bakerstreet | /CLINGS FOREVER

/CLINGS FOREVER

The Let's Fucking Cuddle Meme

action is fun and smut is nice and mysterious magical hijinks through space and time are the bomb diggity. and sometimes you just want to aggressively cuddle your friend/sibling/parent/pet/lover/acquaintance/this new person you are meeting now.

this meme is for just that: latching on and not letting go until that what/whoever has been cuddled.

how this works;
1. post your character with as much/little information as you want (name/series/preferences/whatever).
2. go to rng for a number for where and why the cuddles are happening. or just pick one.
3. respond to others.
4. cuddle. but like. really cuddle. no one is letting go until everyone is completely thoroughly cuddled.

a. where
1. by a heat source : because outside is cold but this fire/space heater/demon is warm and cozy and just right. winter is just getting started, okay.
2. away from a heat source : wow going out into the snow during a rainstorm a million miles from the nearest blanket was a poor choice--but wait. there's snuggles.
3. a private place : maybe you're watching a movie on the couch, maybe you're catching up on the newspaper in the breakfast nook, maybe it doesn't matter because whatever you're about to be cuddled.
4. a public place : cuddle time waits for no man or no "more appropriate" setting sometimes. out in a park, in an airport, in the middle of a food court--the time for snuggles is now and other people be damned.
5. somewhere else : if somehow a place which is unrelated to heat and/or neither in or outside. even in such a place there can still be cuddles.

b. why
1. the sleepies - it's been a long day and all you want to do is close your eyes for a bit. do this by claiming someone as a cuddle you can sleep on.
2. bad weather - heavy rain, thunder, blizzard, monsoon; these are things which ruin plans. luckily, they cannot ruin cuddles.
3. because surprise - is your buddy working too much and needs a distraction? are you being ignored when you need a hug? does the love just need to be spread? whatever it is, they won't see it coming until they're being snuggled.
4. activity conducive - maybe you're watching a movie or reading a book or squished together in a train car or dancing to the point of exhaustion or waiting in line for a thing. it's just super easy to change whatever you're doing into being a pile of cuddles. so do it.
5. so emotion very love - it's totally platonic but still totally overwhelming. the love you have for this person just needs to be expressed, and only a clinging of cuddles will do. hug them. hug them now and also forever.
6. jeepers creepers - was it a spider in the washroom, a ghost in the attic, a bad dream, a figment of your imagination, an actual serial killer? probably all. probably a nightmare ghost spider serial killer breaking out of your imagination. clinging to someone might fix it.
7. there, there, little friend - sick in bed, just been dumped or having some other sort of crappy day, you need someone to wrap their arms around you and make everything go away.
8. that other thing - whatever, you do what you want. you go, cuddle friend. you do your thing.

lovingly squished together out of these memes and cuddled together.

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[It's not like she isn't used to the hideous nastiness that comes with her job, or that she doesn't know how to cope with it by now. If there's one thing Penelope Garcia does well, it's cope with nastiness. She's got more practice than she ever expected to.]

[It's just that today the baby hippo pictures aren't washing the images of gruesome murder out of her head like they usually do, and anyway Reid told her today that hippos are actually pretty murderous themselves and rattled off some stats about it and - it was just bad, it was bad, and not good for the psyche.]

[She's bought herself a hot chocolate because it's a day ending in Y and she does what she wants, and she's sitting outside in the park nearest to her house, letting the brisk autumn chill settle around her neck like a stole, when he passes by. They're not - friends - exactly, they've sort of seen each other around a few times, he must have moved in around the corner recently. But some instinct tells her he probably wants to share her hot chocolate.]

[And she just really, really doesn't want to be alone right now. So she transfers the hot chocolate to her non-waving hand and then waves aggressively to catch his eye.]

Hey! I have to tell you something!

[ He's seen her around the neighborhood. He always says hello to the strikingly stylish lady who seems so sure of who she is and so damned unapologetic about it, because that's a beautiful thing, the world needs more of that.

They've hardly exchanged more words than that, he doesn't even know her name. He spies her on the bench and he smiles, one of those fleeting but honest and warm ones he's best at. She waves. And then she waves, and he stops short, reaching inside his hood to yank one earbud free, then the other, just in time to hear her call out to him.

