Death Note timeloop AU where Light wakes up on the morning of January 28, 2010 with memories of dying on a filthy warehouse floor. His immediate instinct is to take out a single scrap of paper from his watch and write down the name 'Nate River'.
When they arrive at the warehouse, the SPK is distraught and leaderless. The task force is horrified by the news. Everyone vows to see this through to the end while Light eagerly waits for Mikami to arrive and take the rest of them out.
Right as Mikami reveals himself, Light feels his chest tighten and his world goes black, sending him right back to the morning of January 28, 2010.
Light tries again and again and again. He writes Near's name more times than he can remember. Writes it at different times, writes in different causes of death, squeezes all their names onto that single scrap of paper. Yet without fail, his heart gives out at the exact same time every single rewind.
On his nth rewind, Light's had enough. When he wakes up, he no longer reaches for a pen. Doesn't even check his watch. He lets it all play out until they arrive at the warehouse, where everything is exactly where it's always been. Except for Near. Light hasn't seen him since the first time, but immediately he can sense something's wrong.
Near has no mask on. He's standing. And as soon as they make eye contact, Near starts walking towards him. Calmly at first, then with an underlying sense of urgency. For the first time in a long time, Light's heart races instead of stops.
Near snatches his wrist and reveals the scrap of paper to the warehouse. Light is apprehended, held down against the filthy floor by Near's team as his own team surrounds him with weapons drawn. He waits to be rescued by a heart attack reset that never comes. Staring up at Near, grip tight around Light's watch, he realizes that Near remembers everything too.
Finally // Beautiful Stranger (art by the inimitable @dickpuncher)
Zuko’s life, when he was still performing, had been an endless stream of attractive musicians; puffed up egomaniacs who thought they were gods gift to the music industry. He thought he’d known every type of rockstar, and at the end of the day they were really all the same.
Never any drummers, though.
Never anything like Sokka.
the long awaited ellebeau collab is finally here in the form of a drummer!sokka au, coming in hot at the end of zukka week
Feeling the cold metal against his fingers as he held the coin in pocket, Reid decided, this was it, the best time.
"Do you know that 16.5% of the American population has some sort of addiction?" Reid blurted out, breaking the silence of the jet. The team, was on the way back from Alaska, so they had plenty of time to kill, and plenty of time to talk. It was an even better moment to have this conversation as even Garcia was there.
"No Reid, can't say I did know that." Morgan responded, looking up from his iPod, searching for a good song to put on next.
"How many people is that honey? Roughly anyway." Garcia asked, quickly correcting herself on the open question, not really in the mood for a long winded response.
"About 20 million."
"Wow, that's quite a lot." Hotch chimed in.
"Well I know I don't have an addiction." Rossi smiled, leaning back into his chair. "Unless you count my love of old wines, but I don't consider myself an alcoholic."
"Closest thing I will ever come to an addiction would be Cheetos, but even I don't love them that much." JJ joked.
"I'll agree with Rossi, I like a good wine, but I'm not an alcoholic by any means." Emily agreed, then taking on a serious look, grasping her girlfriend's hand. "But JJ, we need to talk about the amount of Cheetos we have in the cupboard." She joked.
"Oh shut up." JJ laughed, swatting Emily's hand away.
"I don't think I've ever had an addiction either." Hotch said.
"Me either." Morgan added. "What about you, baby girl?"
"Only my love for you all." Garcia cooed.
"We love you too, Penny." Emily smiled.
"Then that leaves you, pretty boy." Morgan stated, directing their attention to his boyfriend.
As if on cue, everyone on the plane turned to face the youngest agent.
"Well-" Reid started, preparing himself for a very difficult conversation, only to be cut off by Emily.
"Let me guess, coffee?" She laughed.
"Ha ha, very funny, I don't drink that much coffee. Actually-"
"Uh, yes you do." Rossi interrupted.
"Spence, we've been on the plane for an hour and you're on your fifth cup." JJ laughed.
