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reidmarieprentiss · 10 months ago

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Breaking Point

Summary: Spencer has a partner, his partner is not necessarily a great person. You really just want to connect with him, he is your roommate, Penelope's, friend after all. But Spencer just does not seem to like you, can you change that?

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader

Category: fluff, angst

Warnings/Includes: Spencer has a partner, implied bisexual Spencer, non-graphic cheating, emotionally distant partner, controlling partner, Spencer is sassy and kind of mean, mention of Spencer's drug problem, insecurities

Word count: 14.6k

a/n: i know i can treat you better than they cannnnn -- happy one day early post !!!!

main masterlist part two

The evening was typical for you—a night out with the team at one of their usual spots, a lively bar that served as the backdrop for many of their post-case celebrations. You were perched on a high stool at the bar, sipping on a cocktail Penelope, your roommate, had insisted you try, something bright and fruity with just the right amount of sweetness. The music was loud enough to make conversation a bit challenging, but not so much that it drowned everyone out.

You leaned back slightly, your eyes casually scanning the room. Derek was engaged in a playful argument with JJ about some obscure movie reference, and Rossi was deep in conversation with Hotch. Everyone seemed relaxed, their faces lit with the glow of well-deserved downtime.

But then, something caught your eye—a flash of movement at the other end of the bar. Spencer, the quiet and reserved member of the team who had always been somewhat of a mystery to you, was engaged in what looked like a rather intense conversation with someone you didn’t recognize. The contrast between Spencer’s usual timid demeanor and the animated gestures he was making now piqued your curiosity.

You leaned closer to Penelope, who was sitting beside you, tapping away on her phone as usual, her fingers a blur of activity. "Who’s that?" you asked, nodding toward Spencer and the unknown person.

Penelope glanced up from her screen, following your gaze, and immediately sighed, rolling her eyes in a way that suggested this was a scene she had witnessed more times than she cared to count. "That’s Eli," she said, the name laced with a tone that was hard to miss. "Spencer’s partner."

Your eyes widened in surprise. "Spencer has a partner?" The revelation blew your mind. You'd known the team for over a year, seen and been seen in all sorts of situations—some more embarrassing than others—and not once had Spencer ever mentioned having a partner. It was like discovering a hidden chapter in a book you thought you knew well.

Penelope gave you a knowing look, her lips pressing together as if she were debating whether or not to continue. You nudged her lightly, urging her on. "What is it? You can’t just leave me hanging."

She sighed again, this time more softly, and leaned in closer so that only you could hear. "It just doesn’t seem like they’re very happy together, you know? They always seem to be arguing about something or other. I don't think I’ve ever seen them have a normal conversation."

You turned your attention back to Spencer and Eli, who were still deep in conversation—if you could even call it that. From where you were sitting, it looked more like Eli was doing most of the talking, their tone sharp, while Spencer listened, his face a mask of confusion and quiet frustration.

"Why does he stay with them if they’re so unhappy?" you asked, the question slipping out before you could stop it.

Penelope shrugged, taking a sip of her drink before responding. "Spencer's complicated, you know? I think part of him feels…responsible or something. Like he has to make it work, even if it’s not working."

You nodded, still watching the exchange between Spencer and Eli, feeling a strange mix of emotions. Part of you was shocked that Spencer, someone who always seemed so put-together, was caught up in a relationship that didn’t seem to bring him any joy. And another part of you, the part that had always felt a bit of an inexplicable attachment to him, felt a pang of something else—something almost like protectiveness.

"I never would’ve guessed," you murmured, more to yourself than to Penelope.

"Yeah, well," Penelope replied, her voice tinged with a hint of sadness. "There’s a lot about Spencer that’s easy to miss if you’re not looking closely."

As the night wore on, you couldn't help but keep glancing in Spencer's direction, wondering what else you might have missed about him over the past year. The more you thought about it, the more you realized how little you actually knew about the man who had somehow managed to become both a puzzle and an enigma in your life.

—

You’re not sure what brought on this new damn near obsession with Spencer Reid, but ever since you found out about him having a partner, you’ve been thinking about him differently. It was as if knowing he was capable of being in a relationship made you want to be the one who showed him what a healthy one looks like. The thought had wormed its way into your mind and now, no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t stop thinking about him in your daily life.

Whether you were at work, at home, or out with friends, your thoughts always seemed to drift back to Spencer—his quiet demeanor, the way he fiddled with his hands when he was nervous, the way his eyes lit up when he talked about something he was passionate about. You found yourself daydreaming about what it would be like to be the one who made him smile, the one who could take away the stress you’d seen him carry.

Weeks passed, and you tried to push these thoughts to the back of your mind, but they always crept back in. So when Penelope proposed a night at Rossi’s, you jumped at the opportunity, hoping that maybe being around him might help you understand why you were feeling this way.

When you arrived at Rossi’s, the place was buzzing with laughter and conversation. Penelope was already engaged in a lively discussion with Derek and JJ, and Rossi was busy pouring drinks for everyone. As you scanned the room, your eyes landed on Spencer, standing off to the side, a drink in hand. He was alone—no Eli in sight.

Your heart skipped a beat, and before you knew it, you were making your way over to him, driven by an urge to finally talk to him alone. Maybe this was your chance to get to know him better, to bridge the gap that had always seemed to exist between you two.

“Hey, Spencer,” you greeted, nudging your elbow gently against his as you walked up next to him.

“Oh, hi, Y/N,” he replied, his voice carrying a hint of confusion as he looked at you. It was as if he wasn’t quite sure why you had come over.

“How are you?” you asked, trying to sound casual, though your heart was beating a little faster than you’d like to admit.

“Fine, thanks,” he nodded, his gaze drifting away from you almost immediately. “And you?”

“I’m great, thank you!” you answered with a smile, hoping to ease the tension that seemed to hang in the air between you.

But Spencer didn’t reply. Instead, he stood there, clearly feeling awkward, his eyes focused on some distant point in the room. You bit your lip, trying to think of something else to say, something that might spark a real conversation.

“So…I didn’t know you were seeing someone,” you ventured, letting out a small, nervous laugh, hoping to lighten the mood.

At that, Spencer stiffened. He finally turned to look at you, his expression hardening in a way that caught you off guard. “Well, you don’t really know me, do you?” he said, his tone colder than you’d ever heard it before.

“What?” you asked, taken aback by his sudden shift in demeanor. The sharpness in his voice sent a jolt through you, making you feel like you’d stepped onto thin ice without realizing it.

But he didn’t stop there. “You don’t know me at all, Y/N,” he continued, his voice carrying an edge of bitterness as he scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Why would you be privy to intimate details of my life?”

The words hit you like a slap in the face, and you stood there, stunned and at a loss for words. “Oh—I don’t know, I’m sorry,” you stuttered, your confidence crumbling as you tried to process what had just happened. You had expected many things from this conversation, but this level of hostility wasn’t one of them.

“Yeah, okay,” Spencer muttered, a bitter laugh escaping his lips as he turned on his heel and walked away, leaving you standing there, violently confused.

You watched him retreat, your mind racing to understand what had just happened. The warmth and excitement you had felt moments ago were now replaced by a cold, sinking feeling in your chest. What had you done wrong? Why had he reacted that way?

As you stood there, the lively chatter and laughter of the party continued around you, but it all felt distant, muffled. All you could think about was Spencer’s harsh words, and the way he had looked at you—like you were a stranger, like you had crossed a line you didn’t even know existed.

“Hey mama, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. You good?” Derek’s deep, familiar voice cut through the fog of your thoughts, grounding you back in the present.

You blinked a few times, forcing a smile onto your face as you turned to face Derek. “Huh? Oh yeah, I’m fine,” you replied, doing your best to sound convincing. “It’s good to see you!”

Derek didn’t seem entirely convinced, his brow furrowing slightly as he studied you, but he didn’t press further. Instead, he smiled back, his usual warmth returning as he pulled you into a quick hug. “Good to see you too, girl. Let’s get you back in the spirit of the night, huh?”

You nodded, grateful for his easy going nature as you allowed yourself to be swept back into the flow of the evening. Derek had a way of making everything feel a little lighter, and as the two of you rejoined the group, you found yourself easing back into the laughter and conversation around you. It wasn’t hard to get caught up in the fun, especially with Penelope’s infectious energy and Rossi’s endless supply of stories.

But no matter how much you tried to focus on the good vibes of the night, there was a nagging thought at the back of your mind—a quiet, persistent echo of your brief and bewildering interaction with Spencer. You couldn’t shake the image of his face, the sudden hardness in his eyes, and the way his tone had shifted so drastically from the Spencer you thought you knew.

You stole a glance across the room, where Spencer was now engaged in a conversation with JJ, his expression relaxed, his laughter genuine. It was as if nothing had happened at all, as if your exchange just moments earlier hadn’t rattled you to your core.

The contrast was jarring, and it left you feeling even more confused. How could he seem so unaffected, so nonchalant, after what had just transpired? It was like the sweet, shy man you’d come to know had been ripped away in an instant, replaced by someone who was colder, more distant, and completely unreadable.

You couldn’t help but wonder what you had done wrong, why such an innocent question had triggered such a reaction from him. It was just one question—one that, in hindsight, seemed harmless. And yet, his response had been anything but.

“Hey, earth to Y/N,” Derek’s voice snapped you back again, this time with a playful nudge. “Where’d you go just now? I was asking if you wanted another drink.”

You blinked, realizing you had zoned out again. “Oh, sorry! Yeah, I could use another one,” you said, offering him another smile. This time, you meant it. Maybe another drink would help you forget the odd tension for a little while, help you push Spencer out of your mind.

—

That night, as the evening began to wind down, you noticed Spencer slipping out quietly after saying his goodbyes to everyone but you. A pang of something—hurt, maybe?—struck you as you watched him head toward the front door, his figure receding into the night. You tried to brush it off, telling yourself it was just the lingering awkwardness from earlier, nothing more.

But then you noticed something out of place—Spencer had left his satchel behind, the one he always carried with him, filled with books, notes, and who knows what else. Without thinking, you grabbed it and rushed out the door after him, your heart pounding with adrenaline and the hope of another chance to talk.

“Spencer! Wait!” you called out, your voice echoing in the cool night air as you ran down the driveway, the gravel crunching under your feet.

Spencer, already halfway into the passenger seat of the car, paused at the sound of your voice. He looked back over his shoulder, his expression immediately shifting to one of mild annoyance when he realized it was you. For a brief moment, you wondered if he was hoping it would be anyone else but you.

“You left your bag,” you panted, holding it up as you caught up to him.

“Oh,” he replied, his tone flat, his eyes glancing at the bag as if it was the last thing on his mind. “Thanks,” Spencer added, his voice barely above a mumble as he took the satchel from your hands.

You forced a smile, trying to ignore the awkward tension hanging between you. But just as you were about to wish him a good night, your eyes shifted to the driver’s seat where Eli was sitting, glaring at you with a cold, suspicious gaze that sent a shiver down your spine. The intensity of their stare made you falter, your words catching in your throat.

“Have a good ni—” you started, but before you could finish, Eli’s hand jerked the car into gear, and the tires screeched against the pavement as they peeled out of the driveway. The door barely had time to close behind Spencer before they were speeding off into the night.

You stood there, breathless and confused, watching the taillights disappear down the road. The cold night air seemed to wrap around you, a stark contrast to the warmth that had filled Rossi’s home just minutes ago.

You couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling that had settled deep in your chest. The way Spencer had looked at you, the way Eli had glared, the way the car had sped off as if they couldn’t wait to leave you behind—it all left you feeling more out of sorts than ever.

—

The next time you saw Spencer, it was completely by accident. You were excitedly attending the grand opening of a vintage bookstore that had been on your calendar for months. The store was rumored to have an original copy of Pride and Prejudice, and you were determined to get your hands on it. As you approached the entrance, ready to join the line that had already started forming, a tall, familiar figure caught your eye.

Spencer was standing off to the side, hunched in on himself as he spoke into his phone. His posture was tense, and his voice, though hushed, carried a tone of desperation and frustration that made you slow your steps.

“—you said you would be here! You know how important this is to me…” His voice wavered, and he paused, listening to whoever was on the other end of the line.

Your heart ached as you watched him, his expression filled with hurt and disappointment. His next words were spoken with an urgency that tugged at something deep inside you.

“I went to your comicon, waited all night in line to get a video game for you, and I did that…thing! This morning, remember?”

You couldn’t hear what Eli was saying, but from the look on Spencer’s face, it was clear that whatever it was, it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. You could hear the strain in his voice, the way it shook as he tried to hold back his emotions.

“Eli,” Spencer sighed, the sound so full of defeat that it nearly broke your heart. He sounded like he was on the verge of tears. “I never ask you to do anything…it does matter! It’s not stupid…okay. Yeah. Bye. Love you too.”

As he ended the call, you watched as he put his phone in his pocket, his shoulders slumping as he sniffled, clearly trying to compose himself. The vulnerability in his posture made you want to reach out, to comfort him, to tell him that he deserved so much better than this.

But before he could see you, you quickly made your way past him and into the line, your heart racing. You didn’t want to embarrass him by acknowledging what you had overheard. It felt too private, too raw, and you knew that if the roles were reversed, you wouldn’t want someone to witness such a moment of weakness.

Little did you know that Spencer had seen you walk by, his heart sinking further as he realized you might have heard his conversation. The idea of you knowing how he couldn’t even get his partner to come to a bookstore—a place that meant so much to him—was mortifying. It was bad enough that Eli had chosen to watch football with their friends instead of joining him, but the thought of you knowing about it only added to his embarrassment.

Spencer fell into line a few people behind you, trying to shake off the lingering feelings of rejection. He wished that the rift between you two didn’t exist, especially on a day like today. The thought of walking through the store with someone, discussing books, sharing little discoveries, was something that would have brought him immense joy. But now, with the awkwardness hanging between you like a thick fog, he knew it wasn’t possible.

As the line moved forward, you tried to focus on the excitement of the bookstore’s opening, but you couldn’t help but steal glances back at Spencer. He looked so alone, so isolated, and it made your chest tighten with an emotion you didn’t quite want to name. The bookstore should have been a place of happiness for him, but all you could see was the shadow of his disappointment.

You had managed to find the original Pride and Prejudice that you wanted, and your heart felt so full it was almost overwhelming. This book meant the world to you, bringing back memories of your grandmother reading it to you when you were sick as a child. The familiar scent of old pages and the sight of the worn, delicate cover brought a lump to your throat, but it was the good kind, the kind of feeling that reminded you of warmth and love.

As you clutched the book to your chest, savoring the moment, a voice came from behind you, pulling you out of your reverie. “Great choice, I can’t believe they have an original.”

You turned, surprised, to see a very attractive stranger standing there. They had strikingly beautiful eyes that seemed to draw you in, making you momentarily forget where you were. “Yeah, it’s my favorite,” you replied with a bright smile. “I’m so glad I was able to get it.”

“Shane,” they offered, extending their hand with an easy, confident smile. “Nice to meet you.”

You took their hand, feeling a pleasant warmth from the gesture. “Y/N,” you said, your smile widening. “Nice to meet you too.”

The conversation flowed effortlessly after that. You and Shane chatted about literature, the excitement of the new bookstore, and your mutual love for classic novels. Their enthusiasm for books mirrored your own, and you found yourself enjoying the banter, feeling a sense of connection with this person you’d just met.

What you didn’t realize was that Spencer was watching from afar, his heart twisting in knots as he observed how easily you interacted with new people. It was something he envied—how naturally you navigated social situations, how the friendly vibes seemed to radiate off you in waves. Anyone could see how nice you were, how approachable, and it only made him more aware of the tension that had built up between the two of you.

He wished things could have gotten off to a better start between you. But every time he thought about trying to fix things, that cold interaction from the other night lingered in his mind, making him think it was too late. And now, seeing you so effortlessly connect with someone else, someone who had already made you smile, only deepened the pang of jealousy in his chest.

As you made your way to the register, Shane walked with you, continuing the conversation. Just before you reached the counter, Shane asked, “Hey, would it be okay if I got your number? I’d love to keep talking about books and maybe grab a coffee sometime.”

You smiled, feeling flattered by the request. “Sure, I’d like that.” You exchanged numbers, feeling a small flutter of excitement as you parted ways with Shane.

Meanwhile, Spencer watched from a distance, the jealousy tightening its grip. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the effortless way in which you interacted with others, or if it was the fact that someone else had gotten your number so easily—something he knew he could never have done. Either way, the feeling gnawed at him, making him feel even more isolated than before.

When it was your turn to pay, you glanced back and noticed Spencer standing behind you in line. His eyes were downcast, his expression unreadable, but you remembered how upset he had been earlier. Knowing he was having a bad day and sensing the awkward vibes that had developed between the two of you, you decided to do something small to brighten his day.

Leaning in to the cashier, you whispered, “Could you estimate how much his books would cost?”

The cashier smiled and nodded, quickly scanning the stack of books in Spencer’s hands with their eyes. They told you the amount, and you quietly pulled out your bills, paying for Spencer’s purchases along with your own. Without saying a word to him, you took your bag and left the store, hoping that this small act of kindness might bring a bit of light into his day.

As Spencer approached the counter, still lost in his thoughts, the cashier smiled warmly at him. “You’re all set, sir. The woman in front of you already paid for your books.”

Spencer blinked, momentarily stunned. “She… she did what?” he asked, his voice filled with disbelief.

The cashier nodded, still smiling. “She paid for everything. Said she hoped you’d have a good day.”

Spencer stood there, dumbfounded, holding the bag of books as if it were the most precious thing in the world. His mind raced, trying to make sense of why you would do something so kind for him when he had been nothing but cold to you since you met. The memory of your most recent awkward exchange at Rossi’s house replayed in his head, and guilt washed over him like a tidal wave.

Why would you do such a kind thing? He didn’t deserve it, not after the way he had treated you. And yet, you had done it anyway, without a word, without expecting anything in return.

As Spencer left the store, the bag of books clutched in his hand, he was overwhelmed by a mix of gratitude, guilt, and a growing sense of something missing. He’d had doubts about his relationship with Eli before, but he had always convinced himself that this was just how relationships were—messy and full of compromises.

But after seeing your kindness and how effortlessly you connected with others, Spencer couldn’t help but wonder if he was missing out on something better. For the first time, he questioned whether he deserved more than what he had settled for with Eli. Your simple act of paying for his books had cracked open a door in his mind, making him realize that maybe there was a different, happier path he could take—one that might even include someone like you.

—

When Spencer walked into the bullpen that Monday, he immediately noticed Penelope animatedly talking with Derek and Emily. The moment she heard someone enter, her eyes lit up as she saw him.

“Reid!” she exclaimed with her usual enthusiasm.

Spencer couldn’t help but smile as he walked over to her instead of heading straight to his desk. “What’s up?” he asked, his tone light and amused.

“Look!” Penelope gushed, thrusting a book into his hands with excitement.

Spencer glanced down, recognizing the book instantly—it was a first edition of a title he knew Penelope loved. His eyes widened in genuine awe. “Wow! Where did you find this?” he asked, marveling at the rare find.

Penelope sighed happily, clutching her hands to her heart. “Y/N got it for me! I couldn’t make it to the new bookstore, and she knew how sad I was, so she bought this to cheer me up!”

Spencer processed this new piece of information, feeling a warmth spread through him. Of course you did, he thought to himself, you’re the nicest person ever. “That’s… that’s really great, Garcia,” he said with a sincere smile.

“Isn’t she just the sweetest?” Penelope beamed, taking the book back and staring at it as if it were the most precious thing in the world.

Derek chuckled, adding, “Yeah, mama. That girl is a gem. I’m glad someone is treating you good when I’m not around.”

Spencer nodded, his mind lingering on you. It was just another reminder of the kind of person you were, and it made him think even more about what he might be missing out on.

"Something brewing in that big brain?" Emily teased, noticing Spencer had gone quiet, his thoughts clearly elsewhere.

"Hmm?" Spencer responded, looking up at her, momentarily pulled from his reverie.

"Are you okay, Reid?" she tried again, her voice tinged with concern.

Spencer shifted uncomfortably under the weight of their stares. "Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Just... haven't had my coffee yet," he replied, forcing a tight-lipped smile.

Derek chuckled, sensing Spencer's discomfort. "Rossi just made a new pot. I'll go grab a cup with you, pretty boy."

Spencer nodded gratefully as the two men headed to the breakroom, which was mostly empty, save for a few agents from other departments who were too engrossed in their own conversations to pay them any mind.

"Do anything fun this weekend?" Derek asked casually as he started making his coffee, glancing over at Spencer with a curious look.

Spencer allowed himself a small smile as he replied, "Yeah, I went to that new bookstore. They had their grand opening."

Derek thought for a moment, then asked, "Did you see Y/N there?"

Spencer's hand froze mid-stir, his expression faltering. "Oh, uh, no," he said, clearing his throat awkwardly, clearly caught off guard by the question.

Derek narrowed his eyes, not missing the way Spencer suddenly seemed on edge. "Alright, spit it out, kid," he pressed, sensing there was more to the story.

"Spit what out?" Spencer sassed, attempting to deflect, but his tone lacked conviction.

Derek just sighed, giving him a look that said, Don't bullshit me. "I've noticed you don't necessarily... enjoy Y/N's company. Did you run into her? Was it weird?"

Spencer let out a sigh, knowing there was no point in trying to hide it from Derek. "Yeah, I saw her," he admitted quietly, his gaze dropping to the floor. "But it wasn't weird. I mean, not exactly. It’s just... complicated."

Derek raised an eyebrow, waiting for Spencer to continue. "Complicated how?"

Spencer hesitated, his shoulders slumping slightly. "I think she might have overheard me on the phone with Eli... They were supposed to come with me to the bookstore, but they didn’t. I was upset," Spencer shrugged, trying to downplay the hurt in his voice.

Derek softened his gaze, sensing the vulnerability in Spencer’s words. "I’m sorry, man. Did they give a good reason?"

Spencer shrugged again, his eyes welling up as he struggled to keep his emotions in check. "Um, they said they needed to watch the football game. Something to do with the fantasy league they’re in."

Derek rolled his eyes, his frustration evident. "That is not a good reason. Eli should have known this was important to you."

Spencer cleared his throat, staring intently at his coffee, willing the tears not to fall. "They knew... I don’t know if they cared."

"Reid..." Derek began, his voice gentle, but Spencer quickly waved his hand, cutting him off.

"No, no. It’s fine—we talked about it," Spencer said, his voice wavering but firm, clearly wanting to move past the topic.

Seeing that Spencer didn’t want to delve deeper into the matter, Derek decided to let it go for now, though he still hadn’t gotten the answer to his earlier question. "What does that have to do with Y/N?"

Spencer sighed heavily, the weight of his embarrassment pressing down on him. "She was walking past during the end of the call. I think she might have heard me, but she was too polite to say anything. I don’t know… I’m just embarrassed. My own partner wouldn’t show up to something that important to me, and she probably heard how pathetic that sounded."