There's a brief deer-in-the-headlights, oh-shit-did-I-do-something moment, clear from the way he goes very slightly wide-eyed at her, eyebrows raised. ]

I-- uh. Sure.

[ He wanders over, music floating faintly from the dangling earbuds, to stand beside the bench, looking down at her. ]

Everything okay?

[He looks, for a second, like he thinks he's in trouble. And that's - unfortunate, but also kind of adorable. She grins at him, waves him over, pulls him down onto the bench very gently by his earbud - if she had Soundhound right this second - well, she could just ask him.]

What're you listening to?

[Which isn't the point at all, but it's making her feel better. She can feel the percussion of pick on strings, and it's like being part of something not quite so damaging again, something pretty. She could thank him for that alone.]

[But, well, again. Not the point.]

I just needed someone to sit with me. You're here. So sit with me.

Okay?

[ It's the gentlest tug, really, she's being careful with that earbud she's taken hold of. But Dukken obeys it as if she'd grabbed a fistful of his shirt and bodily hauled him down onto the bench. Maybe it's just that she seems the sort of woman who's accustomed to getting her way. Maybe it's that she seems to need this, somehow. Maybe he just wants to.

Whatever it is, there's a clear pull, and he lets himself be drawn in. He settles on the bench, taking a moment to divest himself of the books he'd been carrying under his arm. Those are neatly stacked to the other side of his body, and then Penelope has his full attention, green black-lined, black-shadowed eyes studying her face with mild concern. ]

Okay. Here I am. Sitting with you.

[ There's another brief flicker of a smile, sympathetic, uncertain. He's not sure what else to do, so he seizes on her question about the music. ]

"Under the Milky Way." The Church? I bet you know it.

[ With lots of other people, he might've said, "I'm sure you heard it in a car commercial." Not her. She seems way more cool than lots of other people, he's sure she knows it just because it exists.

There's a short flurry of activity: he tugs down the zipper on first his coat, then the hooded sweatshirt beneath. Not entirely open--both zippers are pulled about halfway down. There's a glimpse of a black t-shirt beneath that as black-lacquered, silver-ringed fingers reach inside to coax out more of the cord to his earbuds. It's clear he'd threaded them up inside his sweatshirt, probably to better work with them under his hood.

That gets swept down, revealing a spiky mop of blond hair. One earbud he draws around the back of his neck, the cord draping, leaving it dangling near his collarbone. ]

Could I just-- thanks.

[ The other one he gently pulls from Penelope's grasp, with another little smile. He holds it between his thumb and forefinger, careful not to touch her body as he drapes it over the very large flower pin adorning the shoulder of her coat. He leaves the earbud nestled there; one hand vanishes inside his sweatshirt again and then the music is louder.

But it's still only coming out of one earbud. In case she can't hear clearly, he murmurs the words along softly. ]

And it's something quite peculiar
Something shimmering and white
Leads you here despite your destination
Under the Milky Way tonight

Wish I knew what you were looking for
Might have known what you would find
Wish I knew what you were looking for
Might have known what you would find...

[ She gets another smile, with eyebrows raised--she knows this, right? Has she heard it before? ]

[All of a sudden, there's an earbud in her flower. She looks sideways at Dukken, surprised but not displeased. It's like he knew exactly what she wanted - the rest of what she wanted, the part of her hungry not only for human connection but for information, for something new.]

[This is new. But not quite. She frowns into the middle distance as he hums; halfway through the chorus she goes oh, but silently, and pops the earbud into her ear, listening intently. It takes a minute, but then she's snapping her fingers, ah-ha, and singing along: Might have known what you would find.]

I know it, I know - I remember, I heard Metropolis and I got really excited about the ending, and I went - sort of backwards? In their discography. And then forwards again, but that whole sort of late-80s thing, those albums, those were the best.

I've never, I mean never ever met someone in real life who likes them. Isn't that crazy?

[And she smiles at him, popping the earbud out to better hear his answer. Isn't that just crazy?]

[ His face lights up, and he nods, excited. He knew he was right, he knew, somehow, that she'd know this song, this band. ]

That is crazy.