"I've had four." Reid weakly defended.
"Is that supposed to be reassuring, love?" Morgan teased.
"Face it honey bun, you have an addiction." Garcia smiled, ruffling his hair.
"Well it's better than my old one." Reid rushed out, finally getting to what his fact was leading up to.
With one sentence, the jet went silent.
"Reid, what other addiction?" Emily asked.
For just a moment, all Reid could feel was relief. They never knew, or at least Emily never knew.
Reid cleared his throat, it suddenly feeling very dry. "None of you know?" Reid hesitantly asked. Everyone shook their heads. "Hotch? Gideon never told you."
"Never told me what, Reid?" Hotch pressed, trying to keep his face neutral, but his micro expressions showing just how worried he was.
"I started this conversation because I wanted to show you all something, but if none of you knew in the first place, there's no point." Reid said quietly, letting the coin drop back into his pocket, where he'd been holding it.
"Reid love, whatever it is, you can tell us." Morgan reassured his boyfriend. "We won't love you any less."
"Yeah kid, we won't think of you any differently." Rossi soothingly added.
Here goes nothing. "Four months, 12 days, and 23 hours ago, was the five year anniversary of Tobias Hankle kidnapping me."
Everybody, including Rossi, even though he wasn't there for it, tensed.
Inhaling sharply, Emily nodded. "Go on."
"Over the course of two days, Hankle- he- Hotch?"
"Hankle tortured Reid, trying to get him to confess his sins. Though it wasn't just Tobias." Hotch picked up.
"Merda, there were multiple unsubs?"
"Yes, but also no. Tobias had dissociative identity disorder. His alters were that of his father, Charles, and Raphael, an archangel without emotions or mercy." Hotch explained. "Charles and Raphael beat him, whipped his foot, forced him to play Russian Roulette, forced him to pick who dies out of four seemingly random people, who they thought sinned in some way, and even killed him. Reid had fallen back in his chair and hit his head, which caused a seizure. Only for Tobias to bring him back with CPR. We saw some of it on a livestream, but not all. I think we only saw about 20 minutes of Reid's kidnapping."
"How did you find him." Rossi asked.
"Reid had been giving us hints throughout the whole thing." Emily replied.
Penelope looked like she was seconds away from covering her ears and pretending she wasn't there.
"Well it's good you saved him." Rossi said, thinking that was the end.
"We didn't." Morgan said, looking very ashamed.
"Reid had confessed to sending his mother to Bennington's so Charles forced Reid to dig his own grave. We had arrived where Reid was being held at that point, so Reid could see our flashlights, but he obviously couldn't just call out, so he tricked Charles into digging. He then got ahold of Charles' gun and shot it with it, knowing there was only one bullet. Luckily, he did."
"We got Reid not even a minute after, we didn't really rescue him, he rescued himself." JJ whispered.
"So what exactly did that monster do?" Rossi growled.
"Beat him, whipped him, psychologically tortured him, played Russian Roulette with him and made him dig his own grave." Hotch answered.
"And drugged me." Reid finally whispered.
Silence enveloped the jet.
"What?" Garcia whispered.
"He drugged me. The whole time I was held captive, I was higher than this jet." Reid sombrely said. "When I confessed my sin, I was too high to even know what I was saying. You thought I seized because I hit my head. While that is partly true, it was mainly because I overdosed. Tobias had an addiction to dilaudid, which was caused by his father's abuse, and he thought if I was high, it wouldn't be as bad. It wasn't as bad."
Reid let what he had said wash over the jet.
"Reid..." JJ whispered, tears in her eyes.
"The first time he did, it I was so scared, I begged him not to, the second time, I didn't have the strength to tell him no, because it really and truly made it easier." Reid shamefully said. "When you found me, I wanted a moment alone with Tobias. I stole the vials. When I got home, I shot up with the syringes I kept in my apartment for science."