Derek frowned, his heart going out to his friend. "You’re not pathetic, Reid. You’ve just been dealt a rough hand. And Y/N… well, she’s not the kind of person to judge you for that. If anything, she probably feels bad that you were hurt."

Spencer nodded, though the shame still lingered. "Yeah, maybe. It’s just hard, you know? I don’t want her—or anyone—to see me like that."

Derek gave him a reassuring pat on the back. "I get it, man. But Y/N… she’s good people. Maybe talking to her might help, even if it’s just to clear the air."

Spencer considered Derek’s words, the idea of reaching out to you both comforting and terrifying. But deep down, he knew Derek was right. It wasn’t too late to make things right, and maybe—just maybe—you’d be the understanding ear he desperately needed.

After parting ways with Derek, Spencer realized he’d forgotten to mention how you had quietly paid for his books at the bookstore. Wrapped up in the emotions of their conversation, it had slipped his mind. But as he returned to his desk, the memory resurfaced, and he found himself holding onto it like a cherished secret.

Spencer wanted to keep that moment to himself, a private reminder of your kindness. It had meant more to him than words could express, especially in a time when he often felt overlooked. Your simple act of generosity was a bright spot, making him feel seen and cared for in a way he rarely experienced.

—

Thursday evening marked your first date with Shane, and it was everything you had hoped for. They had called earlier in the week to make plans, and you were excited to have someone showing genuine interest and making an effort. Penelope had eagerly offered to help you get ready, her expertise in all things beauty proving invaluable.

"Pen, you’re seriously the best," you gushed as she applied the finishing touches to your look. "I don’t know what I’d do without you."

Penelope giggled, her eyes twinkling. "Probably show up looking a lot less flamboyant!"

"And we would not want that," you teased with a smile, savoring every moment of girl time with your roommate and best friend.

When Shane arrived to pick you up, they were the epitome of courteousness—opening doors, pulling out your chair, and keeping the conversation lively throughout the evening. It was an amazing first date, made even better by Shane’s undeniable attractiveness. You enjoyed yourself thoroughly, feeling a spark of excitement about where this could lead.

Meanwhile, across the restaurant, Spencer sat at a table with Eli, his view of you unobstructed. What should have been a special anniversary dinner had been overshadowed by the effort it took to even get Eli to agree to go out. Spencer had to beg them to celebrate, with Eli initially resisting, claiming they didn’t want to spend the money. Spencer had insisted it was worth it, that their relationship was worth celebrating. Eli eventually caved, but only because they didn’t want Spencer to start crying—again.

As Spencer watched you laugh and smile with Shane, he felt a sharp pang in his chest, the desire to drown his sorrows in a bottle of wine nearly overwhelming. The contrast between your joyous date and his own crumbling relationship was stark. Eli sat across from him, more interested in checking their fantasy football league stats than in engaging with him.

Of course, you would go on a date with the attractive person from the bookstore. In Spencer’s eyes, they were everything he wasn’t. It made sense that you’d find happiness with someone like that, while he watched his own chances at joy slip further away. It was just another reminder that good things, happiness, were always just out of reach for him. As he sat there, barely holding back his tears, he couldn’t help but feel the weight of his own choices, the realization that he had pushed away someone who might have brought him the kind of happiness he saw reflected in your smile from across the room.

After Shane paid the bill for your dinner, causing you to swoon at the kind gesture, the two of you walked toward the exit, Shane’s hand resting intimately on your lower back. As you passed by Spencer's table, you couldn’t resist saying hello, the expensive wine Shane had ordered loosening your tongue.

“Spencer! Hi!” you greeted excitedly, your smile wide.

Spencer looked up at you, clearly caught off guard, his expression quickly shifting to a polite smile. “Hello,” he replied, trying to mask his surprise.

“What are you doing here? Is this Eli?” You turned to the person sitting across from him, offering a warm smile.

Eli, however, gave you a cold, sinister look. “Wow, beauty and brains, what a catch,” they remarked snidely, directing their comment at Shane.

The sarcasm completely flew over your head, and you responded cheerfully, “I think you’re pretty too! It’s so nice to meet you, and Spencer, so good to see you! Bye!” You gave a little wave, before taking Shane’s hand and dragging them toward the car, their laughter following behind you. Shane, having had much less to drink, simply smiled, amused by your tipsy enthusiasm.

As soon as you were out of earshot, Spencer grew even more quiet, while Eli’s anger simmered, their face contorting with irritation.

“What the fuck was that?” Eli asked, their voice low and venomous.

Spencer’s head snapped up, startled by the harshness in Eli’s tone. “What? Y/N? She’s drunk,” he replied, trying to defuse the situation, though he felt increasingly uncomfortable under Eli’s glare.

“No shit, Spencer,” Eli scoffed, rolling their eyes with frustration. “But why did they say hi to you?”

Spencer fumbled for an explanation, feeling cornered. “Umm… I guess we’re kind of friends by association?” he offered, his words uncertain, as even he wasn’t sure how to define your relationship.

Eli’s eyes narrowed, their anger intensifying. “I told you not to talk to her. I asked you to do one fucking thing in this relationship—how hard is it to not talk to some dumb bimbo?” they snarled.

Spencer shrank in his seat, feeling like a scolded child. His embarrassment was palpable as he tried to explain, “I can’t help that she’s Penelope’s roommate. I like to be civil.”

“Civil, sure,” Eli spat, their tone dripping with contempt. “But I’m serious, Spencer. Don’t. Fucking. Talk to her.”

Spencer sat there, shrinking further under Eli’s gaze, a sense of helplessness washing over him. The contrast between your cheerful, lighthearted demeanor and Eli’s seething anger left him feeling more isolated than ever. The joy you had shown in such a simple greeting only highlighted the growing chasm between him and his partner, making him question, yet again, why he was holding onto something that felt so toxic and damaging.

—

It was a few weeks before your paths crossed with Spencer again, and during that time, he couldn't help but wonder if Eli had somehow managed to keep you away from him. But today, here you were, standing in the bullpen with Penelope’s phone in hand, panting slightly from your rush to deliver it.

“Y/N! You’re a lifesaver!” Penelope cried out, pulling you into a tight hug.

You laughed, catching your breath. “I don’t even know how you made it out of the house without this thing, I thought it was attached to you!”

Derek and Emily joined in the laughter, clearly enjoying the interaction. “Baby girl was excited to come in today—they gave her a new monitor,” Derek teased, grinning.

“Ohh, show me!” you clapped your hands in excitement, your enthusiasm infectious.

As you followed Penelope to her office, you passed by Spencer’s desk, giving him a soft, “Hi, Spencer,” your voice low and warm.

But Spencer didn’t look up. He simply stared down at the file in front of him, his mind far from his work. Eli’s threat echoed in his head, reminding him that he couldn’t talk to you. The lack of response went unnoticed by everyone except for you and Emily.

After you disappeared into Penelope’s office, Emily walked over to Spencer’s desk, her expression concerned. “Reid…? Is something wrong?” she asked cautiously, her voice gentle.

Spencer looked up, shaking his head as if to brush off her concern. “No,” he replied curtly, but his tone was anything but reassuring.

Emily wasn’t convinced. “Okay, well, it’s just… you ignored Y/N pretty harshly. I think she was just trying to be nice.”

Spencer knew it was an overreaction, but the turmoil in his mind was overwhelming, clouding his judgment. He felt cornered, and before he could stop himself, he snapped, “Oh yeah, Emily? Is that what you think? I’m sure you’re right, seeing as you know everything.”

With that, he abruptly stood up, storming out of the bullpen, leaving Emily and Derek in stunned silence.

Rossi, who had been quietly working at his desk nearby, looked up, his brow furrowed with concern as he fixed Emily and Derek with a questioning gaze. “Is he using again?” he asked, his voice heavy with worry.

“Fuck,” Derek muttered under his breath, quickly getting up to chase after Spencer, his heart pounding with fear and urgency.

Emily exchanged a worried glance with Rossi, both of them hoping that whatever was going on with Spencer could be addressed before it spiraled out of control.

"Reid, wait up!" Derek called out as he watched Spencer stride quickly down the hall, his pace fueled by frustration and confusion. Spencer, too caught up in his thoughts, didn’t stop or even acknowledge Derek's voice. But Derek was determined, and he quickened his pace, finally catching up to Spencer and grabbing his arm, halting him in his tracks.

"Kid, I need you to tell me right here and now if you’re using again," Derek panted, his concern clear in his voice.

Spencer's face immediately morphed into one of shock and offense. "What? No! I’m clean," he replied, his tone defensive but honest.

Derek sighed deeply, relief flooding him. "Okay, thank God."

Spencer frowned, still reeling from the accusation. "Why would you think that?"

Derek looked at him intently. "Did you hear yourself just now? You were out of line with Prentiss. She was only trying to help."

Spencer let out a bitter laugh, the sound harsh and sharp. "Isn’t that what everyone wants to do? Help poor, defenseless Spencer," he said sarcastically. "Why can’t I ever just take care of myself?"

Derek gave him a sympathetic look, his concern deepening. "That’s not what I meant. I’m just worried about you. Is it more stuff with Eli?"

The mention of Eli’s name set Spencer off again, the anger bubbling back to the surface. "Christ, is there no privacy anymore?" he snapped, his voice tight with frustration.

Derek held up his hands in a placating gesture. "I’m not trying to invade your privacy, man. I just want to make sure you’re okay. You’ve been off lately, and I’m concerned. We all are."

Spencer’s shoulders slumped slightly, the weight of everything pressing down on him. "It’s… nothing, Derek."

Derek nodded, his tone softening. "It doesn’t seem like nothing, kid."

Spencer looked down, his voice small and almost defeated. "Can you just… stop being a big brother for a second?"

Derek’s expression softened even more as he asked gently, "Who do you want me to be?"

Spencer let out a weary sigh. "I don’t know… a wizard? Then maybe you could help me go back in time."

Derek started to ask, "Why do you need–" but before he could finish, his phone rang, the familiar tone signaling a new case. He glanced at the screen, then back at Spencer with a resigned look. "Time to go."

Spencer nodded, the moment slipping away as the reality of their work took precedence. But as they walked back toward the bullpen, Derek couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more going on beneath the surface—something that Spencer wasn’t ready to share yet.

—

When the team arrived back from the case, Spencer dreaded going home. He hadn't talked to Eli since the day they left, sending only a brief text to let them know he was heading out on a case and another just now to inform them he was back. But as usual, there were no messages waiting for him in return. Eli had done this before—the silent treatment. It was their way of letting Spencer know he had messed up, though the reason was often unclear until Eli decided to spell it out.

As Spencer approached his front door, the familiar feeling of anxiety settled in his chest. He knew what awaited him: the cold, silent disapproval from Eli, followed by the inevitable confrontation. It was why he was dreading going home, but there was no avoiding it.

When Spencer unlocked the front door, he was greeted by the sound of football blaring from the TV, and not much else. The usual signs of Eli’s presence—a drink on the coffee table, their shoes kicked off haphazardly—were all there, but the silence from Eli themselves was telling.

He announced his presence quietly, hoping to gauge the mood before he ventured further into the house. Without much of a response, Spencer headed to the laundry room, deciding to busy himself with washing his clothes. It was a mundane task, but it gave him something to focus on, a way to delay the inevitable confrontation.

What Spencer wasn’t expecting was for Eli to suddenly come up behind him, wrapping their arms around his waist and kissing the back of his neck. The affectionate gesture caught him off guard.

“Hey, baby,” Eli whispered, their voice soft and intimate.

“He–hey, Eli,” Spencer stammered, unsure of how to respond. He couldn’t tell if this was going to lead to something good or if it was just a precursor to another argument.

“I missed you while you were gone,” Eli mumbled, their lips trailing across Spencer’s neck, planting gentle kisses along his skin.

“Yeah?” Spencer sighed, tilting his head slightly to give Eli more access, his body instinctively responding to the affection despite the uncertainty gnawing at him.

“Mhm, it’s so lonely here without you,” Eli murmured, continuing their gentle assault of kisses.

That evening, Spencer found himself in the company of a sweet, loving, and cherishing Eli. It was a side of his partner he didn’t see often, and he was left wondering what he had done to deserve this sudden tenderness. But instead of questioning it, he allowed himself to be swept up in the rare affection, choosing to savor the moment rather than dwell on the why.

For that night, at least, Spencer let himself believe that everything was okay, that maybe this time things would be different. Even if it was just for a little while, he wasn’t going to complain.

—

You got a mysterious text from Shane, asking if they could come over to talk. You agreed, of course, but a nervous feeling settled in your stomach. Things had been going really well between the two of you—multiple dates, kisses, and they had even met Penelope. But as you opened the door to let them in, you immediately sensed that this wasn’t going to be good news.

"Hey, Y/N," Shane greeted with a sigh, giving you a sad smile. "Can I come in?"

You opened the door wider and motioned for them to enter, trying to brace yourself for whatever was coming. The two of you sat in the chairs by the window, the tension palpable as you waited for Shane to speak.

"What’s up, Shane?" you asked cautiously, your heart already preparing for the worst.

Shane sighed again, scratching the back of their head, clearly uncomfortable. "Well, I really respect you, so I felt it was only fair to tell you face to face... that I met someone. Someone I want to pursue things with exclusively."

Your heart sank. Of course, the one genuine person you meet found someone better than you. "Oh," was all you could manage to say, the word barely escaping your lips as you processed the rejection.

"I’m sorry, Y/N," Shane continued, their expression full of pity. "You’re a lovely person, and I really enjoyed our time together. But I just—"

"You don’t have to explain," you interrupted, forcing a small, tight-lipped smile despite the ache building in your chest. "I get it."

Shane frowned, clearly feeling bad, but they didn’t push further. They stood, clearly sensing that it was time to leave. "I really do wish you the best, Y/N. You deserve someone amazing."

You nodded, but the words felt hollow in the space between you. After you closed the door behind them, you sank into your chair, the weight of disappointment settling heavily on your shoulders. You hadn’t expected this, and now you were left alone, wondering why this always seemed to happen—just when things seemed to be going well, they unraveled.

As you sat there, staring blankly out the window, the weight of the rejection settled deep into your chest. You tried to convince yourself that it wasn’t a big deal, that these things happen, but the familiar voice of self-doubt crept in, louder and sharper than ever. Of course they found someone better. Why wouldn’t they?

You couldn’t shake the feeling that it was always you—never enough, never quite the right fit. You replayed the last few weeks in your mind, analyzing every detail, every moment, searching for where you might have fallen short. Maybe you weren’t interesting enough, not exciting enough, not worth sticking around for.

What if I’m just not the kind of person people choose? The thought gnawed at you, sinking deeper into your mind. Every small flaw, every insecurity felt magnified, and you couldn’t help but wonder if this was just how things would always be. Always second place. Always left behind.

—

Meanwhile, everything between Spencer and Eli seemed to improve dramatically. Eli was suddenly attentive in ways Spencer hadn’t experienced in a long time. They bought Spencer flowers, cooked him dinner, and even made an effort to engage in the things Spencer loved—whether it was sitting with him through documentaries or accompanying him on long walks through the city.

Spencer wasn’t sure what had sparked this radical change in Eli, but he didn’t dare question it. Part of him was afraid that if he asked, the magic would break, and everything would go back to the way it was before—the cold indifference, the emotional distance. For now, he clung to the fleeting happiness, allowing himself to believe that maybe this was the turning point he had been waiting for.

But in the back of his mind, a quiet voice whispered that good things never lasted for him, and any moment, it could all disappear. He knew better than to get comfortable, but for now, he basked in the attention, unwilling to let go of this brief glimpse of a perfect relationship.

Eli had never been one for grand gestures, but lately, everything felt different. Spencer came home one evening to find a bouquet of brightly colored flowers on the kitchen table, their fragrance filling the room.

"Hey, you’re home!" Eli called from the kitchen, a warm smile on their face as they stirred something on the stove. "I made your favorite—pasta with garlic bread. Thought you might like something comforting after your day."

Spencer blinked, his mind racing as he tried to process the shift. He set his bag down, cautiously approaching the flowers. "You… got these for me?" he asked, his voice soft, unsure.

Eli chuckled and walked over to him, wiping their hands on a dish towel before wrapping their arms around his waist. "Of course, I did. You deserve it, Spencie."

Spencer smiled, though his brow furrowed slightly in confusion. This wasn’t like Eli at all. "I… thank you. They’re beautiful." He leaned down to smell the flowers, a wave of warmth flooding him, but a lingering doubt hovered at the back of his mind.

Later that week, they were sitting together on the couch, something they rarely did. Eli had insisted on watching one of Spencer’s favorite documentaries, something about ancient civilizations that Spencer would usually watch alone.

"I never knew this stuff was so interesting," Eli commented, their head resting on Spencer’s shoulder. "Why didn’t you make me watch this with you sooner?"

Spencer looked down at them, unsure of how to respond. "I didn’t think it was really your thing," he admitted, his fingers absentmindedly playing with the fabric of Eli’s shirt. "You’ve never really… wanted to before."

Eli sat up slightly, turning to face Spencer, their hand coming to rest on his knee. "Well, I want to now," they said, smiling softly.

Spencer’s heart swelled at the words, but the confusion deepened. This was everything he had wanted from Eli for so long, but the sudden shift left him off-balance. Still, he wasn’t ready to question it—not when things were finally good. He forced himself to smile back, leaning in to kiss Eli’s forehead.

"I appreciate that," he whispered, a hint of vulnerability in his voice. "I just…I’m happy."

Eli kissed him softly on the lips, pulling him closer. "I love you, Spencie," they murmured, their words sweet and tender. "And I want to make sure you know that."

Spencer wrapped his arms around them, his mind swirling with unanswered questions. He wanted to ask what had caused this change, what had made Eli suddenly decide to be the partner he had always hoped for. But the fear of losing this fleeting happiness kept him silent. He wasn’t ready to risk it all, not yet.

—

Penelope had been watching you closely for days, her eyes filled with concern. She knew something was wrong, but you had been keeping your walls up, retreating further into your sadness after things fell apart with Shane. Every attempt she made to drag you out of the apartment had been met with a firm, “I’m just not feeling up to it, Pen.”

But Penelope wasn’t one to give up so easily. "Come on, honey, you can’t just sit here and stew over that idiot forever," she urged, practically bouncing on her feet. "We need to go out, have some fun, and remind the world who the hell we are!"

"I don’t know…" you trailed off, glancing at the TV as though it had something to offer. But you knew it didn’t. You just didn’t have the energy.

"Y/N," Penelope said firmly, placing her hands on her hips, "I love you, but sitting in pajamas while watching reality shows for the third night in a row is not how we get over this. You are coming with me."

You sighed, knowing she wasn’t going to relent. "Fine," you groaned, finally giving in.

Penelope’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. "Yes! Shower, now. I’m doing your makeup, and we are going to paint the town red!"

It wasn’t long before she had you dolled up, feeling like a different version of yourself. The two of you hit the town with one goal: to get drunk and forget all about stupid people like Shane. JJ, Emily, and Derek met up with you at the bar, and soon you were all dancing up a storm. The music, the energy, and the friends surrounding you were doing exactly what Penelope had intended—they were lifting you out of your funk.

You loved the attention you were getting, and it was absolutely helping you feel better about everything that had happened. The compliments, the laughs, the warmth of your friends—it was like a balm to the hurt you had been carrying.

After a while, you started feeling parched from all the dancing, so you drifted away from the group to grab some water at the bar. As you reached the counter, you bumped into someone.

"Oh, I’m sorry," you yelped, turning quickly to see who it was you’d run into.

To your surprise, the body turned around, and there, standing in front of you, was Eli. Your stomach dropped slightly, expecting some snide remark, a cutting comment like the ones you’d heard before.

But instead, Eli let out a light laugh. "No problem!" they said with a smile, their tone unusually friendly.

You blinked, taken aback by the unexpected response. Even Spencer, standing next to Eli, looked just as surprised, his brow furrowed slightly at Eli’s easygoing attitude toward you.

"Uh… thanks," you said, forcing a polite smile, still not entirely sure what to make of the encounter.

Eli nodded, still smiling, before turning back to their drink, leaving you standing there, feeling slightly bewildered. You couldn’t help but glance at Spencer, who gave you a small, almost apologetic smile, as if to acknowledge how strange the moment had been.

The interaction left you feeling a bit off-kilter, but as you grabbed your water and headed back to the dance floor, you pushed the weirdness aside. Tonight was about you, about having fun and moving on. Whatever Eli’s sudden kindness meant, you weren’t going to let it throw you off track.

Soon, you couldn’t just brush off the strange interaction because, much to your surprise, Spencer and Eli joined the rest of you on the dance floor. It was a sight you hadn’t expected.

“Whoa, pretty boy! I didn’t think you’d show!” Derek cheered, clearly having invited Spencer without anyone else knowing.

Spencer gave a half-smile, looking awkward as he stood on the outskirts of the group. “Yeah, uh… Eli thought it would be fun,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, his discomfort obvious.

“Well, loosen up, genius!” Emily called out, playfully nudging him. “We’re here to have fun.”

Eli, however, had no problem jumping right in, grabbing Spencer by the hips and guiding him into the rhythm of the music. Spencer’s movement was stilted, clearly uncomfortable with the attention, but Eli didn’t seem to mind, dancing all around him, their hands sliding over his shoulders and down his sides. The contrast between Spencer’s stiff posture and Eli’s free-spirited movements made for an interesting sight.

You tried to brush it off, but the more you watched, the more an odd sense of jealousy began to brew in your chest. It’s just because I’m newly single, you told yourself, trying to rationalize the pang of envy. But it didn’t feel that simple, and as you watched Eli spin Spencer with a grin, you couldn’t help but wonder why it bothered you so much.

Penelope noticed your mood shift immediately, her eyes following your gaze. She knew you too well, and it wasn’t long before she saw you slipping off the dance floor, making your way outside for some air. She wasn’t surprised at all—you needed a moment to clear your head.

What did surprise you, though, was when the door opened a few minutes later, and Spencer stepped out, his hands shoved into his pockets as he came to stand next to you. The cool night air felt refreshing against your heated skin, but Spencer’s presence made your heart race slightly, unsure of what to say or do.

Neither of you spoke for a moment, the silence hanging between you like a thread waiting to be pulled.

“You okay?” Spencer finally asked, his voice soft as he looked at you, the concern clear in his expression.

You shrugged, trying to keep your tone light despite the heaviness in your chest. “Yeah, just needed some air. It was getting a little... crowded in there.”

Spencer nodded, his gaze drifting down the street before returning to you. “Yeah, I get that,” he said quietly. He shifted his weight, looking almost as uncomfortable out here as he did on the dance floor.

You glanced over at him, curiosity tugging at you. “You don’t really seem like a club guy,” you said, half teasing.

Spencer chuckled awkwardly, his shoulders rising and falling in a small shrug. “I’m not,” he admitted. “I, uh, don’t really dance. Eli’s more into that.”

You nodded, watching him for a moment. There was something in his eyes—something that made you feel like he wasn’t entirely thrilled to be out here either.

“Eli seems really into it,” you said, testing the waters, unsure why you even brought it up.