[ He sighs with a faint shake of his head, some people's kids, et cetera. ]

I think I kinda went the other way around? I loved The Unguarded Moment for a long time because it felt like all the awful things I felt like I was going through, right? Make me feel like dying--, make me feel like shrinking-- all that. But the more I heard it, the more I liked this--

[ He tilts his head at the earbud in her fingers. ]

It's my favorite now. There's something... It's like it's both really ordinary and otherworldly at the same time. It feels like it speaks directly to you and your experiences but it's so broad and open that it's also wide open for interpretation. I like that. And it's beautiful.

[ He slips his hand back inside his sweatshirt, and the song plays again, from the beginning. When his hand reappears, it's being offered to her, to shake. ]

I'm Dukken.

[ Long "u" sound, accent on the first syllable, it's probably completely stereotypical that a dude that looks like him has some odd name, too.

She seems to need something. His company, sure, she gave voice to that, but he's not sure that's all she needs. Figuring it out means getting to know her better; names seem a good place to start. ]

Yeah.

[Not "yeah" at anything, "yeah" at everything, an expansive sigh of a word. She understands everything he's saying, and better yet, she thinks he understands all that she's said, which is rare enough. Plenty of people don't. As if her meaning is obtuse, as if wearing your heart on your sleeve is some kind of confusing.]

[It's good that he isn't looking for anything else in her than what she's got.]

[She listens for another moment, her breathing steady to the beat of the music, cold dragon breaths in the air. Then:]

Dukken like Duke.

[A little grin. He doesn't look much like a duke. She wouldn't have invited him over if he did.]

I'm Penelope, Dukken like Duke. And today you're my knight in shining armor.

[Hoodie. Whatever.]

[ Dukken raises his eyebrows, casting a questioning glance down at said hoodie. Shining armor, indeed.

He looks nothing like a duke, and that's on purpose, what with all the layers of black clothing, coat to hoodie to t-shirt to skinny jeans to boots, even the leather cord holding the large silver cross around his neck (featureless, not a crucifix, nothing religious) and the fingernails and the eye makeup. It's open rebellion, not just against society and conformity, but against being the wholesome-looking cute blonde dude with green eyes he'd likely otherwise be.

But a knight in shining armor? That's a nice sentiment. That's not something he'd mind trying, if she needs it. There's another fleeting smile as the song swells, faint notes drifting out from the separated earbuds. ]

Penelope. Man, to hear Homer tell it, she was like, the woman to end all women. For twenty years she had like a hundred dudes trying to win her hand, because everyone thought Odysseus was dead. But she stayed constant. She knew, or maybe she just hoped really really hard, that he was coming back.

She was smart as hell, too. Like she kinda fucked with all these dudes--told them she had to make a burial shroud and she would pick a new husband when she had finished it. But every night she'd unravel what she'd done during the day, so she didn't finish.

[ He clearly approves of all this. ]

Some people think what she did when he came back was more of her putting those dudes off for a while longer. He came back in disguise, right? And the classical interpretation is she didn't know but she said any man who could like, heft and use Odysseus' bow would win her hand. But everybody knew he was the only one strong enough to use it.

But. I think there's a more empowering interpretation. I mean, we already established how smart she was. How she could play the game to her advantage. So if you'd put up with a hundred dudes complaining at you for twenty years about how you ought to marry them, and you realized your husband was at home now even if he was in disguise... wouldn't you just put his bow right in his hands so he could take care of business for you? Because that's what he did, after proving he could use it and he was worthy of her hand, he took off his hood and laid waste to all these jerks.

[ [He smiles again, rolling his head a little to one side to look at her. ]

That's a great name. So I'm like, at your service, Penelope. What noble undertaking do you have for me?

[She's heard the story before, of course. She knows where her name comes from. Once she didn't like it much. It means weaver, and she was always more adept with a hot-glue gun than a needle and thread. That and, well, what good is a woman who's going to wait twenty years for a man who's probably dead?]

[She came to terms with it a long time ago. Penelope became just her name, the way you call a girl who wears flowers in her hair. She learned to weave people together instead of thread, and she got to be proud of her name, the way she is proud of herself. It's beautiful, the way she's beautiful: unexpectedly, unabashedly.]

