. The war was over, the exile was finished, and the forest was quiet. You were home, and for the first time, you knew you weren't going anywhere.
This is the reallll last part, don't ask for more lmao. I'll come with another story maybe, and maybe with other characters too. 🤫 I can't answer to all the inbox but thank you so much for the supports, I love you all.
content warnings: angst, bittersweet romance, emotional yearning, deployment, military themes, temporary relationships, themes of loneliness, bittersweet ending
authors note: inspired by the song “made in japan by buck owens”
some people stay with you forever. others stay for one season, one town, one stretch of highway. years pass, names blur, faces soften around the edges, but somehow, every time you hear that one song or take that one exit, you’re twenty-two again.
he’s twenty-two.
he’s stationed for training for a few months before deployment in a sleepy coastal town halfway across the country from south carolina.
every morning before sunrise, he stops at the same little diner because it’s the only place open.
she works the opening shift.
she isn’t extraordinary in the movie-star sense.
she just… remembers him.
she pours his coffee before he even sits down.
calls him “hon.”
asks how training went.
makes fun of his accent.
he teases hers.
at first it’s just ten-minute conversations.
then twenty.
then she starts sitting across from him during her break.
she tells him she wants to leave this town someday.
he tells her he already knows what it’s feels like to leave home.
⸻
he never asks her out.
she never asks him to stay.
because they both know.
he’ll be gone.
⸻
one rainy afternoon she asks him,
“what happens if you never come back?”
he looks down at his coffee.
“…then don’t wait.”
she laughs like she’s going to make a joke.
instead her eyes fill with tears.
“i wasn’t planning on it.”
⸻
the day before he leaves, she gives him one of those cheap tourist postcards from the town.
on the back she writes,
“if you ever drive through here again, coffee’s on me.”
that’s it.
nothing dramatic.
no phone number.
no promises.
⸻
years later—
he does.
he’s driving through with his wife and little boy on the way to visit family.