Spencer’s smile faltered for a split second before he nodded again. “Yeah,” he replied, his voice quieter this time. He didn’t elaborate, and the silence between you grew, filled with unspoken thoughts and emotions that neither of you seemed ready to address.

After a moment, you decided to break the tension. “I didn’t expect to see you out tonight.”

Spencer chuckled softly, kicking at a loose pebble with his shoe. “I didn’t expect to be out, to be honest,” he admitted. “But, well... here I am.”

You smiled, feeling a strange connection in that shared sentiment. “Yeah, here we are.”

Spencer didn’t know why he followed you. Maybe it was the way you quietly slipped away from the group, or maybe it was something deeper—a feeling he couldn’t quite explain, like an invisible string pulling him after you. He had hesitated for a moment, glancing at Eli before deciding he needed to step outside.

“Hey, uh... is it okay if I step out for some air?” Spencer asked, trying to sound casual.

Eli’s eyes flickered toward the door, then back to him. “With Y/N?” they asked, their tone neutral, but it made Spencer catch his breath, suddenly nervous that Eli might get upset in front of everyone.

Spencer swallowed hard. “Is that... okay?” he asked tentatively, trying to gauge Eli’s reaction.

Eli’s face softened, a sweet smile forming as they nodded. “Yeah, Spencie! Go check on your friend.”

Relief washed over Spencer, though a small knot of confusion lingered. Eli’s sudden sweetness left him feeling a bit unsettled, but he didn’t question it. Instead, he gave a small smile in return before quietly making his way outside to join you.

As he stood next to you in the cool night air, the questions he had about Eli faded, replaced by an inexplicable need to be there with you, to share this quiet moment away from the chaos of the night.

You and Spencer remained side by side, chatting politely, both enjoying the quiet reprieve from the crowd inside. The cool night air felt refreshing, a stark contrast to the warm chaos of the dance floor.

“Are you, uh—still seeing that person from the other week?” Spencer asked awkwardly, his words stumbling out as he glanced at you.

You stiffened slightly at the mention of Shane, the wound still fresh, not something you wanted to discuss right now, especially not here. "No," you said simply, hoping to leave it at that.

Spencer shifted uncomfortably, his eyes darting away before he coughed. "Oh," he mumbled, then added, "I’m sorry. They’re an idiot."

You couldn’t help but smile, the warmth of his words cutting through some of the lingering pain. "Thank you," you said softly, genuinely appreciating his attempt to comfort you.

Spencer nodded, and when he finally looked at you, something in his expression changed. His eyes locked with yours, and for a brief moment, the world seemed to stand still. He realized in that instant that what he felt looking into your eyes—this connection, this spark—was stronger than anything he’d ever felt with Eli. Every moment he had shared with Eli over the course of their relationship paled in comparison to what he felt standing there with you now.

The realization hit him like a tidal wave, both exhilarating and terrifying. He wasn’t sure what to do with this feeling, and the fear of what it meant gripped him tightly. Spencer wasn’t ready to confront it, but in that moment, he knew something had shifted between the two of you. And that scared him more than anything.

—

The next time you saw him, Eli was by his side once again. The team was gathered to celebrate Aaron Hotchner’s birthday with a fancy dinner followed by a play, and the atmosphere was light, filled with laughter and easy conversation. The dinner had been delicious, and everyone was in high spirits as you all made your way to the theater, excitement buzzing in the air.

Finding your seats, you realized the universe must have been playing some sort of twisted joke. The numbers on your tickets had placed you directly next to Spencer. It seemed innocent enough—JJ was on your other side, and Eli sat beside Spencer—but the proximity between you two felt charged in a way that was hard to ignore.

The lights dimmed, and the show began, captivating the audience almost immediately. You focused on the performance, but you had no idea that Spencer's mind was far from the stage. Since the moment you walked into the restaurant tonight, Spencer’s mind had been a chaotic kaleidoscope of images of you. The way you looked, the way you moved, the sound of your laugh—it was overwhelming.

Sitting so close to you now, he felt a primal, almost feral need stirring inside him, something he'd never experienced so intensely before. It was beyond mere attraction; it was hunger. He could barely focus on the play as his thoughts drifted to you again and again.

Spencer’s chest tightened with guilt as his mind began slipping away from innocent thoughts. At first, his musings were harmless, but they quickly escalated to PG-13, and then further, to places he had never allowed himself to go before. He couldn’t shake it, this wild, uncontrollable pull toward you. He wanted to tear his thoughts away, but every fiber of his being was hyper-aware of your presence next to him.

It was horrible—he felt like he was betraying Eli, even though the thoughts stayed locked inside his own head. He clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white as he tried to suppress the desire building within him. He knew he shouldn’t be thinking about you like this, not when Eli was sitting right next to him. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shake the intense attraction coursing through his body. The guilt gnawed at him, but the desire burned even stronger.

He felt trapped, stuck between the relationship he had and the undeniable draw he felt toward you. And in that dark theater, surrounded by his friends, Spencer’s thoughts were anything but innocent.

During intermission, Spencer excused himself, practically fleeing to the restroom. Once there, he splashed cold water on his face, hoping to wash away the guilty, indecent thoughts that had plagued him throughout the first half of the play. What the hell is wrong with me? he thought, staring at his reflection, trying to regain control of himself.

Meanwhile, you headed to the concession stand, grabbing a lemonade. It came with a straw, which you twirled absentmindedly as you made your way back to your seat. You settled in, sipping slowly as everyone found their spots again.

When Spencer returned and sat next to you, he tried to focus on anything but you—the play, Eli, anything—but his eyes kept drifting to your lips as you wrapped them around the straw, sipping your drink. The way you casually sipped, completely unaware of the effect you were having on him, made his throat dry.

You noticed his lingering gaze and raised an eyebrow, suppressing a small smile. "Want a sip?" you offered, holding the drink out toward him, your voice teasing but light.

Spencer hesitated for a second, knowing that accepting it would be a bad idea. But then again, what harm could one sip do? "Sure," he replied, his voice low, almost strained.

Instead of taking the cup from your hand, Spencer leaned over, resting his hand lightly on your thigh as he bent toward you. His touch sent a jolt of warmth through you, and your breath hitched as he brought his lips to the straw still clasped in your hand. He took a slow sip, his hand remaining firmly in place, his fingers brushing lightly against the fabric of your dress.

Your face flushed a deep crimson, the simple act of him drinking from the same straw suddenly charged with an intimacy you hadn’t anticipated. You glanced quickly at Eli, but they were preoccupied, furiously typing away on their phone, not even noticing what was happening between you and Spencer.

As the lights flickered, signaling the end of intermission, Spencer pulled back, the drink slipping from his lips, but his hand stayed where it was, resting warmly on your thigh. The lights dimmed once more, and the play resumed, but Spencer’s touch remained, grounding you in a way that made it impossible to focus on anything else.

Neither of you said a word, but the unspoken tension between you hung in the air, heavier than ever. You didn’t dare move, and neither did he. And as the minutes passed, you could feel the weight of that moment, the quiet acknowledgement that whatever was happening between you was more than just fleeting glances or stolen moments.

Spencer’s hand stayed on your thigh for the rest of the show, and you tried to rationalize it. It’s probably just the wine he had with dinner, you thought, convincing yourself he was just feeling a bit more friendly than usual. After all, the two of you had bonded that night at the club, and maybe this was just an extension of that. Still, the warmth of his hand lingered longer than it should have, sending ripples of confusion through you.

When the lights came back on and the play ended, you quickly stood, clapping in applause and efficiently removing Spencer’s hand from your leg. You didn’t want to dwell on it, but the moment left you feeling uneasy. As the theater cleared, the group gathered outside to say their goodbyes, but you found yourself avoiding Spencer’s gaze.

Leaning over to Penelope, you whispered, "I’m not feeling so great. I think I need to head out."

Concern flashed across her face, but she didn’t question you. "Of course, babe. Let’s go."

After wishing Aaron a happy birthday, you and Penelope left before you could make any eye contact with Spencer. Your thoughts raced as you hurried away, unsure why he had acted the way he did. You didn’t hate what had happened, and that made it worse. He has a partner, you reminded yourself, the guilt settling heavily in your chest.

Meanwhile, Spencer and Eli made their way home as well. The silence between them was thick with unspoken tension, but when they arrived, Eli wasted no time initiating an intimate night. Spencer let it happen, going through the motions as his mind drifted back to you. He felt a surge of guilt and self-loathing. As Eli’s hands moved over him, Spencer’s thoughts were filled with the image of you, your laughter, the feel of your thigh beneath his palm. It made him feel like a monster, like he was betraying not only Eli, but you as well.

But what Spencer didn’t realize was that he wasn’t the only one with someone else on his mind. As Eli kissed him, their thoughts weren’t on Spencer either. The unspoken fractures in their relationship were growing wider, with both of them secretly imagining someone else, locked in a cycle of unaddressed desires and unvoiced doubts.

—

It was October now, and Halloween was rapidly approaching—Spencer's favorite time of year and his absolute favorite holiday. The excitement had been building for weeks, and it was palpable. He loved everything about Halloween—the history, the traditions, and, of course, the chance to dress up and lose himself in the festive spirit.

But as the holiday approached, so did the Halloween party you and Penelope were throwing. The entire team had been invited, along with their partners and a few other friends. It was going to be a night full of fun, laughter, and celebration, and you couldn't wait to show everyone the apartment, which was fully decked out in spooky decorations.

Though you were looking forward to the party, there was one thought that kept crossing your mind: Spencer. He’d be there, of course, with Eli by his side. It was hard to shake the feeling that no matter how much time had passed since that strange, tension-filled evening at the theater, you couldn’t stop thinking about him. The truth was, you knew you couldn’t have him—he was spoken for, and no matter what had happened or hadn’t happened, he was off-limits.

But that didn’t stop you from hoping your costume might catch his eye.

You’d spent extra time picking out the perfect outfit—something that was fun and playful, but with just enough edge to make an impression. Part of you wondered if he would notice, if he would look at you the way he had during the play. Even though you knew it was dangerous territory, the thought lingered in the back of your mind.

As you finished adjusting the final Halloween decorations, you glanced around the apartment, satisfied with how everything had turned out. The anticipation of the party and seeing everyone—especially Spencer—left a mix of excitement and nervousness brewing inside you.

One night, you thought. One night to celebrate, to have fun. Just let it be enough.

By the time people started arriving, your apartment had been fully transformed into a Halloween wonderland. The living room is draped in warm, spooky hues of purple and orange, with bats hanging from the ceiling and a wreath made of autumn leaves and tiny pumpkins framing the window. The couches are decorated with plush pillows and blankets, and a coffee table sits adorned with jack-o'-lanterns, flickering with eerie candlelight, surrounded by scattered fall leaves.

The hallway leading to the party area is wrapped in dark, twisting branches and shimmering orange lights, creating a haunting yet whimsical path. A skeleton sits at the dining table, illuminated by the warm glow of string lights that crisscross overhead, casting playful shadows along the walls.

Further in, an archway framed with grinning pumpkins welcomes guests into a dining area, bathed in the glow of purple lights. Jack-o'-lanterns of all shapes and sizes line the walls, giving the space a playful but eerie ambiance. It’s the kind of atmosphere that will make the party unforgettable, setting the perfect tone for the night.

You and Penelope stood by the door, greeting your guests as they entered your neon-lit, spooky apartment, handing out glowing necklaces as a fun touch to set the party's mood. Amid the excitement and stress of hosting, you nearly forgot that Spencer would be walking through that door any minute now. Your thoughts had been focused on making sure everything was perfect, greeting the steady stream of guests, and keeping the energy light and fun.

Just as you were handing another glowing necklace to a guest, the front door burst open, and in strolled Derek, as confident as ever, with Emily on one arm and JJ on the other. Emily looked striking in her sleek Morticia Addams costume, with her sharp features highlighted by her dark makeup, and JJ exuded playful fierceness in her Kill Bill-inspired outfit. Penelope, as usual, was a burst of color and creativity in her neon-pink, revealing Alice in Wonderland-esc cat costume.

Derek, dressed as a dashing fighter pilot, took one look at you and Penelope, his eyes wide with exaggerated awe. “Wow! My god, you gorgeous ladies are gonna give me a heart attack!” he playfully swooned, placing a hand dramatically over his chest.

Penelope grinned, striking a pose next to you, her Cheshire cat grin almost matching the one she had painted on her face. "Careful, Morgan. You might need to be resuscitated."

You couldn’t help but laugh at the exchange, but your heart fluttered slightly as you realized that any moment, Spencer would be walking in, and you wondered what he would think when he saw you in your costume.

The whole team had arrived about 20 minutes ago, with everyone dressed to impress, save for Spencer. You couldn’t help but worry he wasn’t going to come, despite his excitement about Halloween. You tried to stay positive, especially since everyone else seemed to be in good spirits. Even Hotch and Rossi had put in some effort, dressing up as Men in Black, though it was hardly a stretch from their usual look—very creative you thought with a smirk.

The party had started in full swing, laughter and music filling the room, but you couldn’t shake the slight disappointment. What if he doesn’t show?

Then, suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Without thinking, you crossed the room and swung it open, your jaw practically hitting the floor when you saw who was standing on the other side.

There, in all his unnervingly handsome glory, was Spencer—no Eli in sight. He was dressed as Patrick Bateman from American Psycho, complete with a suit, raincoat, and an ax slung over his shoulder. His normally disheveled hair was slicked back, and the blood splatter across his face made him look dangerously alluring. You could feel your heart stutter in your chest.

You stood there with your hand still on the door, staring at him for far too long to be socially acceptable. But Spencer wasn’t faring much better. His eyes had widened when he saw you in your Ghostface costume—though this was your take of the infamous killer, your fitted corset and thigh-high slit showing more than enough to leave Spencer speechless.

His lips parted slightly, the two of you caught in an awkward, electrifying silence. Neither of you moved or spoke, both seemingly frozen in the moment. You tried to find something to say, but your brain refused to cooperate. He looked breathtaking, and from the look in his eyes, you were certain he thought the same about you.

"Uh… wow," Spencer finally managed, his voice low, almost reverent.

You blinked, snapping out of your trance and feeling your cheeks heat up. "Spencer… you… look…" You trailed off, biting your lip as your eyes roamed over his form again.

"Yeah," he murmured, his gaze dropping to your costume. "You too." He cleared his throat, shifting awkwardly but never taking his eyes off you.

You stepped aside, finally remembering your manners. "Come in," you said, your voice breathless.

As he walked past you, your heart fluttered wildly in your chest. Tonight was going to be interesting.

“Boy wonder!” Penelope squealed as she caught sight of Spencer walking into the party. Her arms flung open dramatically before pulling him into a big squeeze.

"Hey, Pen, great party!" Spencer laughed, his voice warm as he returned her embrace.

JJ approached, tilting her head curiously. "Where’s Eli?"

Spencer didn’t seem fazed by the question as he shrugged casually. "Oh, their friend is having a party tonight too. They might stop by later, but I wouldn’t count on it," he replied with a small laugh, seemingly unbothered by Eli’s absence.

Derek, being a sharp observer of Spencer’s moods, raised an eyebrow. “...And you’re cool with this?”

Spencer just smiled brightly, brushing it off with a light chuckle. “Yup! We don’t have to do everything together.” He laughed again, the sound easygoing and relaxed.

Everyone seemed to accept his answer, nodding along before the party really began to kick into gear. Laughter and conversation flowed easily around the room, the energy of the Halloween festivities keeping everyone entertained.

But despite the natural rhythm of the night, you couldn’t quite shake the nagging feeling in the back of your mind. Something about Spencer seemed off—not in a bad way, but different. He seemed almost too happy that Eli hadn’t joined him. There was something about his energy, a lightness that hadn’t been there before, and the more you watched him throughout the evening, the more you wondered what was really going on beneath that bright smile of his.

You were in the kitchen, pouring yourself a drink, when the sound of footsteps behind you caught your attention. Without hesitation, you glanced over your shoulder and saw Spencer standing there. Instinctively, you turned to face him, not wanting to give him the chance to sneak up on you.

"Hello, Spencer," you greeted with a warm smile, trying to mask the sudden nervous energy that surged through you.

"Y/N," he nodded, stepping a little closer. "You know, maybe we should team up. Might make things easier," he added with a smirk, his costume and demeanor making him look every bit the psycho he was dressed as. The sight of him like that sent your heart racing, and to your dismay, you found yourself stuttering.

"Wh–what? You, an–an–me?"

Spencer just laughed, the sound low and amused. "Ghostface and Patrick Bateman? We’d make quite the team."

You chuckled nervously, trying to shake off the butterflies in your stomach. "Oh, hah, yeah, you’re right. So, um, who’s our first victim?" you asked, playing along with the joke.

Spencer rubbed his chin, pretending to be deep in thought. "Hmm… I’d say we start with the Men in Black. Take out the authority first."

You couldn’t help it—the laugh that erupted from you was genuine and loud, a real cackle that caught you off guard. You quickly covered your mouth, embarrassed by how loud it was.

But before you could fully hide, Spencer reached out and gently grabbed your wrist, lowering your hand. "Don’t cover up," he said softly, his eyes locking with yours. "I like your laugh."

His touch sent a warm shiver down your spine, and for a moment, the playful atmosphere shifted into something heavier, something unspoken hanging between you both. You smiled, the blush creeping up your cheeks, unsure of how to respond to the sudden intimacy.

"Thanks," you murmured, your heart thudding in your chest, the moment feeling far more charged than a simple Halloween joke should have been.

You cleared your throat, turning back to focus on your drink, trying to regain some semblance of composure. "So, um, how do we take them out?" you asked, trying to keep the conversation light and playful.

Spencer tapped his chin in mock thought before flashing you a mischievous smirk. "Let's make it a game," he said, his voice low, adding to the playful tension between you. "We have to turn off their glowing necklaces without them noticing. If you’re successful, you get a point. Most points by the end of the night wins."

You grinned at the idea, nodding in agreement. "Alright, you’re on."

And just like that, the game began. You and Spencer spent the rest of the evening sneaking around the party, laughing and conspiring together like mischievous children. You’d catch each other’s eye from across the room, silently plotting, and then spring into action, working to stealthily turn off people’s glowing necklaces without them noticing.

Every time one of you was successful, you’d stifle giggles, slipping back into the crowd with a triumphant grin. The whole dynamic between you and Spencer had shifted into something new—something light, fun, and undeniably flirtatious. Your shared laughter echoed through the room, drawing the attention of the other guests.

It didn’t take long for people to notice the change. Derek raised an eyebrow at the two of you, watching as you and Spencer darted around with smiles and whispered jokes. JJ and Emily exchanged knowing glances, clearly curious about this unexpected shift in your relationship. Even Penelope caught on, throwing you a sly look that said she’d definitely be asking you about this later.

Everyone seemed to be wondering the same thing: Since when did these two get along so well?

But you didn’t care. For the first time in a long while, you were having fun—real fun—with Spencer. And, despite the attention from everyone else, you weren’t ready for it to stop.

—

As the night wrapped up, the energy was still buzzing. Everyone had enjoyed themselves, and the party had been a huge success. You felt a sense of pride as you waved goodbye to your guests, making sure everyone had a designated driver or had called a cab. Once the last person had left, you closed the door, feeling the peaceful silence settle in.

But the quiet didn’t last long.

Penelope wasted no time, immediately bombarding you with questions, her eyes wide with curiosity. "Okay, spill! What was that? You and Boy Wonder sneaking around, giggling like a couple of high schoolers? Since when are you and Spencer all… flirty?!"

You laughed, still riding the high of the evening, but you could see the concern in Penelope’s eyes. She leaned in closer, her expression softening as she lowered her voice. "Look, I loved seeing you have fun tonight. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you smile like that," she admitted, "but I just want you to be careful. Spencer and Eli seem very happy together, and I don’t want you getting hurt."

You hesitated, knowing she was right. "I know, Pen," you sighed. "It’s just… it was harmless fun, you know? Nothing serious."

Penelope gave you a look, the one that said she wasn’t buying it. "I just don’t want you caught up in something messy," she said softly. "You deserve someone who’s all in, not someone who’s already got someone else."

You nodded, appreciating her concern, but at the same time, you couldn’t shake the way Spencer had looked at you tonight, the way you’d both laughed together like nothing else mattered.

Meanwhile, Spencer drove home in silence, not having had a single drink all night. His mind was still racing from the party, the memories of sneaking around with you and laughing filling his head. The evening had been… unexpected. He couldn’t deny that he’d had fun, maybe more fun than he’d had in a while.

When he pulled into the parking garage, he noticed Eli’s car wasn’t there. He assumed they were still out, maybe spending the night at their friend’s place. It wasn’t unusual for Eli to stay out late when they were with friends, and Spencer didn’t give it much thought as he unlocked the front door and walked inside.

He moved through the apartment quietly, heading down the hall to the bedroom. But what he didn’t expect—what stopped him dead in his tracks—was the sight that greeted him when he opened the bedroom door.

There, in his bed, was Eli. And they weren’t alone.

It took a moment for Spencer’s brain to register what he was seeing, but when it did, the shock hit him like a tidal wave. The person with Eli—the one tangled up in the sheets, very clearly entwined with his partner—was none other than Shane, the same person who had taken you on a date.

His heart pounded in his chest as the weight of the betrayal sank in, the scene before him twisting his stomach into knots.

Shane looked up at the sound of the door opening, pulling away from Eli and quickly covering both of them with the blankets, their face contorting into a mix of shock and confusion.

“What the hell?” Shane yelled, voice panicked.

That finally snapped Spencer out of his state of shock. “What the hell? What the hell! Get out of my fucking bed!” he screamed, his voice cracking with raw emotion.

“Your bed?” Shane’s face instantly fell, their eyes darting to Eli, whose expression was now cold, almost indifferent. “Are you married?” Shane asked, their voice trembling with fear and disbelief.

Eli scoffed, pushing themselves out of bed, making no effort to cover up. “No,” they said with a lazy shrug, “this is Spencer.”

“And who is Spencer?” Shane asked, sounding utterly heartbroken.

Spencer’s voice trembled with emotion as he stood frozen in the doorway, tears welling up in his eyes. “Yeah, Eli... who is Spencer?”

Eli rolled their eyes, casually pulling on a robe, unfazed by the entire situation. “My partner,” they said dismissively, as if it meant nothing.

“What?” Shane cried out, turning to Spencer, tears streaming down their face. “I am so sorry, I had no idea. We—we’ve been seeing each other for weeks.” Shane’s voice cracked with guilt and devastation.

Spencer felt like he should have been more hurt by the revelation, but the truth was, Shane’s emotional investment was far greater than his own. He saw now why Eli had been so suddenly attentive and kind—there had been someone else.

“It’s—it’s fine,” Spencer muttered, running a shaky hand through his hair, trying to keep it together. “I’ll, um, I’ll stay somewhere else tonight. Eli, let’s talk later, okay?”

Eli just nodded, entirely unaffected. “Cool.”

With that, Spencer grabbed a few things and left the apartment, feeling numb and hollow.