[But the way he tells the story, it's like he's shining a whole new light on the name she's lived with her whole life. It's amazing, and she finds herself wondering what he does for a living, if he's ever thought of sitting cross-legged in front of a group of children and telling them all the stories of themselves, their own histories, their own futures. He's so obviously so good at seeing beauty in everything.]

[She knew it. The second she saw him, she knew it. Her instincts are good, almost always.]

[By the end of his speech, his story, she's beaming.]

I've never been through twenty years of darkness. Not like her. But when you look at darkness all the time, sometimes when you lean back away from it, it stays with you. You know? Sometimes it doesn't want to let you go.

I can't tell you a lot more than that. [She shrugs, a little helplessly.] It's confidential. Work stuff. But it's just that - everything's a little dark right now.

So I need you to find me the sun.

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you."

[ He knows, somehow, that he doesn't have to tell her that's Nietzsche. Beyond Good and Evil.

He's not even sure he's on the right track, or any track at all, quoting that epigram. But what she said about looking at darkness and then trying to lean back from it, it reminded him of that quote. He tends to speak aloud what crosses his mind, what comes into his heart. He has to trust that speaking about this will take them somewhere meaningful. ]

What's inside of us, you know--

[ His hand raises, spread open and facing his body, making a vague sort of circular gesture at chest level. ]

In here. It's like--war. Constant struggle. The things that drive us? They struggle with what we encounter that's not in here. The world outside us.

But sometimes if we... say we don't have something outside to battle right now. Maybe it went away. Or maybe we won or maybe we got our ass handed to us. Or maybe we even internalized that something. When there's nothing out there--

[ Another raise of his open hand. First he gestures, away from his body, palm out: out there. Then a repeat of his gesture from a moment ago: in here, as he carries on speaking. ]

--for us to fight, we wind up doing battle with ourselves.

Only the strongest people are properly armed to do that kind of battle. To take on that darkness. Stare into that abyss and realize that it's looking right back at you.

[ It's all still Nietzsche, for all his easygoing recounting. He still knows he doesn't have to tell her that. It's not his best guess, it's not even a hope that she might recognize it. Dukken is convinced, absolutely certain, that she gets it and knows it and needs nothing explained to her.

He also knows she can stare into the abyss and walk away, even if she's forgotten that in the moment. She's the right kind of person. The strongest kind of person.

He watches her a moment, some mix of sympathy and determination lighting those black-rimmed eyes. ]

I can help you find the sun. Let's start with some warmth.

[ He raises an arm, holding it out. Come closer? ]

[Once she wouldn't have known. A decade ago, two, she wouldn't have put her focus into long-dead philosophers. She could have named Nietzsche, but not quoted him, or understood him. She would have laughed a little at the prospect that his words could be even remotely relevant to her life.]

[But that was before she truly looked into the darkness. That was before she really lived in the way she's living now, half in shadow and half in light. Taking light from the day to cast it into the night, so that sometimes the night ends a little sooner. It's what she does - it's what they all do.]

[And it's her team, her friends, her family who taught her that sometimes the words that are memorialized in time are worth learning about after all. That Nietzsche can make the whirl of emotion that she's feeling right now, the sense of darkness and defeat, make sense, even if just for the briefest moment. She could never have worked with Reid, with Gideon, with Hotchner and escaped the knowledge that the world is broader and more all-encompassing than she once imagined.]

[So when Dukken quotes it - when he elaborates and elucidates - she smiles. Leans into his shoulder without the need for any further invitation. It feels like home in his arms, the way he offers so much of himself without knowing the background. The way he trusts her and believes the best of her without even knowing her.]

That's a start.

[She thinks about telling him that he'll have to buy her a hot chocolate next, decides against it. He'd smile, but he could also think she meant it, and she doesn't want him to think she's greedy. Instead she indulges in a different kind of greed, grabbing his outstretched wrist and wrapping it around her neck in a tight hug.]

You really think I can stare down that abyss, huh?

[ He'd offered his arm, his embrace, his warmth, on impulse. He may carry a lot of things around in his head--words, ideas, history--but he doesn't often refer to his head when it's time to act, preferring instead the extemporaneous counsel of his heart.

