heart like yours (jennifer jareau)

4. sixteen

AN: hi guys! happy monday!!

so quick question:
season four is so fucking boring to write i'm gonna be so real, so like?

will you all be chill if i speedrun s4 so we can try and get to s5 within a reasonable time because i'm so over s4😭 like if there's any specific cases you want me to write i will but otherwise i'm gonna timeskip and just keep the important moments in to show development but like fuck me i've been writing s4 forever it feels like

lmao i'm such a disaster ngl

either way! here's a chapter of family fluff bc i fucking hate s4 and don't know what else to write!!

just a few TWs:
mentions of suicide
mentions of child abuse
mentions of homophobia

i hope you guys enjoy!! <333

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"you are sunlight through a window, which i stand in, warmed." - jessie burton

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Mason didn't have a favourite parent. He didn't. He loved Delilah and JJ equally.

He did have different bonds with each of them, though, and that was okay. His therapist said that it was okay, and it was actually very important, considering his and Delilah's bond could be considered a gateway for a trauma bond due to how they met.

Though, Mason liked to think it was the opposite. Yeah, she was there on the day Mason's dad sold him to a creepy old man and they both witnessed his dad blow his brains out before she got him out of the room and, yeah, maybe he'd punched her, but she got it and she'd never made him feel bad for it.

He loved Delilah a lot. He knew he loved her the moment she stormed down to his school and threatened four kids, their parents, and his old headteacher. She proved she was the right person for him to trust, and Mason had trusted her entirely since that day.

She was his person. She loved him because he trusted her, because he looked at her and saw someone worth trusting. He knew, now, that they likely latched onto each other the way they did because he was Delilah's first case back after her dad, and she had comforted Mason after a nightmare and talked to him like he wasn't a stupid little kid.

She was his mom. Mason didn't remember the woman who gave birth to him, and he couldn't miss someone he didn't remember. He didn't think much about her at all until he met Delilah and JJ, and he was only thankful for her existence now because his life had sucked so much until he got to meet his family, his real family, and that was worth the pain he'd lived through.

Delilah had earned the title of mom. Mason had slipped up calling her it, hadn't dared say it again, but he knew she didn't mind. Delilah understood him better than anyone. She got it, and Mason didn't worry. He just hadn't been able to say it again, likely because his therapist thought he didn't want to just say it on a random day after the first time he said it was in such a monumental moment for him as a person in general.

Mason knew he loved JJ from the moment he re-met her. He'd met her on the jet home, of course, but she and Delilah hadn't been on the best terms, apparently, so, he hadn't known much about her until he met her when she picked him up from school.

They bonded over Broadway and cheetos and Mason was sold. JJ was sunshine in the best way. It was impossible not to love her the moment you met her. She was very different from Delilah, but different wasn't bad.