—

Back at your place, you and Penelope were still sitting on the couch, talking about the party, when there was a sudden knock at the door. You exchanged a curious look, not expecting anyone else to stop by at this hour.

Penelope shot up, tiptoeing over to the door and peeking through the peephole. She gasped loudly before rushing back to you, whispering in a hurried panic, “It’s Spencer!” And then, without any warning, she dashed off to her bedroom, the unmistakable sound of the door locking echoing through the apartment.

You let out a long sigh, standing up and making your way over to the door, wondering what could have brought Spencer here so late. You expected him to say he’d forgotten his phone or maybe just needed something small.

But when you opened the door, Spencer didn’t say a word.

He didn’t ask for anything, didn’t explain himself. Instead, he stepped forward, his eyes heavy with emotion, and before you could even react, he reached out, grabbing your face gently but with a sense of urgency. Then, without hesitation, Spencer pressed his lips to yours in a kiss that was both desperate and full of longing.

The world seemed to stop in that moment, your heart pounding as the warmth of his lips consumed you, every thought and question vanishing into the kiss.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

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starkidmunson · 2 years ago

Text

damned if i do (give a damn what people say)

It seems Steve Harrington is back off the market

The latest news on the pop star’s love life comes mere weeks after word of a fallout with longtime beau, journalist Nancy Wheeler. While neither party has confirmed the rumors, many of Harrington’s closest friends have hinted at the end of the relationship in interviews and on social media.

One thing everyone failed to mention, however, is that Harrington appears to have moved on and is now dating Corroded Coffin front-man, Eddie Munson.

The two have been friends for years, tracing as far back as the early 2010s, though it’s difficult to put a pin in exactly when they met. Neither are particularly vocal about their personal lives and often change the subject when the other comes up in an interview; a diversion tactic they’ve been playing for years.

Still, the alleged new couple has been spotted around some of Harrington’s favorite Manhattan hot spots several times over the past week.

The rockstar has a bit of an edgier vibe than Harrington’s usual flings; more outspoken and unpredictable than the ‘type’ Steve has typically shown an interest in; at least publicly.

Only time will tell if “Steddie” (so dubbed by the fans in support of the relationship) is true… and if they’ll last.

_____

“I can’t believe they think I’m dating Eddie,” Steve grumbled into the pillow on the floor of his hotel room. With a huff, he turned his head and looked off to the wall on the far side of the room. “I mean, it’s crazy that I can’t go out to dinner with anyone besides you and not be on a date.”

Robin leveled her foot to the center of his back, before shifting her weight onto it, then grinned in satisfaction as Steve groaned and his back popped loudly in several places. “It’s not like it’s that surprising. The tabloids went feral over you and Nancy breaking up after they were convinced you guys were already secretly married.” She shifted her weight back off him, dropping to sit cross-legged beside Steve. “Plus, it’s not that much of a stretch.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve asked, pushing himself up until he was sitting with his back against the wall, leg stretched out against Robin’s.

“It means you two have never looked at each other the way friends do. It makes sense that they’re picking that up.” Robin shrugged, brushing off her comment like it wasn’t shattering part of Steve’s bubble.

“We look at each other totally normally!”

The look Robin leveled Steve with had him pushing himself up off the floor and making his way toward the bathroom.

“I don’t have time for this right now, I need to start getting ready, but we don’t do anything normal friends wouldn’t because that’s what we are, Robin!”

“Are you trying to convince yourself of that, or me?” Robin asked and sighed heavily when Steve slammed the bathroom door closed in response.

It was only about five minutes before there was a familiar knock at the door; three in quick succession, followed by two after a short pause.

“I think we need to talk, sweetheart,” was understandable, despite being muffled by the door, before Steve was racing out of the bathroom to beat Robin to undoing the locks and letting Eddie in. “Why didn’t you tell me we’re dating?” Eddie asked through a pout, leaned against the doorframe.

Steve rolled his eyes and moved out of the way, letting Eddie follow him inside, before pointing at Robin. “See! Very much not dating!”

“Well,” Eddie started, teasingly, only to get hit in the face with a pillow from Steve’s bed. “I’m kidding, Steve. It’s not even a bad thing. I mean, they’re actually being really fucking cool about you being bisexual.”

“Being out as bi doesn’t mean that every person, regardless of their gender, is automatically my love interest just because I breathed near them.” Steve snapped, obviously frustrated despite Eddie’s attempts to ease the situation.

“Hey. Don’t get mean. You know what’s not what Eddie meant.” Robin responded. Steve looked back and forth between the two of them for a long moment, before he collapsed, face first, onto his mattress with a loud groan.

“C’mon, there’s no need to meltdown over this. If you want me to, I can post something about catching up with old friends to try to make it go away.” Eddie offered, gently, sitting down on the opposite side of the bed from Steve.

It took a long beat, but Steve eventually lifted his head from his pillows and shrugged. “I don’t want to make you do anything like that. It’s fine. It’ll all work out in the end. I'm just having a weird day, I guess.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow, and when Steve didn’t elaborate, he turned his head to Robin, who shrugged.

“Nancy texted him this morning asking to not talk about her at shows and he’s been in a sour mood about it since.”

“Robin!” Steve groaned, pressing his face back into his pillow miserably.

“Have you been, though?” Eddie asked, confused. “Talking about her, I mean? I thought I was doing a decent job at getting the highlights and I have no memory of you dropping anything profound about you and Nance on any crowds.”

“Not directly,” Steve spoke into his pillow, before turning his head and staring at the wall as he answered. “I made a few comments about my songs. How to get someone back. How to gaslight someone into thinking you love them before letting everything go at the drop of a hat for one of your best friends.”

A silence settled over the room for a moment, before Eddie burst into giggles, which set Robin off. Eventually Steve joined in, turning his attention to the two of them with a heavy sigh.

“I guess I was an asshole about it, huh?”

“I think it’s justifiable.” Eddie offered, to which Robin nodded in agreement as she started toying with Steve’s hair. “If you feel like you’re going to say something about Nancy, you could always say something to me instead. Really confuse the shit out of everyone.” He teased, but Steve beamed.

“Wait, that’s actually a great idea.”

Robin looked apprehensive, holding her hands in the air. “Steve, you remember you just freaked out about this, right? And now you’re going to play into it? Publicly?”

“It’ll be fun. I’m not gonna say anything directly about Eddie. But just. References. And then we can watch the fans lose their shit on TikTok later.” Steve reasoned with a grin, and Eddie smiled back at him.

“I promise to spend the entire show dancing my ass off and singing along. For the bit.” Eddie said, his hand over his heart.

“You do that anyway, you’re just usually backstage.” Robin pointed out, and Eddie rolled his eyes.

“Well, obviously, I have to join you and Dustin in the family tent tonight. Duh.”

“Yes!” Steve agreed with a laugh. “This is going to be so much fun!”

“You’re both psychotic.”

_____

“Indianapolis, you're making me feel awfully special tonight.” Steve bit at his lip as he looked around Lucas Oil Stadium to thousands of people screaming back at him. “This is as close to a hometown show as I really get these days, so thank you for always making sure to remind me how special of a place home is.”

The music started to pick up again, but Steve kept talking. “I kind of spent the last few years coasting by without anyone paying too much attention, but now that I’m back on the road, everyone’s suddenly deeply invested in my life, and it's strange to be back so close to somewhere I called home for so long, in the same position I was in five years ago.” He ran his fingers through his hair, before huffing out a laugh.

“But you guys, you've always been there. Unwavering in a way I will never be able to express my gratitude for.” he paused to glance around the crowd again, grinning as they cheered. “Not many people can say the same, you know?”

“Where is he going with this?” Dustin asked, leaning close to Robin, who shrugged, trying not to have a visible reaction. There were always cameras on them in public like this. Any reaction would be taken out of context and exaggerated.

“Did you see the tabloid rumors about Eddie and Steve?” She replied, and couldn’t help but smile as Dustin’s head whipped back forward to Steve.

“I mean, there’s Robbie, the kids I used to babysit. And, uh…” he trailed off, which Eddie took as his cue to move to the front of the family tent. “Maybe someone else. This one's for you.” Steve said, leaving the “you” ambiguous enough to be open for interpretation.

Eddie, hamming it up, made a heart with his hands, before immediately starting to headbang along to the love song next in the setlist.

_____

In a surprising twist, Dustin managed to wait until the security team had moved them out of the crowd and behind the stage with the crew nearly two hours later before his outburst.

“What the fuck?!” He asked as soon as the were away from the crowd. “Why are you two playing into this? It’s just going to get more headlines and attention on the two of you, which neither of you usually like!”

“But it’s different if it’s on our terms.” Eddie responded, not even looking up from his phone as he answered Dustin.

“Is it, though? Is it really on your terms if it’s not even true?” Dustin sounded exasperated, and while Robin could relate, she was planning on sitting this one out until Eddie shoved his phone into her face.

“It’s already on TikTok. 4 videos in.” He said with a grin as Robin watched Eddie make a hand heart toward the stage before his hair started flopping all over as he sang along. The clip was captioned “steddie is real!!!”

“So you’re proud you’re deceiving fans?” She asked, which made Eddie’s grin fall.

“Don't be so dramatic,” Steve called as he approached from the stage exit. He was covered in sweat and still in his performance clothes, holding a half empty water bottle. “It’s all in good fun. They never need to know if it was real or not.”

“I think you’re downplaying this by a lot. What happens the next time one of you is seen out on a date?” Dustin pressed, and continued despite the way Steve rolled his eyes. “I mean it, an honest to god date. People are going to lose their minds, trying to figure out what broke up Steve and Eddie, when you were never even together in the first place! They’ll turn you against each other, they always do. And if you weren’t dating, isn’t that just as bad of a look?”

“Woah. Henderson. Chill. It’ll be fine, man. You’re WAY overthinking this.” Eddie said, before he grinned at Steve. “Could you see my hand heart from the stage?”

“I could. Did you catch the wink I sent your way at the end of the song?”

“I did, nice touch! I patted my hand over my heart, so maybe that’ll end up on social, too.”

“I’m going to throw myself into the White River.” Dustin groans loudly, to a round of laughs and elbow nudges.

_____

Steve could pinpoint the exact moment things finally felt out of hand two weeks later.

He was getting ready for the show that will wrap up his first weekend at his “home away from home” in 5 years when Eddie texted him about being late to that night’s show.

It shouldn’t have mattered.

Eddie had missed the last two shows in Chicago

It shouldn’t matter.

Eddie’d been there, religiously, at the 4 shows before Chicago on the tour, and 6 others before that when his band wasn’t playing their own concerts. Steve even made 3 trips of his own to Corroded Coffin shows, around his own obligations.

But it still made him frown at his phone for a moment too long. Long enough Robin caught him.

“More headlines about Steddie?” She asked, slipping the phone from his hands before he could stop her. When she read over the message, though, her expression softened. “Oh, Steve, I’m sorry.”

“It’s no big deal.” Steve rushed out, snatching his phone back and shoving it into his pocket. “It’s fine. I’m not upset, there’s no reason to feel sorry. Besides, he just said he’ll be late, he didn’t say he isn’t coming.”

“Would you be upset if he wasn’t coming, then?” Robin asked. Steve glared daggers at her, and sighed when she held her hands in the air, feigning innocence.

“I don’t know.” He mumbled, honestly.

___

The intro tape was just about to start as Steve was making his usual trek toward his starting point, when he heard someone running and calling his name from behind him, rather than out in the crowd. He paused and turned, to see Eddie rushing toward him.

“I’m so sorry, I just wanted you to see that I made it before you went on!” He was out of breath, his hair more wild from running than usual, and Steve…

Well, frankly, Steve was tired of pretending like Eddie wasn’t the hottest person he’d ever seen.

So Steve met Eddie halfway, threw his arms around his neck and pressed their lips together in a move Eddie seemed to have anticipated because he wasted no time returning the favor.

It was only Steve’s cue music that had him breaking away, biting at his lip and grinning at Eddie, who grinned back at him, before using the hands he’d placed on Steve’s waist at some point in the interaction to turn Steve toward the stage.

“Go, before you miss the start of your own show, superstar. I’ll still be here after.” Eddie said.

“Promise?” Steve called over his shoulder as he made his way toward the stage’s catwalk.

“Cross my heart, big boy.” Eddie drew an x over his heart for dramatic effect, then laughed and ran his fingers through his hair as he watched Steve run to make it to his place on time.

#steddie #Steve Harrington #Eddie Munson #Robin Buckley #Dustin Henderson #popstar!steve #rockstar!eddie #I don’t know what this is #I think it might be inspired by some of the early eras tour matty and Taylor chaos #but idk lmao #hopefully this finds an audience who enjoys it #starkidmunson writes

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meltedbluecaterpillar · 3 months ago

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Incognito Mode…

All characters are depicted as 18+ | May contain Dark Content! | orange banners were made by @twisted-desires ! Please, Pick Your Poison: #5 Blokes Lookin’ For A Shag #Hungry Beastmen Near You! #Wild and Wet Mermen In Your Area #Hypnosis and Transactional Relationships Only #Lusty Androgynous Baddies Seek You Now #Gamer Boy Solos #Freaky Ancients and More

What’s his favorite category? Check his incognito tab!

Riddle Rosehearts

Most Searched: Dominant Short King

Riddle seems like the guy who would turn up his nose and cross his arms saying 'humpf! I would never stoop as low as to indulge in something so vulgar!'. Very anti porn when people ask him. I don’t think he’s very inclined to pleasure himself but he does get pent up from overworking himself mentally and physically. So I like to think he started with an accidental erotic novel, moved up to peeking at a porn mag, before finally visiting a porn site.

He gets off easiest to things with men similar in height to him. Like a confidence boost if that makes sense? Seeing that even a ‘short king’ can force someone into submission makes his tip sticky. The perfect material for relieving his stress.

He likes seeing men in heels, carrying whips/riding crops, and other 'training tools' during the scenes. He's a light BDSM enjoyer and he likes how there is a power dynamic between both parties. It makes him feel good knowing that he can be normalized during something intimate and usually very vulnerable. He was ashamed of his desires before investing thought into them.

One of the first things he does is look up potential safe words and the world of ‘BDSM’ because he does genuinely like it. Some of the videos look like torture dungeons which is far too advanced for Riddle… He needs things to be lighter and plain. Normal vanilla extract.

His first assumption was he was a dangerous pervert, who would ever want to be swatted with a crop?! But he was wrong. Some people do like it. And that includes him. And hopefully that includes you.

Trey Clover

Most Searched: Big 'O' Compilation

First of all; Trey wants to suck on your nipples while he works you open with his fingers. I know we get the ‘creampie’ jokes. It’s a necessity for Mr. Clover. But as sure as I am that Trey likes to see a hole gush with a load he likes seeing the sub having their toes curl and their eyes roll up into their skull.

I think Trey gets off better when he feels like the porn isn’t fake. Even if it is fake he likes when everyone looks like they feel good.

One sidedness is something he has dealt with (dealing with Riddle and his tantrums) so he became… A martyr on accident? How he cares for others is spoiling them but it can become excessive very fast.

So his idea of a good time mixing with his taste in porn gives him a bonus overstim category. I think when the person being pleasured (the bottom usually) actually looks and sounds like they’re being pleasured it makes him excited.

Have no fear. Trey is happy to make you feel good for the low, low price of; your time and a few kisses.

Cater Diamond

Most Searched: Bisexual Gangbang Party

This is pretty obvious for Cater. But the big reason I picked this one is based around how he sees relationships and how he grew up never having a real connection with anyone. So he likes watching orgies and gangbangs because the idea of so many people having fun makes him excited. That’s why he likes being outgoing in his day to day life.

Cater can clone himself too? So this is a fantasy for him to try at least once or twice. Porn doesn’t always translate to real life interest. So if you asked him to clone himself for an experiment that would be fine. But if you asked to invite someone new that would be a very different story.

I think Cater would actually be insecure if it was a consistent thing in your actual sex life. But again in porn it’s very different. It affects his cock and balls. Not his feelings with you personally.

He also would like watching creampie videos but that’s because part of him thinks it’s oddly romantic? Regardless of gender to have that skin on skin and filling sensation makes his face hot.

Cater hasn’t had a genuine partner outside of a closet quickie or a cheap hotel. So he’s happy that you show interest in him. And maybe you can watch some of his favorite videos with him.

Ace Trappola

Most Searched: Lesbian Soft Core Compilation

I know what I’m talking about when I say this. You can be as mad as you want but I promise you this is what Ace likes he is that brand of annoying.

But also lesbian soft core is fantastic I would know I am a frequent viewer. I think Ace actually prefers making out vs full on sex. Like watching close ups of making out gets him excited or even dry humping and heavy petting? Oh yeah that’s all he needs.

Ace claims that he watches crazy wild videos and that he’s into some ‘freaky’ stuff but he’s pretty plain with his tastes. He just likes lesbian soft core because “If there’s a dude involved that makes me gay! >:(” even though I believe he plays for both teams and he’s in denial.

Ace probably has seeped over into watching gay softcore at some point but he refuses to tell anyone… I think he might dance around cunnilingus and blowjob videos from time to time but he keeps things simple. Maybe brat taming? But in a switch way…

Ace isn’t a bad guy. He’s just someone who wants to experiment. Please don’t check his search history… And please don’t make fun of him…

Deuce Spade

Most Searched: Romantic Amateur

I jokingly headcanoned with a friend the first time he got into porn he accidentally subscribed to something that charged his mom’s card. Or back in the day you could buy porn on your cable network! So it would’ve shown up and she would have seen it… Ruining his life forever. And of course Ace makes fun of him for it…

Deuce in my mind is a switch. But he’s also a very well behaved young man. So I don’t think his searches would be anything outrageous like people might hope. I think he feels the most excited watching amateur porn. Just because it’s not actually acting. It’s two people turning on a camera having sex.

Like soft moaning and ‘I love you’ and light dirty talk makes him super excited. Even seeing the people in the video so close or grinding on one another gets him riled up.

I don't think he would be into the Hollywood level adult films at all. Knowing subconsciously it's all fake might make him soft. In my opinion... I don't think Deuce would ever be comfortable with a one night stand or any form of quick hookup. He comes off as someone who sees sex as vulnerable and it's something he can only do with a trusted partner!

You need to be dating or married to have sex it’s just how the world works. He likes watching the actors kiss and touch and actually look like they’re into each other. Where in the professional films it’s all about hard and fast and it’s just too much for him. And Deuce is a fast learner. He might be able to recreate some of his favorite videos with you; only if you’re cool with it.

#Incognito Mode #heartslabyul smut #aged up characters #smut headcanons #twst smut hcs #riddle rosehearts smut #trey clover smut #cater diamond smut #ace trappola smut #deuce spade smut

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sameschmidtdiffname · 1 year ago

Text

Easy Money

Derek Danforth x AFAB!Reader

Summery: Minimum wage is a joke these days and we've all gotta make rent somehow. And who knew blonds could be so fun?

Tags: AFAB/Female pronouns reader, no use of y/n, voyeurism, sex worker!Reader, drug use (marijuana), sex while high, drinking, cursing, bisexual Reader, fetish party, reader plays with several people, tempature play/improper use of ice cubes, sex toys, possessive!Derek, dick piercing (I will not debate this,) face fucking, breast play, oral sex (male recieving), thigh riding, cock warming, cowgirl and doggy position, praising, pet names, edging, rough sex, spanking, vaginal fingering, degradation, dumbification if you squint, dacrophillia. There is no plot. This is just porn. Straight up.

Notes: Y'all begged to me, now y'all begging to your man. You're welcome. Also, please consume substances responsibly. Do NOT assume an edible ain't shit. They ALWAYS are.

•°○《▪︎☆▪︎》○°•

The gig is simple. Stand there and look pretty.

The woman who had hired all of us was very clear on the rules; serve drinks, talk to the men, don't have a brain, and if Derek Danforth gives you an ounce of attention, you return it. Sex was optional, but they pay less if you do not engage.

I was just there for the check. Times are hard, but this dress is easy to fit into... if I don't breathe. Jesus, it's tight.

The architecture of the mansion is beautiful. Really, if I wasn't working this party I'd be studying every room for an hour each. High ceilings, detailed woodwork. It's a shame it's all bathed in purple blacklights with everyone wearing neon glowsticks.

The people in attendance are in various states of undress. Some wear their clothes fully, some wear nothing at all. Most are in various states of undress, including the waitresses.

All of our dresses are the same- tight, black, and an easily detachable top with nipple pasties underneath in the shape of blacklight activated glow stars. It's tacky, but the girls who have removed their tops are getting way more tips. And with the debt I'm in, plus the security making absolute sure no camera are recording anything, what's the harm in if I join them? It's more money for me.

The various trays contain different things. Some drinks or shots, others different foods. Then there's the drugs. Oh yes. Cocaine, pills, capped needles on at least one tray I noticed. On mine are several marijuana joints, blunts and even edibles. Our employer had told us we were allowed to indulge, but any damages caused due to our inebriation would come out of our check.

Edibles usually aren't shit for me, so I feel quite safe.

A strawberry cube is tucked safely under my tongue, taking a long while to melt. I can feel my muscles relaxing, making me smile more to the guests as I work my way through the crowd. The beginning gentle buzz helps me to forget the way these people leer at me, some even reaching over to touch me before retracting their hands quickly.

"These guests are quite used to casual sex," the woman had informed us. "There's a code here. You'll each have a pendant around your neck. Depending on the color you choose it will inform them of your preference. Red is for looking only, green means you're okay with sexual touch. It's up to your verbal communication if that touch leads to penetration."

The party was tacky, but at least consent was key.

My color currently is red. It will take more of this edible for anything to change. And currently I see no one making the trouble worth it, anyways.

Right now, anyways.

A man with bright, blond tipped hair and a loud outfit works his way through the crowd. Laughing and speaking with some, taking in the different women serving different items. There's a confident swagger in his walk, one that normally I would scoff at when sober. But with the melting cube quickly joining my bloodstream, I simply stare curiously. It's unintentional, honestly. But he takes notice, narrowing his eyes in reciprocated curiosity before making his way over.

"You're new," he says. I offer him the tray.

"I don't know what you mean," I say politely. He picks up a large blunt, taking out his own lighter instead of using one of the complementary ones on the tray. He takes a long pull, shoving the item back into his snakeskin jacket pocket that doesn't match his zebra print, silk looking button up with black leather pants.

"The other girls have been working here for awhile. Who brought you here?" He asks after taking a long pull, holding it.

"Riley," I answer. He nods, exhaling.

"She's worked here a couple years. You two close?" He asks.

Not particularly. "We're friends," I answer. He smiles a bit, taking another hit.

"You like the party?" He asks.

"I like the lighting," I answer. "And I can't say no to free edibles."

"You take some?" He asks. In answer I scoop the edible onto my tongue and stick it out for him to see. "Good girl, that shit will make you relaxed."

"How much is it?" I ask curiously. Can't be too much, surely.

"Told my guys to pick up 1000mgs," he answers, taking another hit.

... what?

My confusion must be obvious.

"You not used to that?" He chuckles, leaning against the wall next to me.