"Spence... oh honey." Morgan whispered, wanting to hold his boyfriend's hand, but thinking against it as he saw Reid's leg bouncing with anxiety, and the last thing he wanted was for Reid to have a meltdown.
"I was addicted for four months and 12 days. It took me missing a plane and talking with my ex, Ethan, and Gideon for me to realise I needed to get clean. Ethan had told me that it was obvious that I was high, and that you all knew, but turns out, only Gideon knew."
"Reid, I'm so sorry, we all just thought you were going through ptsd." Garcia cried, tears flowing freely now.
"I was, but also high."
"I remember you took four days off after that, you said you needed a little more time." Hotch stated.
"I was detoxing. I detoxed alone, I thought I was going to die," he said, ignoring their guilty faces, "but ever since then, I've been sober. Today-" Deep breath. "Today marks my five year sobriety." He pulled out the medallion, showing it to his team. "I got it when we were in Alaska. I stopped by an NA to get it on the way to the airport."
"Oh Reid, we're so proud of you." Emily said, nodding at him.
"We are, kid." Rossi added.
"I'm going to make you so many cookies!" Garcia tearfully exclaimed. She seemed seconds away from hugging the poor 29 year old, being held back only by Hotch's hand on hers. Which was good, because a spontaneous hug would not have gone over well with the young genius.
"You really didn't know." Reid whispered to himself.
"Of course not. If any of us had known, we would have helped you in a heartbeat." Emily reassured him. "But I do have to ask, is that why you didn't like me back then?"
Reid wrinkled his nose and eyebrows in confusion. "I never disliked you. I just- I was going through some pretty serious withdrawals, not unlike heroin withdrawals."
"Ah," JJ said, "good to know you never hated my girlfriend."
"I could never hate Emmy."
"Aww, Reid, you are the only one who gets to call me Emmy. Is that clear everyone?" Emily joked.
"We're glad you told us." Hotch said, giving his best fatherly smile possible. "It makes more sense now why you never accepted narcotic painkillers when you were infected with anthrax and when you got shot."
"Oh baby genius, you must have been in so much pain." Garcia cried.
"It's ok Garcia, it's in the past. I'm really happy I told you all too, at least now you know, and when I'm ever injured in the future, you can make sure I don't have narcotics given to me. I've gone to narcotics anonymous meetings, so I'm doing good. But I did increase the amount of coffee I drank when I got sober." Reid pointed out. "I don't know if you noticed."
"We just thought it was because of the nightmares." JJ replied.
"Though, now that I think about it, it doesn't make sense as much anymore because I've lived with you for a while now, and you don't get them as much anymore."
"But it still makes sense, because you have a caffeine addiction." Emily laughed.
"I wouldn't call it an addiction per se, it partly was because of the nightmares, but it was mostly because whenever I had a craving, I'd get a cup of coffee, and over time, I just kept the habit of drinking so much. It still helps when I get a craving, even though they aren't as often now as they were in the first few months. It just kind of became a coping mechanism." Reid explained. "I guess I kicked an old addiction, with a better, but still not great, new one."
"Stick with the caffeine, kid." Rossi smiled.
Reid grinned, pocketing the medallion once more. He was glad he told them. They were his family. He felt light, like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Everything was fine.
"I'm sorry, is no one going to mention that Reid said when he's injured in the future we'd know not to allow him narcotics?" Emily said.
Light Yagami misses the notebook by minutes, allowing him to lead a normal life and eventually succeed his father as Chief of the NPA.
Following the sudden disappearance of the first L, Near is rushed into taking up the mantle and continuing his work before the world notices.
When a series of murders takes the world by storm, Chief Yagami discovers the truth behind a situation that has been developing in the background of his life for well over ten years. Together with L, they assemble the pieces of a case left behind by their predecessors.
In which Mikami is late for the Yellow Box Warehouse meeting, and instead of waiting for him the Task Force and SPK decide to go out and have a team lunch.