It leads to a lot of fleeting oh god am I about to get slapped moments. But he trusts in himself, trusts in his heart, has to have faith that his instincts won't lead him astray. That what unfolds is what needs to unfold. Every moment is a new opportunity: to connect with someone, to learn, to help, to create something.

He's still pleased when she settles against his shoulder, tugs his arm close. His faith that what will be will be is absolute and he trusts in the impulses of his heart, but it's always nice to be met halfway in those moments, for things to unfold in ways that don't involve getting hit.

Dukken leaves his arm where she guided it for a few long moments, and then he uncoils it only a little bit, just enough for his hand to rest on her shoulder. For him to touch anywhere else, as she'd moved his arm, would've been too much like a chokehold. He's interested in not getting hit, after all. ]

Good.

[ It's a good start. The rest will come to them, will unfold as it needs to.

He leans down a little, his face moving nearer to her bowed head. He doesn't kiss her, that's too forward, too presumptuous. He doesn't quite bury his face in her hair or rest his chin on her head or anything like that. He's just close enough that maybe his breath registers faintly, lips near her hair without touching it.

Those lips curve into a bright smile. She can't see it, but maybe she can hear it in his tone. ]

Oh, yeah. Totally. You strike me as a tough enough lady that one good stare from you would leave that abyss standing in a puddle of its own piss.

[ He's just saying. ]

[The funny thing is, when she first approached him - or rather, encouraged him to approach her - she wasn't thinking of it as a romantic thing. She's just a touchy person, and in her darkest moments she needs someone to hold close, to prove to her that the world isn't such a terrible, awful place after all, to bring her closer to the sun. Usually it's part of her family, Derek or Emily or JJ or Reid, but today they weren't there. Today Dukken was.]

[Now, though, there's a shiver running up her spine at the sensation of his breath on the side of her head, at the sound of a smile in his voice. She finds herself wanting very much to make him smile, and not thinking she can, and then realizing, hell, she already has, hasn't she?]

[She gives herself a moment of silent congratulations. Penelope Garcia, conqueror of gothic hearts everywhere.]

[His comment makes her laugh, too. Not that he's wrong. She remembers when Derek told her, Remind me never to piss you off, how pleased she was by it. This is, if anything, better. Not only can she scare people, but she can scare things that go bump in the night.]

You sure know how to make a girl feel good about herself.

[She glances sideways, grinning, then ducks her head to lean into him.]

You can keep complimenting me if you want to.

[She's just saying.]

[ He hadn't been thinking romantic thoughts either. He knows he's not the kind of guy most ladies his age or above--he's clearly past the high-school-outcast stage of trying on this identity, too old even (probably) for an unironic college try. The makeup obfuscates a lot but he's a grown-ass man. Too old, then, for the young girls who dye their hair and line their eyes with what they can get for cheap at the neighborhood CVS, and he reads as too young to others because that's what people expect with the eyeliner and black nails.

It may be strange for a guy who sticks out so completely in this otherwise unremarkable city park to feel he's invisible, to come across as invisible. But he does, on both counts, so he didn't pursue the vibrant lady whose path kept crossing his with anything more than polite acknowledgement and the kind of distant, well-intentioned longing one fleetingly has for someone you know to be out of your league. She might as well have been in a movie, or in a book, for all he ever imagined there would be more than bright smiles and traded hellos.

But now she willingly leans into him. Teases him, with warmth. Turned to him like a flower, the loveliest one in all the garden, might turn her face to the sun for light.

Pardon him if his heart beats a little faster. But for all that he looks like the opposite, he's a gentleman. Her head on his shoulder and his lips close enough to brush her hair but not actually doing so is as much as will happen.

He huffs out a soft laugh. Penelope has always struck him as the kind of lady who merely makes her whims known and the universe--or, at least, the people in her orbit--make them so. Well, here he is, and there's her whim. ]

Keep complimenting you. I can do that.

I don't think anyone ever tells you "no," not for anything that means anything to you, and gets away with it completely. Am I wrong?

[ It's a tribute to the strength and self-determination he senses in her. Even if she can't quite find it right now, he suspects it's there. He suspects it's always there. ]

And, man, do I appreciate a person who knows exactly who she is and makes no apologies for it.

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/CLINGS FOREVER

a4; b6

aaaaaa still excited ok

yesss

:D

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