"I induldge regularly, just... lower amounts," I answer. He exhales, laughing.

"You'll have fun then. Especially if you change your color to green, but that's completely up to you," he says. There's a moment of silence between us before I speak up.

"Nice outfit," I say. He raises a brow at me.

"Yeah?" He asks, scanning me up and down. "I think I prefer yours."

"It matches better, that's for sure," I say. He laughs, then sticks out his hand, his smile confident.

"I'm Derek, by the way."

"Ah," I say. Derek.

Derek!

"Nice to meet you, Mister Danforth," I say, accepting his hand. It's warm and large, strong against mine.

"I don't want to hear Mister out of you unless you change colors, pretty girl," he says, squeezing my hand. I feel myself smiling, heart fluttering a little.

"And what would happen if I did change it, Mister?" I ask politely. His grin widens.

"Well, with the way you look already I'd say people would have a fun time with you," he says, stepping closer. "I wouldn't mind a taste myself. I like my girls warmed up, though."

"Warmed up?" I ask, raising my brow.

"I'll tell you what," he says. "You're welcome to leave your tray anywhere, as I'm sure they've told you. You can change your color to green, enjoy your edible and just let the crowd guide you to me. I promise they will." His eyes roam over me, taking me in with a hungry gaze, his mind distracted by obvious thoughts. I wonder how well his shoulders would hold me.

Shit. He's right, this is strong. The herbal smell on his breath is inviting, and I'm already leaning in. Plus, his outfit is beginning to make visually stimulating sense.

"Isn't it polite for a host to show his guest around?" I ask, batting my lashes. I can feel my eyes drying out, my cheeks buzzing and my body beginning to feel the bass of the music just a little bit more than I was a second ago.

"It is, pretty girl," Derek says, taking another hit. "But you're not a guest, are you?"

No, I'm not. I begin to pull away when his hand catches my pendant.

"You want me to get that for you?" He asks, exhaling through his nose.

"Yes sir," I answer with a smile, placing my tray carefully on the table beside me.

"Good girl," he praises, changing the color with a quick flick of his thumb. "You'll fit in just fine."

Before I can respond, his lips attach to my neck, sucking earnestly and harshly. I can't help the small cry that escapes me, my hand finding his hair and burying itself in it as he pins me against the wall.

His hand cups my breast, kneeding it carefully as he creates patterns across my skin with his mouth, licking at the newly bruised flesh before moving on to a new, unmarked area. He holds his blunt up for me, trying to keep it still enough to allow me to take a hit. I accept, holding his hand steady by the wrist, inhaling as much as I can.

His lips detach from my throat, his eyes red and glazed over as his lips graze mine.

"Care to share?" He asks lowly, his fingers still tweaking at my nipple. I'm vaguely aware that my pasties have been removed, where they've gone to I've no clue.

Obediently, I blow the smoke into Derek's mouth, his hand leaving my breast to cup my jaw, holding my mouth open with his large thumb. Once I'm done he takes his own hit, holding it for a moment before pressing his lips against mine, sealing them together before blowing the smoke into my mouth as well. His tongue slides against mine, tasting of whiskey and smoke. I don't hate the way it blends with the sweet, surgery strawberry cube still melting under my tongue.

He pulls away slightly, breathing heavily.

"You taste sweet," he says. "Mind if I try some?"

"Go ahead," I answer. I expect him to take an edible from the tray, but instead he leans in again, his tongue searching for the half melted candy. He finds it under my tongue, slipping it onto his and then pulling away, smiling in satisfaction.

"Oh," I breathe, batting my lashes in surprise.

"I'll trade you," he says, pressing a small kiss to my cheek as he passes the blunt to me. "Just let the crowd lead you, sweet girl. I'll see you in a bit."

Before I can even think of a response, he slips amongst the crowd, gone in the blink of a hazy eye.

Alright. This is fine. Great, actually. I take a hit of the sour tasting blunt and begin walking amongst the crowd.

Derek was right, I am an eye catcher. Or maybe these people aren't particularly picky. But it doesn't take long at all before people are touching me, sliding their hands over my hips as I pass by, stopping me for a moment to press me against their bodies, leaving a mark or three on my skin. The attention makes my mind blank, smiles on my lips as I whisper 'thank you's, the patrons slipping tips into the tight pockets of my skirt as they release me, letting me blend into the crowd once more until someone else catches me.

I should be revolted, I know this. But the people aren't hard to look at, and with as much as I have flowing through my system all I can really think about is how amazing I feel. My joints feel like air is passing straight through them, my head feels light and free of racing thoughts. The lights entrance me, making me easily distractable until a woman guides me gently towards her group, placing me on her lap as she talks with what I'm guessing are work colleagues. Or something. Fuck if I care.

Her hand strokes my back carefully, not speaking to me as I continue hitting my almost burnt out blunt. She glances at me from time to time, smiling sweetly as she watches me.

"Can I have some?" The older woman asks gently. Her lips are painted a dark black, revealing white teeth underneath. Her features are sharp, contoured by heavy makeup. Her hair is shaggy and black, and God, she's... broad. Muscular and looking like she could eat me alive. I wouldn't mind if she tried.

I hand her the last little bit, letting her have what remains as I begin to focus on her hair. It's soft, feeling amazing between my fingers.

"You have anywhere you need to be for the rest of the night?" She asks, her voice deep.

"Derek," I breathe, barely focusing. She and the other women amongst her let out a noise of recognition, some even laughing a little.

"He likes his girls pent up," Another says, nodding. "Says he likes them used, but we all know that's not true."

"Derek likes to go for hours," warns a woman with blue hair that glows in the blacklight. "Hope you have a lot of energy saved up. If he likes you, you won't go home for days."

The woman with black hair is finishing the blunt, flicking away the last little bit and letting it land wherever.

"You mind if we help you?" She asks.

"No," I answer, my hands running over her broad, leather covered shoulders. "I don't mind."

The women aw over me, moving closer and touching different parts of me.

"Focus on my thigh, good girl," says the dark haired one. "Just rock yourself against it and let me know when you're close." She turns to the second woman, nodding her head towards me. "You want to taste her?"

The second woman nods, joining me on her lap and grinding herself against the first woman's other thigh before bending over to wrap her lips around my nipple, moaning as she does.

The third woman, the one with blue hair, simply watches, continuing to talk to the dark haired woman, stroking my back as she does. The first woman seems engaged in the conversation, occasionally sucking on my other breast before responding to the blue haired woman. The second woman is fully engrossed in tasting me, sucking and nipping at my breast eagerly, moaning as she does.

The stimulation feels amazing, my head tilted back as I rock on the dark haired woman's thigh, my body feeling things it never has before. The feeling of two women sliding their tongues across my sensitive nipples, sucking on them at the same time at different paces is almost enough on its own to make me cum. I can feel how wet I am even through my underwear, surely staining the first woman's clothes.

"Shit, Ava. She may not make it to Derek at this point," laughs the blue haired woman. The first woman, Ava, simply smiles, admiring me.

"Should we let you cum, good girl? Or do you want Derek?" She asks, bouncing her leg as she does.

I moan loudly, my mind unable to form a response. This is lovely, just absolutely wonderful. But something tells me that if I waited, if I edged myself like Derek seemed to prefer, then I would be well rewarded.

"Wait," I pant, still rocking my hips against her thigh. The three women groan, laughing a little more as they begin to give me space.

"You think she's good enough for him?" Ava asks the second woman.

"If she's not, he's out of his mind," she says, tearing herself away from my breast and standing to move onto the blue haired woman's lap instead.

Ava guides me off of her before standing tall and admittedly terrifying. She pulls me up gently, taking my hand and leading me through the room. "Follow me, sweet girl," she says. "I'll take you to the main event."

The other two women wave at me, smiling wickedly before turning their focus onto each other. As the drugs begin to hit harder, just a little ways from my peak, I begin to wonder what it is I've really gotten myself into.

A pair of double doors reveal the same dyed blond man on a plush couch, lounging lazily as he speaks to a small group of people in the private lounge. Upon seeing me guided into the room, he smiles eagerly, quickly sitting up.

"I told you you'd find me," he says, setting his whiskey glass in front of him on the small, glass table.

I smile warmly at him, trying to keep my balance as I walk around to him.

"You get her all ready for me, Ava?" He asks, gently placing his hands on my hips and guiding me to sit on his lap, my back pressed against his chest.

"I did," the woman says, joining us. "She's pretty pent up."

"Did she get you pent up, pretty girl?" Derek asks, laughing softly. I can feel the blush in my cheeks, my eyes barely able to stay open as I lean my head back onto his shoulder.

"Feel her if you don't believe me," Ava offers. Derek obliges, dipping his hand between my thighs, pushing my thin panties to the side.

"Fuck," he groans. "You weren't kidding."

Derek guides my legs to spread open, one hand keeping me open for everyone to watch as his other hand explores my vulva.

"Don't worry about everyone else," he whispers in my ear. "We're all just here for a good time. Right, pretty girl?"

I nod, moaning as his finger swirls around my clit. He continues speaking to his friends, drinking casually as his hand toys with me.

"You want some?" He asks, offering me the glass. I shake my head. I'm fucked up enough.

"Water?" He asks. At that I nod, and with the quick snap of his fingers it only takes a blink before he's holding a water in front of me, complete with ice cubes inside.

"Go ahead," he says. "Take a drink."

I obediently lean forward, placing my bottom lip on the edge as Derek tips the water into my mouth. It's soothing at first, my body relishing the cold rush it gives me. Derek's hand glides up and down my folds, teasing my entrance.

"You like the cold?" Derek asks. I try to respond, forgetting the glass in front of me. The water spills down onto my body, freezing and making me cry out in shock at the sudden sensation.

Derek and his friends laugh, his lips pressing soothing kisses along my shoulder blade.

"I'm sorry, were you not ready for that?" He asks sweetly, smiling at me. I shake my head. He places the glass on the table in front of us, collecting a couple of ice cubes before leaning back and adjusting me to face him.

"Let's get you prepped then, yeah?" He asks, popping one into his mouth and chewing.

My eyes widen, mouth opening in question just before Derek wraps his own lips around my nipples, sucking gently and swirling the quickly chewed cube around the hard bud.

"Fuck!" I cry, leaning backwards. Ava catches me, stroking my hair as she watches.

"I knew he'd like you," Ava says in my ear. "He likes breaking in the new girls personally."

Derek's fingers tease my entrance, threatening to dip in while he sucks on my breast, moaning around the cold flesh. He swirls his spit around, rubbing my clit with his thumb.

"You taste amazing," he moans, his breath cold. "Love to taste more."

I moan happily, spreading my legs more and bucking against his hand.

"Take me," I moan. "Do whatever you want."

"Jesus, she's excited," he laughs. "How long has it been, sweet girl?"

Too long. Much too long.

It must be obvious based on the way he trails lower, kissing and sucking on my skin as he begins to slip my skirt and underwear off of my lower body.

"Is this okay?" He asks, looking up at me expectantly. I nod eagerly, rolling my hips towards him impatiently.

"I don't think she likes teasing, Derek," Ava comments.

"No?" He laughs. "Do you like teasing, sweet girl?"

I shake my head slightly, whining. He and Ava laugh, Derek placing a kiss on my stomach.

"Well, I don't want to go too fast, new girl," he says. "Could break you, you know."

"No you won't," I whine. Derek sucks sharply on the spot, leaving a dark mark.

"Gonna have to teach her a thing or two, aren't I, Ava?" He asks. "You know where that toy is?"

"What toy?" I ask.

"Don't you worry about a thing, pretty girl," Derek instructs. "I'm gonna take care of everything for you now. Just relax."

Ava removes herself from the couch, disappearing to look for something. As I'm distracted, Derek slips an ice cube into my warm cunt.

"Ah!" I cry out sharply, arching my back as my hips roll automatically, unsure what to do to relieve myself. "It's cold."

Derek simply laughs, sitting up straight and dragging me onto his thick thigh.

"It's supposed to be," he says mockingly. "That'll work in the meantime while we wait for Ava to come back."

I start to grind against his thigh, my cunt clenching around the cold cube rapidly as I feel the melting water begin to drip out of me. Derek pulls my hair, tutting his tongue against his teeth as he shakes his head.

"Stay still, that's an order," he says sharply. Someone offers him a cigarette, which he takes with no hesitation. When someone offers me one as well, he waves them away.

"She's had enough," he says. He keeps his hand in my hair, keeping a close eye on me to make sure I don't move.

"You enjoying the party?" He asks me.

"Yes," I say.

"Yes what?" He asks, taking a drag.

"Yes, sir?" I say. He smiles.

"Good. You're smart." He turns his attention to a man asking about some account, rambling something about bitcoin and such. Ugh. I don't know why I'm surprised.

I keep my hands clasped behind my back, pressing my chest forward to allow him easy access. This pleases him, his smile growing genuine whenever he glances my way. Once he bounces his leg, making me squirm for more. At that, he pulls my hair, shaming me for breaking the rule.

"Behave," he commands sharply. A few minutes later, however, he bounces his leg again. This time he doesn't stop.

The jolting motion sends shockwaves through my system, the drugs making me weak and stupid. He's not watching me, seeming involved in the conversation, and this ice cube is nearly melted inside of my cunt, dripping more and more. I can't handle this.

I shift my hips subtly, testing the waters. He doesn't notice, and if he does he doesn't care. I do it again, slightly harder against his thigh. Derek is talking about some party in Havana, laughing about a different conquest. I work slowly, making sure he won't turn his eye onto me. Finally, after a few minutes of grinding against him, I feel confident enough to begin a slow, steady rhythm against his thigh, his leg still bouncing against me.

My body feels amazing. Light, stimulation pounding throughout me, it only takes a few minutes before I'm on edge again, my pussy making his thigh slick and easy to grind against as I ride him. My cheeks burn with heat, my eyes eyes fluttering shut as I lose myself in the rhythm, fully focused on how hard his leg is bouncing. The vibrations go right to my clit, making my pussy seize around nothing now as my pulsing heat had caused the cube to disappear. I begin to grind faster and faster, desperate to cum. I don't realize I've begun panting, moaning as I ride him, and the attention in the room has turned towards me in full with Derek rubbing his hand up and down my back slowly, grazing his nails across the skin of my back as he watches with a look that makes him look like the cat who ate the canary.

"You close, sweet girl?" He asks me. My blush deepens, my eyes fluttering open in realization. Derek simply quirks a brow at me, exhaling his smoke into my face as he waits for my answer. My hips stutter, hesitating to continue.

"Don't get shy," Derek scolds. "You were just fine fucking yourself a moment ago. What's a few dozen people watching you?" He asks.

People are chuckling now, making small comments of encouragement.

"You looked so pretty, baby. Fucking yourself stupid on my thigh," he says as his lips tease my tits. "Didn't she look pretty, everyone?" He asks the room, glancing around at the people who respond with affirmations.

I lean forward, trying to hide my face in the crook of his neck. What had I been doing? In front of this entire room? I'd just needed a few quick bucks, that's all this was supposed to be. This was exponentially further than I'd ever planned.

Derek tuts, pulling me away from my hiding place. "Oh no, you wanted to cum. I'm going to make sure you cum," he chides. "I wonder how you'd feel on my cock. Would you like that? You'd feel better if you were on my cock, wouldn't you?"

I nod shyly, my eyes avoiding everyone but Derek. He glances around the room once more, noises of encouragement growing louder.

"You wanna get me ready, baby?" He asks encouragingly, taking one of my hands from behind my back and guiding it to his stiff, clothed cock.

I gasp lightly, squeezing it and grazing my thumb up and down his dick covered by the tight, leather material.

"You look big," I mutter.

"Feel big too," he chuckles. "Go on, try it out. I think you'll like it."

I think I will.

It's hard to see in the odd lighting, so my hands struggle with the hidden zipper.

"Try getting closer," Derek teases, his breath warm against my ear. "It doesn't bite like I do." To emphasize his point, he sinks his teeth into my neck, harsh and quick before releasing me, leaning back in his chair. The sudden movement makes me dizzy, my mind reeling as I automatically sink to my knees in front of the plush, velvet sofa.

Once his pants are opened, he springs out, no underwear confining him. Jesus. He's mostly average, leaning towards the larger side. It's mostly the piercing that surprises me.

"Like it?" He asks. I glance up at him, his grin cocky as he takes a drag from his new cigarette. Hey, man. What happens if I swallow this?

I stammer, opening my mouth and trying to say something.

"You need help?" He asks, wrapping his hand decorated with several rings around his shaft. "Open your mouth again," he commands. I do so without hesitation. His other hand guides my head down, forcing me to swallow it halfway down. I moan in satisfaction, my eyes slowly shutting as I take in the taste of his skin.

"Atta girl. Take a minute if you need to," he says casually. I can smell the thick smoke near my head, his hand stroking my hair gently. Ava must have returned because he's telling someone how warm my mouth is.

"You ready, sweetheart?" He asks. "Wanna show you off for my friends."

Taking a deep breath and opening my eyes once more, I lower myself slowly to his base. He's just long enough that when his piercing collides with my uvula I cough, nearly choking on him. More gentle laughter escapes the crowd, Derek praising me as he begins to thrust into my mouth.

"Just stay there, sweetheart," he says. "I'll do the work."

True to his word, Derek begins pumping his dick in and out of my mouth, whispering something in Ava's ear. I begin taking in the other people around the room, most of them watching us eagerly.

"Watch me, sweetheart," he commands, snapping his fingers and pointing at himself. "You don't have anywhere to look but here."

I obey, keeping my eyes trained on him as he smokes his cigarette which rests between his lips, his jaw gritted as he rolls his hips into my throat, his eyes glazed over in pleasure and who knows what else.

Without warning, someone begins fingering my cunt. A startled moan escapes me, vibrating around Derek's throbbing cock and making him moan, his face confident.

"Don't worry baby, it's just Ava," he says, stroking my hair. "You like Ava, right?"

I moan again, Ava's fingers quick and shallow in my tight pussy.

"Ava certainly likes you. Almost stole you from me, isn't that right?" He asks her, tapping his cherry carelessly onto the floor behind him.

"That's right," her deep voice purrs in my ear. I moan again, my eyes almost fluttering shut from pleasure until Derek grabs my hair, fucking my face roughly to bring my attention back to him.

"Hey now, don't get too happy," he scolds, but he's smiling. "You still like me more, right baby?"

I moan, pressing my tongue to his underside as he slides in and out. He tastes sweet, his jewelry creating an interesting feeling in the back of my throat. Ava withdraws her fingers, quickly replacing them with a vibrating bullet instead.

"Mmph!" I moan, my eyes nearly fluttering shut again. The speed increases, making me drip and writhe my hips against nothing.

"God, she's fun," Derek moans. "Ava, book her for Cabo," he says.

Cabo??

"You like her that much?" Ava laughs. Derek simply glares at her. Is this a thing? Trading girls, fighting over them? What is this?

"Just fucking talk to whoever about it," he spits, his dick quickening in my throat. I'm gagging around him, barely able to catch my breath as I press my hands desperately against his thighs. "Anyone else fuck her tonight?"

"Don't know," Ava shrugs. She brings her face close to mine, her breath hot in my ear. "Did they?"

I moan, trying to shake my head. Derek nods, smiling.

"Perfect," he drawls. The bullet inside of me is driving me insane, enough to keep me on the edge of pleasure but not enough to tip me over. My eyes look up at him, wide and begging, tears beginning to spill from my waterline and streaming down my face.

"You're killing her," Ava scolds him. "Is he being mean?" She asks me. Yes.

"She can take it," Derek says. "You like it a little mean, don't you baby?" He asks, smiling. Yes.

"See?" Derek says. "She's just fine."

Actually, I'm about to hit my peak drug wise, and I can't fucking breathe. But all it does is make me want more, my throat taking him as deep as I can as I moan around him, my tongue moving desperately, eager to swallow his load.

"Think I should cum down her throat?" He asks Ava, his head tilted back in pleasure, cigarette nearly burnt out between his lips.

"Would you like that?" Ava asks, setting the speed of the bullet to max. I scream around Derek's cock, overstimulated and stupid. "I think that's a yes."

"God, you're amazing," he praises. "Such a perfect fucking slut."

Right before he reaches his edge, he pulls me away, admiring the long, thick string of spit that still connects my swollen lips to his cock.

"Look at that," he says. "Should take a picture of that someday."

His hand drags me up by my hair, guiding me to return to his lap. Once I'm straddled across his lap, his fingers delve into my cunt, fucking me quickly as he presses the bullet against my g-spot.

"You like my cock, pretty girl?" He asks.

"Yes," I moan, my voice and throat raw.

"Yes what?"

"Yes, sir."

"Excellent."

His fingers remove the bullet, and he quickly replaces his hand and bullet with his pulsing cock, both of us moaning at the feeling.

"Jesus, fuck," he moans. "You are fucking tight. I can feel everything."

My cunt spasms around him, eager for whatever friction he'll grant me. He stays still, something that's clearly a challenge for him.

"Gonna stay there for awhile," he says. "Wanna make sure you're ready, baby."

My spit on his dick makes for excellent lube, his piercing comfortable against my cervix. His hands run up and down my thighs, squeezing here and there, eventually moving to massage my ass.

"The crowd loves you," he praises, pulling me close to his chest. "Think I love you too."

I'm very high. I'm very horny. I will do whatever this fried hair, cocky ass motherfucker tells me to do.

A waitress walks behind the couch, offering us a tray of joints. Isn't that my job?

"Go ahead, take one," Derek instructs me. I do so, reaching for the lighter on the tray.

"Don't bother, I have one in my pocket. Thank you," he says to the waitress, dismissing her. He reaches into his coat, taking out the lighter before discarding the jacket, leaving him in his zebra printed button up that shows off his chest hair along with a white gold sparkling chain.

He holds the lighter for me, lighting up the joint as I hold it between my lips.

"You're gonna smoke me out, okay angel?" He says, leaning back against the couch, his arms stretched out along the back. I rest one hand against his chest, taking a hit and holding it for a second before leaning forward and blowing it into his mouth.

One of his hands find my hair, pressing my lips against his, his cock twitching inside of me as his tongue slips into my mouth, establishing dominance before allowing me to pull away for another hit. Then another. Then another.

As he inhales the last hit, his hips begin rolling into mine, his voice low as he groans.

"Go on and start riding me, angel," he moans, completely lost in the pleasure. "Show me how you want me."

My hands grasp his shoulders, clinging desperately as I begin to glide up and down his length, his cock twitching against my most sensitive spots with each glide.

"You ever fuck a pussy as good as this?" I ask, watching his jaw shift subtly from side to side as he focuses on my tightness.

"Oh, she speaks now?" He asks, smirking. "Grow a fucken brain, princess?"

His tip slams into my cervix, making me gasp and press my tits into his face. His mouth works quickly, biting and sucking at the tender mounds as I ride him.

"I'm just making conversation," I say. I'm high enough my filter is gone, my brain rotted to the point I'm only focused on my pleasure. He moans against my tit, looking up at me while he buries himself in my body.

"I can't say I have," he says, grinning. "Why, that turn you on?"

Immensely. Not that I'd tell him that.

"Say it," he dares, his cock slamming into me. "Don't hold out on me."

"Maybe I will," I tease, tugging his hair. My hips speed up, riding him hard enough I can feel the couch rocking ever so slightly.

"You're fun," he chuckles. "Say it."

"No," I say, slamming my wet cunt against his base, making him groan loudly.

His teeth sink into my skin, pulling on my nipple to the point I'm on the razors edge of pain and pleasure.

"I don't mind waiting," he says, his tongue flicking against my nipples. "I like causing pain."

His teeth sink in deeper, his fingernails dragging down my back slowly as he slams into me, making me bounce hard enough I can feel it in my stomach.

This is a hell of a paycheck.

"I like it," I say. He chuckles.

"That's not enough," he says.

"I wanna be the best girl you've fucked," I add.

"Mm, need more details." His teeth release my nipple, leaning forward and quickly catching it once more, sucking on the almost raw flesh hard enough it feels like I won't be able to wear a shirt for the next day or two. One of his hands return to my hair, gripping it and pulling it hard enough I can see the people behind us, some of them still watching, some focused on each other, most people switching between the two as they fuck each other.

"Come on, you were just so confident," he laughs against me before returning to his task. My chest burns with want and embarrassment, my eyes glazing over as I give in.

"I wanna make you pussy whipped," I moan. "I wanna glance at something and get it from how desperate you are to get the chance to fuck me."

He chuckles lowly. "I think we'll get along for a while," he says in a satisfied tone, finally releasing my tits from his torture.

"Gonna get me on payroll?" I ask, smiling as I throw my leg onto the back on the couch, giving him better access to fuck me.

"Play your cards right and I'll get my surname on you, pretty girl."

It's an evening of drugs and sex, come morning I'm sure he won't even remember my eye color. But for tonight, can't a bitch dream?

"Go ahead and laugh," he dares. "I get what I want."

"And you want me?"

"Fuck yeah."

He forces me to my side, turning me onto my stomach and hiking my ankles onto his shoulders.

"Jesus!" I cry, feeling his cock bury into me from behind, slamming straight into an overwhelming spot that makes me blind with pleasure.

"Too much," I cry. "Fuck, too much!"

"And that's a problem?" He laughs, abusing me as he smacks my ass, admiring the way my skin reddens.

"Yeah, you're not getting another dick ever again," he decides, his hips chasing after a high that tears screams from my throat. I'm so overstimulated I don't even know if I can cum, my eyes crossed and ass feeling his palm bearing down on the sensitive flesh time and time again, growing more rapid in succession, forcing me to clench his length harder with each new hit.

"Come on, pretty girl," he growls, pressing his chest against my back, his hands keeping my hips pressed against him with no chance to escape. His balls smack against my clit, making me moan in stupidity. "I know you want to."

I cry out, tears streaming down my face, hair stuck to my wet skin as I feel my cunt begin to throb in warning, my stomach clenching as the knot inside me begins to snap, my mind growing fuzzy and static as I pant eagerly.

"Fuck, she's close," Derek moans to someone, small whimpers escaping him as he pumps into me, his teeth digging into my shoulder, sending me over the edge.

Someone's screaming, and I have the vague idea it may be me. I can feel Derek's front soaked in my cum, his dick slamming into me in a way that I just know I'll have a migraine in a few minutes.

"Good girl," he praises. "Fuck. Amazing girl. Taking good dick like a fucking pro."

His cock throbs in me as he cums, deep and right next to my cervix, keeping himself buried as his seed pumps into me, hot and thick.

"I wasn't joking, sweetheart," he mutters in my ear, his voice exhausted. "You and I are going to become good, good friends."

I groan as I feel him slip out, his fingers pushing any cum that drips from my folds back into me, then placing a plug into my aching cunt. His hand grips my hair, pulling me back up to sit on his lap as he accepts a new drink, his cheeks flushed as he tries to regain his breath.

"Let's get something to get your energy back up, hmm?" He asks, pressing a firm kiss on my sweaty forehead.

▪︎《•☆•》▪︎

Cabo doesn't sound all that bad, Danforth. Not bad at all.

Masterlist

I wrote this instead of sleeping. Anyways, see you next time for Mike Schmidt. Stay safe pookies <3

#josh hutcherson #josh hutcherson fanfic #derek danforth #derek danforth smut #derek danforth x reader #derek danforth beekeeper #the beekeeper #derek danforth x you #jhutch #josh hutcherson x reader

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scary-grace · 4 months ago

Note

um and [pda]. for you know who of course. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for the prompt! Since I'm apparently incapable of answering these cute prompts normally, I'm going to extend my usual offer of a rewrite if you really aren't vibing with it. In any case, this is a part 2 to magnum opus, aka the serial killer Tomura AU. 10.8k, all the standard warnings for a fic about serial killers, Tomura being Like That. Dividers by @cafekitsune

videre licet

Six months after he kidnapped you, the Symbol of Fear's laid out his most gruesome crime scene yet - and this time, he's taken the victim's heart hostage. While the rest of the police force grasps at straws, you follow the clues Shigaraki Tomura left you, hoping to find the heart so his victim can be laid to rest. Tomura is hoping for something else. (cross-posted to Ao3)

The call this time came from four hours away. With the cops well aware of where you and the others are headed, you can speed, and you and the rest of the forensics team make the trip in a cool three hours and fifteen minutes. No one will tell you exactly why you’ve been summoned there, but you know. Monoma knows, Aizawa knows, Shinsou knows, Hagakure knows – but you’re the only one with a sick, guilty pit yawning open in your stomach. You know what you’re going to find when you get to the new crime scene, and you know why. For the last six months, Tomura’s been quiet. If you and the team are getting called outside your jurisdiction, it means he’s back.

It’s been six months since Tomura kidnapped you for a photoshoot, and you didn’t tell anyone what happened. You should have. You know you should have, and at the same time, you couldn’t. If you told them that Tomura had come after you, they’d take you off the case. You can’t let that happen, not when you’re the only one who knows where to look for the clues Tomura leaves, the clues that you have a bad feeling he’s been leaving just for you. You’ve tried your hardest to get everyone else inside his head with you, but they can’t or won’t – you’re not sure which. You couldn’t tell anyone. You have to stay on Tomura’s case.

Tomura’s case, which has gone six months without a new murder, until tonight. Why did he go quiet for so long? Why did he come back now?

“We treat this like any other crime scene,” Aizawa says as Shinsou parks the car. “Regardless of what we find.”

He’s never said that before. Whatever’s happening at this crime scene, you know it’ll be bad. Tomura’s savagery is unparalleled, matched only by his obsessive need to make himself known, heard, seen. Based on your conversation, the former serves the latter, but that’s not particularly comforting. When you’re looking down through your camera lens at another mutilated body, it doesn’t matter why Tomura does it.

“His motive’s changed,” Shinsou says, after you all have stared at the gutted corpse for a solid ninety seconds. “It’s sexual.”

You can’t stop the scathing noise that exits your mouth. “It’s not sexual just because the victim’s a woman.”

“This isn’t even the first female victim,” Monoma adds in. “One of the early ones was a woman, too. He treats them the same as he treats the others.”

“So he’s a bisexual sexual sadist. There’s no way he goes to all this trouble if he’s not getting off on it.”

That’s not it. You know it isn’t it. “No,” Aizawa says flatly. “There is a message he wishes to convey. Shinsou and I will retreat. The rest of you, catalogue the crime scene, and then we’ll search.”

Monoma sketches while you take pictures, and Hagakure follows behind you, dusting every possible surface for prints. You work your way inwards to the body from the perimeter of the site, noting the direction the victim’s wide-open, staring eyes are angled. He hasn’t done anything with the hands or feet this time. The victim’s hands are folded over her abdomen, and there’s something folded up between them. You zoom in, snap photos from every angle, and then call for the others.

“It seems he’s growing less subtle.” Aizawa pulls on gloves while Hagakure carefully separates the item from the victim’s hands. It’s a paper flower, clumsily folded out of what appears to be a copy of a court order. That fits Tomura’s MO – almost. Tomura leaves hints, but not in plain sight like this. And Tomura never leaves bloody fingerprints all over whatever clue he’s left.

You try to point that out, but no one listens to you. They’re all congratulating themselves over how all serial killers make a mistake eventually, how he’s slowing down and losing his touch. You’re the only one who’s looking at the body itself, the only one seeing that something’s wrong with the ribcage. “Look at this,” you say. Then: “Hey! He didn’t just open her up. He –”

You reach down with a gloved hand, and the victim’s sternum splits open at the slight pressure. Next to you, Monoma makes a strangled sound and yanks out his sketchbook, drawing fast with a heavy hand. You peel off your gloves and lift your camera again. No wonder Tomura left such an obvious clue. He wanted the team to focus on that. Not on the fact that the victim’s heart has been carved from her chest.

Tomura removes his victims’ organs not infrequently, but he leaves them at the crime scene, artfully and disgustingly arranged. The heart’s nowhere to be found, and although you follow the victim’s eyeline, the heart’s not there. What’s there instead is a message scrawled on a piece of paper, in Tomura’s handwriting. It’s yours if you can find it. He’s taunting you. That asshole. You turn the piece of paper over, only to find an instruction. An awful instruction. Start where we met.

Where the two of you met? You met in his basement. Or you met in the park where he chloroformed you. No way are you going back to either of those places. Tomura’s sending you on a scavenger hunt for a victim’s heart – and worse, he’s guaranteed that no one is going to help you look. You’re dead certain that the fingerprints on the court order aren’t his, but they’re taking up all of your colleagues’ attention, just like he must have known they would. If you’re going to go looking for his latest victim’s heart, you’ll be doing it alone.

So you’ll do it alone. Tomura’s other victims, as mutilated as they were, at least got to be cremated whole. This victim deserves the same, whoever she was. You remember Tomura’s instructions to look up, the one he left at multiple crime scenes, and do it of your own accord this time. Tomura watches his crime scenes somehow. He must have, in order to spot you, which means he’s probably watching now, waiting to see what you’ll do in response to his challenge. You nod a few times to let him know that you’re willing to play. It’s uncomfortably easy to picture his smile.

You show the note to the others, but they aren’t interested, except to tell you to go through the crowd photos from the previous crime scenes. “Start with the earliest one,” Aizawa says. “If he’s referring to his first encounter with the police, he won’t have been as skilled at hiding his trail. You might find him in the crowd.”

You already tried that. Your first day at work after the kidnapping, you went over all the crowd photos with a fine-tooth comb, searching for the identifying features you remember – messy blue hair, red eyes, scratched-raw patches on the sides of his neck. There was nothing. Even from the beginning, he was too smart for that. By the time you came to one of his crime scenes –

It clicks into place for you all at once. Tomura’s mind doesn’t work the way a normal person’s does. To him, your first meeting wasn’t the kidnapping. Your first meeting is the first time he saw you. And if he’s watching his crime scenes, the first time he saw you is the first time you took pictures of one.

It’s a painfully long night at work, and there’s no rest for you even when you do clock off. You head straight to the first of Tomura’s crime scenes, long since cleared away. There’s a small memorial featuring a moldering teddy bear, which you can’t look at too long, and some graffiti that you’re not interested in reading. You walk to where the victim’s body lay and try to put yourself inside Tomura’s head. He wants to be noticed. Everything he does is in the service of getting noticed, of making sure that people can’t ignore him or what he wants them to see. And for a while now – at least a few crime scenes – he’s been trying to get you to notice him specifically. Not his crime scenes. Him.

You’re good at noticing things, but at this first scene, you missed something. You noticed the direction the victim’s eyes were looking, but you didn’t follow it, which means that whatever message Tomura left here went unnoticed. Maybe he wants you to find that message and get it out there, and then he’ll give back the heart. You call up your memory of the crime scene and follow the corpse’s empty gaze. Sure enough, there’s something tucked into a carved-away portion of the concrete wall.

It’s not the original clue. You know what kind of clues Tomura leaves, and this isn’t it, which means that he came back here at some point to leave something new. And he came back recently – the date on the receipt he left here is from three days ago. Did he already have the victim when he bought whatever this was? You and the others have had a hard time figuring out Tomura’s timeline. He does such a good job destroying the victims’ identifying features that it takes weeks to identify each one, and the longer it takes, the more likely it is that people’s memories of the last time they saw the victim alive will be too faded to use.

Whatever he’s planning, he started it in the last three days, which means his planning for it overlapped with the murder, if not the capture, too. You can’t decide which is worse – the thought that he had the victim already, and decided to carve out their heart to mess with you, or if he had the idea for the scavenger hunt and killed the victim specifically to set it up. Either way, it feels like it’s somehow your fault.

You’ve had dumber thoughts, but not in a while. You know there won’t be fingerprints on the receipt, so you take it with you bare-handed, studying it on the train. It’s a pickup receipt for something that’s already been paid for, and Tomura’s obscured the price, the transaction ID, the form of payment, and most of the letters in the name of the business. He’s good. You write out the number of spaces in the business’s name, fill in the letters you know, and start trying to guess what on earth Tomura bought.

Tomura bought coffee and a bagel, but he’s too wound up to eat them. Just like he was too wound up to sleep last night, or the night before, or the night before that. If he’s being honest, he hasn’t slept since he had this idea. Tomura needs you to hurry up and find all his clues, so he can finally get some rest. He got a little too used to getting some rest over the last six months. He needs to be careful, or he’ll lose his edge.

The high from his photoshoot with you lasted for weeks. Whole weeks where Tomura could look at the pictures you took of him, and the footage of you from the hidden cameras in the basement, and feel instantly calmer. He slept better at night, too. Killing people who deserved it and forcing everyone else to see the truth didn’t feel quite as urgent as it did before. The police were on it, as useless and corrupt as they are, and thanks to you, the whole world knows that Tomura has something to say. Tomura didn’t need to widen his victim pool for more crime scenes, more chances for the cops to figure it out. He could be selective, and make his crime scenes even more spectacular for you.

It was a great plan, until Tomura remembered that you’re only paying attention to him when he’s killing people. Six months where he doesn’t kill anyone is six months where you’re not looking at him, and once Tomura figured that out, he was so pissed at himself and so desperate to do something that he killed someone off his list on purpose, in a messy, ugly crime scene that you’d never associate with him. Then he got his shit together and started thinking about what he’d really need to do to recapture your attention. Something to give the so-called detectives a hard-on so they wouldn’t get in your way, and something to make sure that this time, you’d have to seek him out yourself.

You found Tomura’s first two clues already, and he told himself that he was going to wait to see you until you found them all – but then he had some stupid dream about you taking his picture again and knew he couldn’t wait that long. So now he’s here, staked out in the park across from the shop where he left the third clue, with a coffee that’s getting cold and a bagel he feels too nervous to eat, waiting to see if today’s the day you’ll come looking.

It’s not like Tomura hasn’t seen you at all. He’s been watching you since the second he brought you back to your apartment, carried you up the stairs and used your keys to unlock the door and took off his shoes and yours to carry you inside. He’d set the drone up already, so he could be in and out in five minutes rather than lingering, and he still ended up staying longer than he should have. He’s had that drone at your house, and there’s another one that follows the forensics unit to crime scenes so he can watch you work, and every so often he hacks into the CCTV cameras nearest your favorite places to hang out in case you’re there.

Tomura likes seeing you. Likes seeing you go about your day sometimes, even if he has to stop himself from adding new people to his hit list any time you come across somebody rude. But watching you through a camera isn’t the same thing as seeing you in person. And you taking photos of his crime scene isn’t the same thing as seeing him.

He forces himself to drink some of the coffee, and to eat some of the bagel, but his hands are shaking so badly that he ends up with cream cheese everywhere. Having cream cheese all over his hands turns out to not be the worst, because it attracts somebody’s off-leash dog over to him, and Tomura gets way too much satisfaction over being the better offer than the dog’s actual owner. He feels calmer by the time the owner finally lures the dog away, but it doesn’t last long. There you are, right across the street, walking fast with headphones in your ears and headed straight for the shop Tomura’s been staking out.

You look tired. Like you’ve been losing sleep over Tomura the same way he’s been losing it over you, which isn’t a thought Tomura should be having in public. He hides behind his coffee and watches you make your way into the store. He should have picked a better place to camp out than the park across the street. He wants to be closer. He wants to hear what you’re saying. And why shouldn’t he get closer if he wants to?

Because it’s stupid. Because you’re smart. Because you’re smart enough to guess that Tomura’s watching you, and you might be expecting to see him here. Tomura doesn’t let any of that stop him from crossing the street and sneaking into the store, browsing with his back to you while you discuss his clue with the shopkeeper.

“Can you tell me anything about the person who bought it?” you’re asking. “What else were they looking at when they came in?”

“The young man only came in to pay,” the shopkeeper says. “This wasn’t a purchase, but a repair. He brought the item in, made his specifications, and informed me that you would be by to pick it up.”

“The person with the receipt.”

“No, you. By your name,” the shopkeeper says. Tomura wishes he could see your face right now. You probably look surprised, even though you should already know that he knows your name. “Wait here a moment. I’ll bring it up to you.”

If you get bored and start looking around, Tomura’s screwed, but Tomura hasn’t lasted this long by freaking out for no reason. Just because he prefers to watch through drones doesn’t mean he can’t handle himself in public. He pretends to browse, keeping his back to you, fighting the urge to glance over his shoulder and see what you’re doing. That’s an amateur mistake. He can watch you as much as he wants later. Right now, he just needs to make sure you get his next clue.

Your voice is quiet when you speak up – quiet, and rattled with exasperation. “You’d better not have left me a murder victim’s jewelry.”

Tomura almost shits himself. You know he’s there. How do you know he’s there? Did you see him across the street before you came in, or did you expect him to be following you this closely? Why haven’t you called the cops yet? If you knew he was there, you’d have called immediately, which means you don’t know he’s there. You’re just talking to yourself. Tomura’s drones catch you doing that sometimes. You’re just not usually talking about him.

But now you are, and you’re thinking about him, too. And he didn’t leave you a murder victim’s jewelry – at least, not one of his victims’. Tomura stays put, trying to calm his racing heart, as the shopkeeper comes back with the clue. “The clasp and fastening on the locket have been repaired,” the shopkeeper says, “and the new picture has been included. Would you like it wrapped, or would you prefer to wear it out?”

Tomura can leave now. You’ve got the clue. He doesn’t need to hear your answer. “I’ll wear it out,” you say, and all of Tomura’s efforts to calm the fuck down go out the window in an instant. “Thanks.”

“That’s cute,” Hagakure says, leaning across the lunch table to examine the necklace a little more closely. “Where did you get it? It looks old.”

“Thrift shop,” you say, wishing for the billionth time that you’d taken it off. “I’m not sure it’s my style, though.”

“It’s a locket, right?” Monoma slurps his soda. “What’s in it?”

“Not sure. It doesn’t open.”

It opens, all right. One of the photos you took of Tomura is in it, and on the other side, there’s a pressed flower, one that you’re pretty sure has been there for decades. But Tomura wouldn’t have left the flower in there if it wasn’t important somehow, so you’ve spent the last couple nights going blind on the internet, comparing the tiny flower to picture after picture and trying to figure out what it is. You’d rather fixate on the flower than on the picture of Tomura, which unfortunately is a really good one – one of the best ones you took during the photo shoot six months ago. You wonder why he picked it.

Regardless of why he picked it, you’re treating both the photo and the flower as a distraction. Tomura might think he’s leaving you clues towards the heart, but he’s also leaving clues towards himself.

You had a feeling the locket was old, so you went to an antique dealer to have it looked at and found out that it’s close to seventy years old. The maker’s mark on the back of it is from an obscure but well-respected jeweler whose better-kept pieces go for quite a bit of money. All his pieces were numbered, the antique jeweler told you. If you’d like, I can look up who it was sold to first.

He gave you the owner of the locket, a man named Shimura who reportedly bought it for his daughter. You tracked down photos of the daughter, Shimura Nana, and found multiple photos in which she’s wearing it. You also found out that she was murdered, her case never solved, which means that Tomura did give you a murder victim’s jewelry – a murder victim whose death he can’t possibly have been responsible for, since he’s close to your age and wouldn’t have been born for another forty years. But that begged the question of how he got the locket in the first place. And who the locket actually belongs to. According to the articles you read about the murder, Shimura Nana was survived by her only son, Kotaro.

You looked him up, thinking you’d give it back to him once you figured out the flower clue, only to discover that the Shimura family’s bad luck didn’t stop with Nana’s death. The entire Shimura family was murdered twenty-five years ago, and their case was never solved, either. You’ve requested the original files from the jurisdiction where the murders occurred, working under the assumption that there’s some kind of connection. Tomura wouldn’t have had this locket if there wasn’t some connection to the family who owned it. You’re just not sure what it is. Or why he’d give it to you. Pieces of paper with clues scribbled on them are one thing. Jewelry looks suspiciously like a present.

“Hey,” Monoma says from next to you, and you snap out of it in a hurry. “Is that thing an evil amulet or something? You were checked out.”

“Maybe there’s a cursed spirit inside it,” you deadpan. Hagakure snickers. “No, I’m just tired. What were you saying?”

“I was just saying we’re having trouble with the fingerprints,” Hagakure says, and you nod. “Have you had any luck finding the heart?”

You shake your head. “I’m still looking.”

You get your big break with the flower after work when you discover that it’s a rare species of miniature orchid, something that’s only grown under specific conditions. The botanical gardens in Tokyo are the only place that has them. It looks like you know what you’re doing on your next day off.

Tomura’s never staged a crime scene in Tokyo, so you’re not sure why he’d send you here, but you go anyway. It seems like a weird move for him, given how many people are around, given how hard it’ll be to get a close look at whatever he’s left you. If he’s even left you anything. You wander the gardens until your feet hurt, inspecting the orchids every time the crowd parts enough for you to get close. There’s nothing. You thought he might have buried something in the plot where the orchids grow, but the earth’s undisturbed. Did you follow the wrong clue?

Maybe. Tomura will be disappointed, but it’s his own fault. He should have given you something less ambiguous to work from.

At least that’s what you think, until you stick your hand in your pocket on the train ride back and come out with a folded piece of paper that you don’t remember picking up. The first thing you see is his handwriting on the back of it: You’re getting warmer. When you flip it over, you see that it’s a movie ticket for tomorrow night. That’s your clue. You didn’t make the wrong guess about where to look. You were just wrong about where you’d find it, and a bolt of terror and anticipation runs down your spine.

Tomura was here. Tomura got close enough to you to plant this in your pocket, and you didn’t even notice. That’s why he picked the botanical gardens – not to send you on a wild-goose chase, but to give himself crowd cover, and to make sure you’d be so distracted looking for the clue that you’d completely miss him giving it to you himself. Tomura’s not just dangerous. Not just better than you thought he was. Tomura’s brilliant. And for some reason, he used that brilliance to plant a movie ticket in your pocket, for a theater in your town that’s showing exclusively Best Picture winners as a lead-up to the Academy Awards.

You remember seeing posters advertising Silence of the Lambs and wonder if Tomura’s really that much of jackass. Or if he forgot what happens to the serial killer at the end of the story. You didn’t have plans tomorrow night, anyway. It looks like you’re going to the movies.

Tomura shouldn’t be here. At all. He’s already taken way too many risks, and he doesn’t even like this movie. He had to buy a ticket in order to plant your next clue, and since it didn’t matter which seat he was in – since he wasn’t staying – he picked one two rows behind yours. But then he sat down. Sat through six or seven previews. Put up with idiot couples in his row and the row between your seat and his. It’s your fault Tomura’s still here, because you haven’t shown up yet. As soon as he knows you’ve made it, he can leave.

You slip into the theater just as the lights are dimming, when it’s too late for Tomura to get out without causing a scene. Now he’s going to have to sit through an entire movie in a theater, and as bad as Tomura is at sitting still through movies he’s actually interested, he’s going to be even worse at sitting through fucking Titanic. He wishes he’d had the idea to send you to the movies last week instead. Then you could have watched Silence of the Lambs.

It's three hours of Tomura’s life that he won’t get back, but so what? He’s got things to think about. Based on how badly the press is freaking out about his most recent murder and the fake fingerprints he left all over the scene, he’s got their attention, so now he needs to capitalize on it. He’s spent enough time screwing around on the lower tiers of his list, figuring out how to stage a crime scene for maximum impact. Now it’s time to go after the lying hypocrites who let this happen.

Who to start with, though? Tomura doesn’t want to bite off more than he can chew by tackling his biggest target too soon, but if he starts with the others and his main target catches on, the bastard will beef up his security and make himself all but inaccessible. Tomura needs to get him second, maybe. Or third. And he needs to be careful. His targets might not be able to put the pieces together, but Tomura knows you can, and you’ll be the one taking pictures at his crime scene.

Most of the couples sitting in the same row as Tomura are making out, like Tomura’s wandered into some bullshit PG-13 orgy by accident. Your row isn’t much better, but at least the seat to your right is empty, so you can get an armrest to yourself without picking up an STD. You got popcorn and a soda, which is what Tomura should have done if he was planning to stay, and you don’t look like you’re hating the movie. It’s hard to tell when Tomura can’t see your face.

Tomura wonders what movie you’d have picked, if you were the one buying the tickets. You can probably handle a horror movie, given what your job is, but Tomura’s willing to bet that you don’t like them. He doesn’t like them, either, and he can handle blood and guts even better than you. What other kinds of movie are there, really? He can’t picture you being into romcoms or something stupid like that. Tomura doesn’t think he’s ever watched a romcom. He’d put up with one if you wanted to see it.

This movie’s not a romcom. The more time Tomura spends paying attention to the movie, the more annoyed he gets, until he finally gets up and leaves in the middle of some stupid car sex scene, not caring about how much of a scene he makes. He’ll hang out outside the theater, make sure you leave with the clue, plant it on you if you didn’t find it, and go home.

You’ve got the clue with you when the movie lets out close to midnight, and Tomura watches you – but he’s not the only one. The guy from the concession counter is still here, even though Tomura watched him clock off an hour ago, and he stops you partway to the doors. Tomura drifts a little closer, close enough to hear that this guy wants to know why you were going to see a romance movie all by yourself on – Valentine’s Day? Is it really fucking Valentine’s Day? You shoot back that you’re only in it for the shipwreck and shrug him off, but Tomura sees you glance back over your shoulder as you step out onto the street. The guy from the concession stand doesn’t wait more than a few seconds before he follows you.

Fucking amateur. Tomura tells himself that’s why his blood’s boiling. Watching another criminal, one who’s not even good at it, always bothers him. If the concession stand asshole knew anything, he’d know he’s already blown it – you’re wary of him, and you’ll be watching out for him, and you’ll change your behavior to minimize his chances to get you alone. If Tomura was this creep, he’d find a new target. This creep keeps following you. Tomura doesn’t think twice about following him.

He memorized the grid of streets around this theater, just in case he had to make a quick getaway, and he knows exactly where to be. When the creep walks past the alley, so intent on following you that he doesn’t question whether anyone’s after him, Tomura grabs him and yanks him into the darkness. It’s not how Tomura likes to deal with people, but it’s how he learned to do it, and there are some things it’s not possible to forget.

The creep is bigger than Tomura, heavier than Tomura, and he must have been serious about whatever he was planning to do to you, because he’s got a knife. He takes a swing at Tomura that scores across Tomura’s ribcage, then grabs Tomura by his shoulder and throws him against the wall of the alleyway, hard enough to rattle Tomura’s teeth in his skull. But victims have fought Tomura before. Stronger victims, in better shape, with actual training. He’s killed cops and former soldiers. This guy is nothing.

It gets messy, and Tomura gets hurt, but he wishes he had time to drag this out. He wants this guy to suffer, and he wants to leave you a pretty crime scene, one that’ll tell you exactly what Tomura did for you. When Tomura knocked you out to bring you back to your apartment after you took his picture, he could tell that you didn’t believe him when he said he wouldn’t kill you. He’s not going to kill you. Killing for you, though – Tomura’s got no problem with that.

He guts the creep with his own knife, his sleeve wrapped over his hand so he won’t leave a fingerprint, and steps back to admire his handiwork. It’s not his best, but you’ll understand. And if you don’t – you’ve got his last clue now. Tomura can explain it to you when he sees you in person.

Tomura’s last clue is straightforward – a location, a time, and a warning that you’ll never get the heart if you tell anyone or if you don’t come alone. How badly do you want the victim’s heart? Really badly, and after Tomura’s led you on an unhinged scavenger hunt halfway across Japan, you’ve got no interest in backing down. Maybe he’s gotten distracted setting this up for you. Maybe he’ll make a mistake, and you can find a way to bring him in.

When you get to work the morning, the Shimura files are in a carton on your desk, but before you can even lift one out, a call for forensics goes out, summoning you to a murder scene downtown. Aizawa’s off for the day, so Shinsou’s running the show. Monoma’s off, too, which means it’s just you and Hagakure, and you’re going to have to sketch the scene in addition to photographing it. You have time for a longing look at the Shimura files before you’re hustled out the door.

Three seconds after looking at the scene, Shinsou declares it as a copycat of the Symbol of Fear, and you have to admit that it doesn’t look like Tomura’s work. The body’s barely been gutted, the limbs haven’t been removed or rearranged, and the victim’s eyes look like they’ve had thumbs jammed into them. This wasn’t Tomura, even if it did happen only a few blocks away from the theater you were at last night. Tomura must have been there to plant the clue, but there’s no way he left after you did. Tomura doesn’t strike you as a movie type, but of all the movies he could possibly sit through, you don’t think Titanic is anywhere on the list.

It’s not Tomura’s work, but something still feels odd to you as you sketch the scene and pick up your camera to do your real job. Hagakure is dusting for prints, and Shinsou’s thinking out loud, the way Aizawa never does. “The victim’s been partially eviscerated, but that likely occurred postmortem, due to the lack of blood spatter. The true cause of death appears to be strangulation with a rope or some other object, which is not present at the scene. The killer must have taken it with them.”

You keep snapping photos, starting at the victim’s feet, then working your way upwards, trying not to trip on Hagakure in the bargain. Shinsou’s still talking. “The victim’s phone and wallet are missing. Combined with the short distance between the scene and the victim’s workplace, it’s likely that this was a crime of opportunity.”

“His workplace?” you repeat. “How do you know where he works?”

“Nametag,” Shinsou says, and you take a picture of it. “He worked at the theater a few blocks away.”

The victim’s face is a distorted mess, but you remember the name on his nametag. You made sure you remembered it, because the vibe was off when he stopped you on your way out the door, and you took the slow train home just to ensure that you’d be surrounded by people for as long as possible. He creeped you out last night, and he’s dead this morning. That can’t be a coincidence. You need it to be a coincidence, because if it’s not –

“Detective! Look!” Hagakure is bent over the victim’s right hand. “He must have fought his attacker. There’s hair in his hand.”

The strands of hair she’s lifting from between the victim’s fingers with tweezers are longer than you remember, but it’s been six months since you last saw Tomura. That’s enough time for his hair to grow. They have his hair now. They’ve got his DNA. “Check under the fingernails on that hand,” Shinsou is saying to Hagakure. “I’ve got skin fragments here, too.”

“Over here!” The officer who called in the body is beckoning to you, and you make your way over. “Blood spatter. Think it could be something?”

You’re not a detective, just a photographer, but the distance between the blood spatter and the body is significant – and it’s pointed in the wrong direction. The victim would have been trying to move out of the alley, back towards the street, but the blood spatter is close to the other end of the alley. Tomura left it when he was escaping, which means Tomura’s injured, which means that the police now have his skin, hair, and blood attached to an open murder case. This was a stupid kill for Tomura to make. Why would he take this kind of risk?

For you.

The thought is horrific, but once it’s in your head, you can’t shake it loose. It clings to you through the rest of the crime scene documentation, and it’s in your head as you upload your photos and write your report back at the station. It’s still there when you finally get to sit down and read through the Shimura file, documenting the annihilation of an entire family. Shimura Nana was murdered almost fifty years ago, and twenty-five years after that, her descendants were murdered, too. Shimura Kotaro, his in-laws, his wife, and his children.

No. Not his children. His daughter was murdered, but not his son. His son, five years old at the time, went missing, and has been missing ever since. You flip through the file one-handed, looking for more information about Shimura Tenko. With the other, you wake up your computer and navigate to the missing persons database. Shimura Tenko is in there, sure. Shimura Tenko’s listed as presumed dead. His profile is bare-bones – no photo, no last known place or last known sighting, no information about any search that was conducted. There’s nothing in the file, either. Did anybody go looking for this kid?

No. Even when you dig up newspaper articles about the murder, Shimura Tenko’s barely mentioned. If people were looking for him, they stopped looking fast. You think of Tomura’s obsessive need to be looked at, of his insistence on drawing attention to the failures of people who are supposed to protect others, and feel sick to your stomach. This can’t be it. This can’t be who he is, where he came from. So what if the locket you’re still wearing belonged to his grandmother? So what if he risked his mission to kill somebody who bothered you? So what if he went six months without killing anybody after somebody looked at him just once? You’ve seen what Tomura’s capable of. There’s no way this is where he started.

There’s a school photo of Shimura Tenko somewhere in the file. You stare at it for an hour, searching for Tomura in the few details you can see, but it’s been more than twenty years since this photo was taken. If you’re right about this, Tomura’s your age, and you don’t look anything like your old school pictures, anyway. And it’s not like you have anything to compare to. You’ve never actually seen Tomura’s face.

He'll be watching you when you go to pick up the heart. Maybe you can find a way to get a message across to him. Knowing who he is won’t make him any easier to catch, but maybe if you let him know you’re looking at him, you can buy a little more time.

You’re almost here. Tomura checks his tablet screen, flipping through drone camera after drone camera to make sure you’re alone, sends one final message, and sets it aside. His nerves hum in anticipation, not quite the same way they do when he’s about to execute a planned kill. Tomura planned this from the beginning. You were always going to end up here on this rooftop, and he was always going to be waiting for you. Tomura just wasn’t expecting to be such a mess.

He's got a black eye and a split lip and scratches on his hands, and he was going to put on clean clothes, but his stupid washing machine broke. The best he can say for his clothes right now is that they aren’t bloodstained, but that’s not going to last – the cut on his ribs keeps opening up, and the bandage he put on it won’t stay in place. Tomura’s not sorry he killed the creep who was after you. He’s just pissed that he got himself beaten up in the bargain.

He hears your footsteps on the stairs, fishes the hand out of his coat pocket, and settles it on his face, wincing like an idiot. He was going to sit down, but if he sits down, he’s going to grimace standing up, and he doesn’t want you to know he’s hurt. Tomura leans back against the wall instead, arms crossed over his chest, as you appear around the corner.

Tomura’s mouth goes dry. He liked carrying you to his workshop, watching you sleep and then wake up, but this is better. You’re wide awake, and you came to see him purposely. You’ve got a backpack, like Tomura’s got a backpack, and your camera bag is slung over your shoulder. You’re still wearing the locket Tomura left as the second clue, but when you see Tomura, you rock back a step in shock. “Hey,” Tomura says, and his voice cracks. “You made it.”

“You’re here,” you say. Tomura doesn’t know how to read the look on your face. “You promised me the heart.”

The heart. Right. That’s how Tomura got you to play in the first place. He knew you wouldn’t be able to leave even the most useless victim to be cremated in pieces, and he knew you’d keep looking, because that’s what you do. “It’s on its way.”

“It’s not here?”

“It’s on its way,” Tomura repeats. Your stare turns accusatory in a hurry. “Look, if you walked up to the police station holding somebody’s heart in a cooler, they’d get suspicious of you. I’m doing you a favor.”

“They’re going to be suspicious of you. Your DNA is all over the crime scene from this morning.”

So you found that one. Tomura’s stomach clenches. “It doesn’t matter. They’re not going to find it anywhere else.”

“They still have it,” you say. “Where’s the heart?”

“I said it’s on its way. You don’t trust me?”

“You tricked me,” you snap. “I’m leaving.”

“No.” Tomura swallows down a surge of panic. He could get ahold of you, stop you – if he hadn’t gotten hurt. His injuries won’t slow him down much, but it’ll be enough, especially since he doesn’t want to hurt you. “I’m having it delivered to the police station, but I’ll cancel it if you leave. Do you want it to get there or not?”

“I want proof,” you say. “Do you have package tracking?”

Tomura takes out his phone, unlocks it, holds it out to you. You’d have to come closer to him to take it, and you won’t. “If you were just going to ship it the whole time, why did you do this?”

Don’t you know? You should know, just like you knew what Tomura meant by his crime scenes, just like you know how to make him look human when you capture him on film. When you speak again, your voice is quieter, anguished. “Why did you kill that guy for me?”

You do know. Tomura feels the knots in his throat and stomach relax slightly. “Why do you think?”

“He was never going to get to me,” you say. “I was in a crowd the whole way home. Nobody’s that stupid.”

“He was,” Tomura says. “Did you want me to just sit there and do nothing?”

“I didn’t want you to do anything!” You look upset. Why are you upset? “I don’t understand.”

You don’t understand, but you came prepared, probably. All this stuff you brought with you in your backpack is probably for transporting the heart safely – except for one thing. “If you don’t understand, why did you bring your camera?”

“I thought you might have left something for me to look at,” you say. It’s quiet for a second. Tomura waits, fixated on the slightest flutter of your eyelids, the way your chest rises and falls. You look up and make eye contact. “But I think you did.”

It’s a good thing Tomura put the hand on. His face turns red so fast that he’s surprised he doesn’t combust. “I’m not leaving until I know the package got delivered,” you say. Tomura nods and gives himself a headache. “And while we’re waiting, I could always take your picture.”

“I brought your camera,” Tomura says. You brought it up first, so he doesn’t feel weird about saying it. He lifts it out of his backpack and hands it over to you, watching as you deftly adjust the settings. “Is the light okay?”

“I’ve worked with worse,” you say. “Don’t worry. I’ll make you look good.”

You said the same thing last time. It was dumb last time, too. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“You have seen it,” you say. “Last time, I – um, I’m pretty sure you liked the pictures I took.”

Tomura liked them. He’s also pretty sure that’s not what you’re referencing. “I’m not going to do that just because you’re taking my picture.”

“Okay.” You take a test shot, then another, and if Tomura hadn’t gotten beat to shit last night, he’d already be ordering himself to calm down. “Do you care if I pose you more this time?”

Posing him was where you got him into trouble last time, but again – beat to shit. “No. It’s fine.”

You want him to sit down in a specific spot, in a spot that’s catching faint afternoon sunlight. Tomura sits cross-legged at first, and you take a few pictures like that, but then you tell him to get comfortable. “Just move when you feel like moving. I’ll take care of everything else.”

At first Tomura does what you said, shifting this way and that, but when he sees how tightly you focus in on everything he’s doing, he can’t resist experimenting a little bit. He draws his knees up and sits forward, ignoring the protest from the cut on his ribs. The pictures you take aren’t of the places he’s expecting. He’s expecting you to take a bunch of shots of his arms wrapped around his knees, but you’re ignoring them. You’re taking a lot of pictures of his face.

Tomura’s not great with eye contact. Eye contact through a camera lens isn’t much better. “Should I make different faces or something?”

“Most of these aren’t of your whole face. Here.” You show Tomura the pictures you’ve taken so far, and he sees photo after photo of his eye, visible through the fingers of the hand. His hair, which he hasn’t cut in forever but did try to brush, and the way it falls over his cheek and his shoulder. A couple shots have zoomed in on the back of his neck, the angle of his jaw to his neck to his shoulder. “What do you think?”

Tomura thinks it’s like his dreams. He’s thinking how weird it is that you see him like this, that you can take a photo of a part of his body that he scratches raw more often than not and make it look normal. “You have really nice features,” you say. Tomura looks away from you in a hurry. “But you’d be worth looking at no matter what.”

Tomura’s stomach twists. “I was wondering,” you continue. “Last time I wouldn’t let you, but this time – I think it might be nice to get some shots of your face.”

“Of my face? So you can tell the police what I look like?”

“This is your camera. You’re not going to let me take the film with me.”

“And I’m supposed to think that will stop you?” Tomura asks. His heart is beating so hard that he’s giving himself a headache. “You could draw me. I’ve seen your crime scene sketches.”

“If you’ve seen my crime scene sketches, then you know I couldn’t draw a person if my life depended on it.” Your voice is softer. Tomura can almost picture you smiling. “It’s okay if not. But if you wanted me to –”

Fuck it. Tomura pulls the hand off his face before he can lose his nerve and looks back at you. He sees your eyes widen in surprise, then worry. “Tomura,” you say, “what happened?”

“What?” Tomura’s expecting you to explain, not to reach out to the side of his face that the creep slammed against the wall. “Don’t. It’s fine.”

“You got it fighting that guy. For me.” You set the camera down. Your hand forms to the curve of Tomura’s cheek, then jerks away. “It’s warm. Hang on –”

You leave, but you’re back a second later, crumpling a single-use ice pack to activate it. Tomura’s expecting you to hand it to him, but you hold it to his cheek instead, and he can’t resist tilting his head against it. “Do you just keep this stuff around?”

“I brought it for the heart. I wasn’t sure what kind of packaging it was going to be in.”

“I kept it on ice,” Tomura says. He’s not an amateur. “What are you doing?”

You’re digging in your backpack again, coming up with a first-aid kit. “There was blood spatter at the scene this morning, leading away from the body. Where else did you get hurt?”

Tomura must have screwed up that crime scene even worse than he thought, and he doesn’t care at all. As long as he’s extra careful with his other crime scenes, it’ll be fine. The weirder part of this is that you’re helping him. You’re not just taking his picture. You want to help. Why?

Tomura decides it doesn’t matter. “He pulled the same knife I gutted him with,” he says, and your eyes widen slightly. “He got me in the ribs.”

“Is it still bleeding?” you ask. Tomura can feel it dripping down his torso. He nods, and although he should have seen what you say next coming from a mile away, it still catches him completely by surprise. “Take off your shirt.”

The cut on Tomura’s ribcage is jagged, deeper in some places than others, and it’s too wide to stay closed without help. The bandage he’s slapped over it is hanging on by a thread. “You should have gotten stitches,” you say nonsensically, trying to avoid the old scars you can see on his torso, or the fact that you can almost count his ribs. “How big was this knife?”

“Big.” The Symbol of Fear watches you, eyes wide and face flushed. He’s still holding the ice up to his cheek, and you see the offensive wounds on the backs of his hands. Shinsou assumed that the killer used a ligature, but based on those, you’re pretty sure Tomura strangled the victim by hand. The victim must have clawed them to pieces trying to get Tomura to let go. “He had a knife, and he waited an hour after his shift to make sure he saw you leave. I had to do it.”

Tomura thinks all his murders are justified. You know that. This is the first time you’ve found yourself fighting the urge to agree with him. “Like you had to kill the others?”

“Someone had to,” Tomura says. He grimaces as you pull the edges of the wound together with a steri-strip. “Did you figure out who the last one was yet?”

Shinsou and Aizawa tracked down everyone whose name was in the court order Tomura left in the victim’s hands. Only one of them went missing recently, and a couple of DNA samples from family members later, you had a positive ID. “She was a child welfare worker. Not your usual type. A real –”

“Bleeding heart,” Tomura fills in, and you groan. “Come on. That was funny.”

“No, it isn’t. What you did to her wasn’t funny at all.”

“She had it coming.” Tomura’s voice turns cold. “Go look at her cases. There’s not one time she didn’t place the kid back with their fucking family.”

You remember something in the Shimura file, something about concerning behavior in the Shimura children, behavior that hinted at something going wrong at home. “What I did to her was over fast, and it only happened once,” Tomura says shortly. “She had it a lot easier than the kids she threw away.”

“I’m not defending that,” you say. Tomura gives you a skeptical look. “I’m not defending her. Almost everyone you’ve killed has done something awful. But there are ways to punish them that aren’t –”

“Like what?” Tomura waits for you to answer, but he doesn’t wait long. “She hurt people who nobody else gives a shit about. Do you think anybody’s going to stand up and defend them? They don’t even want to look.”

You don’t know what to say. “I got tired of waiting for people to open their eyes. They’ll see when I make them see. When you make them see.”

This is why Tomura won’t kill you. He needs you and your photos, or he thinks he needs them, to spread the word, to take his vision and transmit it to the world. It doesn’t matter to your coworkers why Tomura does what he does, but it matters to you. Tomura wants to send a message to the world. He wants to teach the world a lesson. “If they saw,” you start, as you carefully apply another steri-strip. “If you knew they’d seen. Would you stop?”

“They’ll never see.”

“But if they did,” you say. “Would you stop?”

“I’ll stop when it does,” Tomura says. He closes his eyes.

So, never. Why would he? Tomura has power as the Symbol of Fear, so much power that he’s not scared of leaving DNA evidence, that he’s not scared of you seeing his face. If he really is Shimura Tenko, a kid no one cared about when it counted, why would he ever give up the chance to force everyone to care about him? To watch him, to hang on his every word and move, to devote themselves to understanding him at last? Tomura won’t stop. He’ll never stop. But maybe he’ll pause.

Only one way to test. “I thought you might have stopped,” you say. You apply one final steri-strip, then put a bandage down over it. Then you reach for the camera. “Six months without a crime scene is a lot.”

“I was lulling you all into a false sense of security.” Tomura startles when you snap the first picture. “I wanted to see what you’d do when you thought it was over.”

“I never thought it was over.” You take another picture. Golden hour’s in full swing, and the light is perfect as it scatters across Tomura’s body, gilds his eyelashes and his hair. “You’d been busy. Did you take a vacation?”

“No.” Tomura scoffs. His face is flushed, and it’s spreading, down his throat and over his scars until his collarbones are dusted pink. You can’t help taking pictures of that, either. “No. I wanted. I –”

He squirms slightly, even though you aren’t touching him – as if your gaze through the camera lens is something physical, something as tangible as your hands on his skin. It doesn’t stop when you lower the camera. It gets worse. You remember this from last time, and you tell yourself that’s why you’re reaching out to him. You’re trying to recreate the same conditions as before, the ones that led to the six-month pause in his murders, trying to give him what he’s looking for through a different mechanism. It’s not because you know what happens next. It’s not because you want to see it again.

Tomura shudders when you touch the uninjured side of his face, trace over his jaw. You pause with your fingers at his throat, feeling his pulse racing, and force yourself to remember that he choked someone to death less than twenty-four hours ago, that he’d think nothing of closing his hands around another person’s throat. Then you move on to his collarbones, more deeply flushed with pink. The light is beautiful. You’d take pictures if this wasn’t so much –

“More,” Tomura breathes. “Don’t stop.”

You run your fingers lightly along his sternum and remind yourself what it would have taken to carve out someone’s heart. A scalpel to cut through skin and fat and muscle. A sternal saw to crack open the chest, a rib spreader to pry it apart. His hands, the one scratching at his neck and the one clawing for something to hold onto, would have been covered in blood. Human hearts are smaller than people think. He could have held it in one hand.

Tomura’s chest rises and falls rapidly, but it’s not until your hand slips past his sternum to rest on his abdomen that a sound leaves his mouth. You reach for your camera, needing to capture the look on his face, but Tomura’s hand closes around yours, holding on painfully tight. His grip is like iron, even as his hand shakes, and you recoil at the same moment as your heart skips a beat. How far are you planning to go here, with him? He’s a murderer. He’s done such awful things. You can’t hide from them. You’ve seen them up close.

But you see this, too. You see vulnerability alongside viciousness, loneliness alongside rage. Someone who knows what it’s like to be forgotten, someone who would do anything to stop it from happening again, someone who doesn’t make mistakes – except when he’s making them for you. The thought sweeps through you in a hot, painful flood. You can’t tell anyone about what happens here. That means it doesn’t count. You know just as well as Tomura does – if no one sees, it’s like it didn’t happen at all.

You turn your hand in Tomura’s with an effort, one he resists until he realizes that you aren’t trying to make him let go. His eyes fly open when you lace your fingers with his, and for a moment you’re holding his gaze, seeing more than he wants you to see, seeing everything. Then his phone starts buzzing, and whatever tension lies between you dissolves into awkwardness. This isn’t why you’re here. You pull your hands away, and Tomura reaches for his phone. “It’s delivered,” he says. “Look.”

There’s a photo of the package, left on the steps of the police station – a cooler, with a barely-legible message written on it in black marker. Who’s heartless now? A question occurs to you. “Would you have given it back if I hadn’t played your game?”

“No.” Tomura sits up and pulls on his bloodstained shirt. “It was for you.”

“And this.” You touch the locket around your neck. “Do you want it back?”

“Why would I want it back?”

“It’s a family heirloom,” you say, and his shoulders stiffen. “Don’t do that. Did you think I wouldn’t look?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Tomura says shortly. “It won’t help you find me. I don’t care.”

“I don’t think that’s it,” you say. “I think you wanted what you’ve always wanted.”

Your phone starts going berserk, too. You don’t even have to look to know it’s from work, to know that you’re being called in because the heart’s been found, because there’s yet another development in the serial killer case of the millennium. Tomura’s on his feet now, looking away from you. “You don’t have a clue what I want.”

It’s not much distance between the two of you on the rooftop. You aren’t crossing any lines you haven’t crossed already when you step forward and wrap your arms around him from behind. You know how strong he is, but he’s so thin, his vertebrae too prominent when you’re pressed against his back. His breathing catches. “What are you doing?”

“You don’t have to kill someone to make me see you,” you say. His breathing hitches again, and you squeeze your eyes shut, forcing yourself to recite what he’s done, even as you speak up again and prove just how pointless you’ve rendered it. “I can’t look away.”

Your phone starts ringing, and you ignore it. Work will call back again. It’s more important that you make this lesson stick. Tomura doesn’t try to pull away from you, and you don’t let him go. You stand there together until the last scraps of the golden hour have faded away.

Tomura examines his body in the mirror. He tells himself he’s checking on the last remnants of his bruises, on the healing knife slash across his ribs, but really, he’s looking for what you see when you look at him. What made you take so many pictures, the kind of pictures Tomura can’t look at without feeling dizzy and hot. What made you touch him like that, hold him that way. Tomura can’t see it yet. But maybe he will, if he keeps looking. He has to find what it is that makes you want to look at him, that makes it so you can’t look away.

Giving the heart back to the cops threw them for a complete loop. Nobody in the department mentioned anything about you being the reason Tomura gave it back, and that’s fine with Tomura, but the press is having a field day trying to figure out why he’d remove someone’s heart just to give it back. Why he took this heart and not somebody else’s. What he wants them to see this time. What it says about him that he’d do something so –

Not good. Good isn’t the word. There’s not a word for what Tomura is, and the sooner everybody remembers that, the better. Tomura’s already got the beginnings of his next crime scene in his head, and all he has to do is decide whose illusion of safety he wants to shatter – Detective Aizawa’s illusion that he can protect his team, or his brat apprentice’s illusion that his mentor can’t be torn down to his level. He’s leaning toward the apprentice – he doesn’t like his attitude, or the way he’s talked to you, and when you see what Tomura’s done, you’ll –

You don’t have to kill someone to make me see you.

No. There’s nothing in Tomura’s reflection to draw you in. Whatever magic you work with your photos, there’s no evidence of it in what Tomura sees in the mirror. He knows the kinds of things you can do with your camera. You take hideous things and make them striking, you take horrible things and turn them beautiful. Turning Tomura into something worth looking for is probably nothing to you. So how come your voice is in his head like that? You don’t have to kill someone to make me see you. Is there any way that could be true? I can’t look away.

There’s a way to find out, and Tomura feels the plan tugging at his thoughts. He could set up another game for you, one without any body parts at the end of it, one that doesn’t have anything to do with his mission or his murders. Something for you to find, because you like finding things, and maybe you’ll like finding Tomura at the end of it. Maybe he could get you another movie ticket, to something he won’t hate this time, and he could sit next to you instead of two rows back. If you want to see him. If you weren’t lying.

Bodies don’t lie. Tomura’s well aware of every tell that reveals disgust or fear. He can spot every crack in a person’s resolve, dig his fingernails in and pry it open to get to the terror beneath, and that’s how he knows you aren’t scared of him at all. There are parts of what happened on the rooftop that he can’t think about without squirming and parts that yank on him like magnets, pulling him back to the memory. Your fingers interlaced with his, your gaze steady on his face, your arms wrapped around him and your body pressed against his back. No one’s ever held Tomura like that. He’s never been that close to someone he wasn’t actively murdering. Not since before.

And you were so warm, not the damp, panicked sweating of somebody whose adrenaline reserves are running dry. Just warm. Just close. Tomura wasn’t anywhere close to done when you pulled away, and he knew even before you left that he’d kill to feel like that again. Anybody would.

But Tomura doesn’t have to, according to you. He’d be stupid to believe it, when it’s the only way it’s ever worked, and he has crime scenes to plan. He’s going to kill your boss, or your coworker, and the crime scene’s going to be a masterpiece, a work of art in real life as well as through your camera lens. Maybe he’ll set up a game for you to go with it, body parts or no body parts. Either way, you’ll have to come looking for him again. It’s the only way to make sure.

Still, though – I can’t look away. Every time Tomura passes by the mirror, every time he finds himself looking at the photos you took of him, every time his drones follow you to somebody else’s crime scene and he sees his locket around your neck, he wonders if you might not be telling the truth. You don’t have to kill someone to make me see you. Tomura hears your voice in his head, remembers the brush of your fingers across his skin, and wonders what it would be like to find out.

#asks #shigaraki x reader #shigaraki x you #tomura shigaraki x reader #tomura shigaraki x you #shigaraki tomura x reader #shigaraki tomura x you #man door hand hook car door #x reader #reader insert

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genderqueerdykes · 5 months ago

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what's your take on (usually cis but not always) lesbians not wanting to date bisexuals? I never really understood that. I feel like a lot of the reasoning presents as biphobic, plus most of the people I ask shoot me down and call me inherently lesbophobic for not understanding, so I'm not sure how to feel about it

it's really just bullshit and i'm glad you decided to ask!

this behavior definitely has its roots in lesbian separatism. there was a push in lesbian spaces in i want to say the late 80's to early 90's to remove anyone who wasn't a "Woman Loving Woman". they started kicking anyone out who associated with men at all. they also started kicking out butches who were "too butch", trans men, and any other men and mascs who may have attended the space. and they started inventing all kinds of weird words like Womyn and asserting that women and lesbians were superior to everyone else.

it got really out of control. during that time it was really common for lesbians to reject bisexual women, especially if they had ever slept with a man. for. whatever reason. i don't know if they think they get guy cooties by proxy or what, but they were so staunch about it that they would just. refuse to interact with you if you even had friends who were men. it got that bad. they were kicking out bisexual women and people because they were tainted now, or whatever. a bisexual woman was no longer pure or whatever the hell. lesbians and their partners had to be STRICTLY Womyn Loving Womyn or else they don't belong in lesbian spaces. they became SUPER pushy about it being for lesbians ONLY and NOT those "gross filthy bisexuals".

that's why we're seeing this now. we're seeing a resurgence of this rhetoric in real time. radfems are now what the lesbian separatists were back then. same group of people, different name. they change hats every few decades but their politics stay the same. it's dumb as bricks because if you ask me, you're not entitled to know who your partner has been with before they got together with you. you don't need to know that. and it doesn't change anything about you if your partner chooses to date or sleep with multiple genders. it's just petty. they would act like that person was a man now just because they associated with men and would treat them like an icky parasite. it's seriously just unreal how these people think and act. and it's still normalized in lesbian culture to this day

bisexuals can be in lesbian relationships. bisexuals can be lesbians. lesbians can date bisexuals. the world will not come grinding to a halt if a lesbian marries a woman who has slept with men. that doesn't make that person "tainted". people gotta stop with this weird culty bullshit. we're not treating people as individuals anymore. it's gross.

#asks #answers #bisexual #lesbian #bi

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rydengg · 3 months ago

Text

A Chilling Encounter at the Gas Station

Woosh. Woosh. Woosh. The wind whipped against each lamp post as I passed them on the two lane strip of road that connected my house to the nearest - well, anything west of it.

I would normally have no reason to drive this far in the opposite direction of civilization but, unfortunately, my time is often lost to the screen of my computer or tv. By the time I realized how hungry I was, the clock on my lock screen read 1:24 A.M. and maybe in a more densely populated area, that wouldn’t be a problem, but this town is a church town. Like, a church every day of the week type of town. Nothing is open past 10.

Meanwhile, if you drive a ways out in the opposite direction, you’ll find a mediocre little gas station in, more or less the middle of nowhere. The place hadn’t been updated since 1974 but they carried some of the best snacks. The fact that the weirdo boss had a knack for exclusively hiring pretty cashiers was just an added bonus for a small-town closeted bisexual like myself. Even if he hadn’t; my fridge was empty and thus, the journey was necessary.

That night, the entire feeling as I pulled my shitty little Civic into the parking lot of the Glorious Day Gas ‘n Go was off. Even before getting out of my car, I could see the girl behind the cash register through the large storefront windows. She was absent-mindedly braiding a strand of pin straight brown hair before letting it go, allowing it to unravel and repeating the process again. I recognized her, actually. Kathleen. She wasn’t necessarily THE popular girl back in school but she was certainly well liked, even though pretty much everyone agreed that Kathleen was a bit of a ditz. An airhead. The less nice girls would call her stupid but she really wasn’t. More than a little absent-minded; definitely, just a sweet girl with her head in the clouds.

Shit, I’d remembered just then that the GDGNG has a window service only policy after certain parts of the night. The main counter stood in the center of the building but there was a smaller version near the door, one which contained a small metal hatch and drawer, where you’d have to do your transaction when it was really late. This was annoying as the attendant would have to shop for you. I couldn’t remember whether or not it kicked in at 1 AM or 2, but I figured I’d have to approach the building and find out either way, so I got moving.

Shutting off my car, I got out, slamming the door closed. Kathleen made no effort to move towards the night drawer, so I went for the door and found it unlocked. So, I shopped like normal. She continued to play with her hair, seeming at least somewhat aware of my presence but not quite responding with the normal “hello” or “welcome in” greeting most of the girls were likely required to say.

I found myself shopping a little slower than usual, stealing glances back at her to see if she’d moved, somehow kind of knowing in my skin that she’d still be standing there, playing with that same strand of hair. She wore the required “uniform,” mainly street-clothes but with a small apron that would normally be white but she’d clearly tried to DIY dye hers pink. I’d already known from school that this was a regular thing she was known to do with much of her clothing. If she couldn’t buy it pink, she was gonna make it pink.

Her eyes were locked into an empty stare out the large front window, her mind seemingly somewhere different. Not to either end of the road. Just out into the nothingness that surrounded that gas station. She had been doing so from the moment I’d pulled in and by then she still really hadn’t stopped. There was a strange feeling growing in the air, although my awareness of it was at the time chalked up to the lateness of the evening. I tried my best to mind my business as I grabbed a few small bags of chips, some microwavable noodles, a bag of peanut butter m&ms, two packs of gum, and a mountain dew.

The sound of me setting the products quietly on the counter startled Kathleen - her name tag reading KATY with two glittery little bubble stickers shaped like pink butterflies on either side - out of her odd trance. I felt my heart skip a beat when her gaze broke from the window and turned to me. It was like I had snapped her out of a dream and she wasn’t quite awake yet. “Oh, shit, you aren’t supposed to be in here.” It seemed like she was saying it more to herself than me, which she also became aware of and put on some semblance of the “customer service” act everyone who’s ever had to work with the public knows too well. “Sorry, I mean our front doors are supposed to be locked. I can check you out here though, just don’t tell my boss.” I could tell she’d said this to lighten the weird static in the entire building but there was a hollowness to it that started to make my stomach turn.

Katy didn’t immediately move to start scanning my items - although she did cease fiddling with her hair - and instead, continued talking. “I’m not used to night shifts. My co-worker’s kid is sick and I had to change my whole routine - my boyfriend was NOT amused.”

My tummy started feeling even more sick and yet there was a strange… pull I had to her, like I was unable to disengage and address how truly strange the situation felt or just why such a normal exchange had my skin feeling like static. “Oh man, Kathleen, I’m sorry to hear that. Men can be such assholes.” I said, letting out a fake chuckle afterwards that was surprisingly convincing for how utterly disconnected I felt from everything around us. Katy’s hands returned to her hair though she did seem a bit more present in the moment. She chuckled too. There was a slight glimmer of recognition that came after that. “You went to Harrington, too.” she said with a hollow smile. “Yeah, I think I was two grades below you.” I shuffled my body weight from one foot to the other. The handful of words between the two of us felt like they stretched across hours already. I was barely thinking of the snacks anymore or my growling stomach.

“Everyone in high school used to use my full name, but Dan is the only one who calls me Kathleen anymore.” Her fingers that had once been easily looping her hair in an effortless little braid now began to look a little stiff and clumsy, although Katy didn’t seem to notice it. “I prefer to be called Katy.” She trailed off and her gaze had returned to the exact same spot out the window. The little glimmer that I could feel was waning.

I tried to keep the conversation going in hopes she’d snap out of it. “It’s been so long, I'm glad to see a familiar face at least - the face of a friend.” We really didn’t interact much at all back in the day, but this intentional choice of wording brought back a little bit more warmth into the exchange between us. Still, it didn’t fully penetrate to break the blank behind her eyes. “Definitely! I feel like I’m either always working or hanging out with Dan. I can’t remember the last time I did something fun...” She trailed off again a little bit before snapping back to normal, picking up and scanning my items. “That’ll be $7.54.” Katy said the words but didn’t reach out her hand at all to grab the cash. After several seconds of silence, I set the ten down on the counter. She looked at it but didn’t pick it up, instead pushing a button on the cash register that popped the drawer open.

Empty. Like, empty empty. “Huh.” The inflection - or lack thereof - in her voice sent a chill down my spine. “I think I forgot to stock my drawer when I came in tonight.” Katy pushed the drawer back closed and allowed her gaze to float back to the window. I began to think that maybe she’d taken something - like pills or molly or whatever - that wasn’t agreeing with her. She’d be far from the only person who’s gotten inebriated and then was suddenly called into work, maybe she was just having a bad reaction.

“How do you feel right now, Katy?”

Katy didn’t respond, not to that or several other verbal tries to get her to respond; even the lightest conversation or the most direct questions. Without thinking much of it, I reached across the counter and gently shook her left shoulder.

Several things happened in quick succession. The touch of her skin gave my hand a shock. Small, but it hurt. It disoriented me, too. Katy began to gasp in a panic but the air and the sound was more reminiscent of someone trying desperately to swallow puke. There was a gooey burbling sound, too, but I couldn’t figure out the location it was coming from. She stumbled backwards and that same elbow knocked several packs of loose tobacco to the floor, a few of which burst open and spilled behind the counter.

We both stood there frozen for a minute, not saying anything to one another. Katy now had both her arms wrapped tightly around her chest, almost hugging herself while still gazing out that window. Despite this, she was aware of the mess. “Fuck.” she said under her breath - or rather OUT of breath.

I realized at that moment that had few options; I could get the fuck out of there, call for help, and leave her alone + possibly strung out in an empty gas station - or I could accept that I’m already in this weird fucking situation and try to get this girl some help, or at the least see her through whatever trip or high she was experiencing. So far, behaving as normally as possible had worked to keep Katy from spinning back into a daze, so trying to be helpful seemed a good way to normalize the situation.

“Katy, do you have a broom? Where do you keep your cleaning supplies? We should clean this up or something.” I was taking measured breaths, doing everything in my natural ability to achieve calm even just for myself at that point, not only for her sake. Still, the task was harder than it should’ve been; it wasn’t hard to think. It was more like my brain felt like a steel trap while my body waved from autopilot and fight/flight/freeze.

“Over there.” She pointed to the little narrow hallway that led to the bathrooms. I didn’t look where she pointed then. I could only stare at her face.

Katy’s mouth was bleeding. Not badly, but her teeth were thinly coated in blood. I thought “This girl isn’t just high. This girl is not well.” She needed help and although my brain told my body to grab her and leave, I felt myself instead moving towards the hall and bathrooms.

Something in my body said “you need to get the broom” although it made little sense to do so. I just had to get that broom, head back to the counter, get Katy and get out. I cleared my thoughts and moved with nothing on my mind but the task at hand until I felt my palm on the handle of the broom. There was no sense of relief from this and the desire to get the hell out only compounded as I turned myself around, not getting all the way before freezing in front of the women’s bathroom. The door was wedged open a bit by something pink.

My stomach didn’t just hurt anymore. A thick wave of nausea started to fester at the lowest part of my belly and my heart began to race as I gently pushed the door with my free hand. It was a pink slip on shoe. More importantly, these were Katy’s pink slip on skate shoes. Puke fought its way up my throat as opening the door revealed more of the scene.

Katy was laid on her back with her limbs spread out. Her jeans, t-shirt, and hodge-podgely pink dyed apron were stained in copious amounts of slowly darkening and drying blood. It pooled out widely beneath her. A rather large hunting knife stuck out of the left side of her chest, right dead in the heart. Her head was turned to the side and her eyes stood open, staring blankly. It wouldn’t occur to me until days later that she’d been facing the same direction I’d seen her staring the entire time. One skinny little braid sat over her shoulder, half undone and saturated in blood. Her name tag, “KATY”, had miraculously remained unsullied by any carnage.

Surprisingly, the puke that had begun to build went back down. The nausea washed back away and it felt that I was instead caught in the river-like current of electricity that had been carrying my every movement from the moment I tapped on Katy’s shoulder. I gently let the door rest back in place before dragging the broom and dust pan to the counter. Katy still stood there in some strange defiance of the horrible reality of her own demise. She didn’t move to grab the broom but I didn’t move to help her clean it up, either. I just leaned it next to her and moved back to the front of the counter.

“So…” my voice shook, but surprisingly not nearly as much as I thought it would. “Who else has been in tonight?” Katy’s eyes fluttered with some level of lucidity. “I…. I guess I don’t know.”

I couldn’t tell you what guided me through that conversation. It wasn’t wit. It wasn’t knowledge. It wasn’t overwhelming compassion. I felt like an audience member if nothing else. I listened to myself ask all the right questions as if nothing was wrong though it was hard to pay attention to the answers. Katy continued to deteriorate right in front of me. Her breathing became wet sounding - a familiar thing I realized I’d heard when she had gasped earlier. Blood began to seep from under her apron, left side obviously, and eventually much more from her mouth.

“Dan killed me, didn’t he?”

He had.

Katy being a “ditz” wasn’t the only chat around the town. Dan had gone to school with us too. He had always been the violent type of jock with a garbage personality to match their bad reputation, and everyone knew that. The two of them, Katy and Dan, didn’t get along in high school. I still don’t know how they ended up together down the line.

It had only gotten worse with age as alcohol inevitably became involved. That’s how this shit always goes. Dude becomes a monster. Somehow the girl gets blamed. Before her death, everyone said she was too stupid to leave or liked the attention or whatever.

Anyway, that’s just word around a small town.

I couldn’t tell her for sure what had happened, but I knew she had to know inside somehow.

“I don’t know, but you do.” the words once again sort of came without thought. It’s odd to hear your own voice and yet… not quite recognize it.

She lifted a now off color arm up to awkwardly wipe her mascara tears. It was a lethargic and clumsy attempt by fingers that seemed stiff as stone. Every moment appeared to be bringing havoc upon her form. “I always forget to lock that stupid fucking door. I saw him coming but I really thought he couldn’t get me….” Even in that moment, I somehow still thought “she's so beautiful.” She rested against the back counter and slid down into a crouching position while burbling in a nauseating sounding way and choking out one self-deprecation after another. This only lasted for a minute or two before the tears ceased and Katy absent-mindedly stood back up.

With clumsy hands, she grabbed my items from the bag they’d been in and put them into a new bag before repeating (or rather sputtering through little trickles of black thick blood) “that’ll be $7.54.” I picked up the ten and handed it to her once again. She grabbed it this time and I felt that shock of energy again. She didn’t do anything with it; just kept grasping it in her hand.

I still look back now and wish something more profound had come out of my mouth at that moment but instead, only a simple gesture came to mind. “Thanks, Katy. Hit me up sometime, I’d really like to catch up. I think we’d make good friends.” Kathleen said nothing but smiled. Blood still poured from within.

The next few minutes were a blur but, as I’d later see on security footage, I more or less went through the motions. I left the store and got into my car before picking up my cellphone to call 911. I came back to a somewhat coherent level about halfway through the call when I was sobbing profusely as some poor emergency operator tried their damndest to decipher my words.

Dan knew Katy had a tendency to forget to do lock-ups, especially when she was alone. He knew he could confront her without costing her that job and set off to do so that night. Katy thought she’d locked the door. She ran to hide in the bathroom and the gesture of her running away pissed Dan off enough that he pulled the hunting knife he brought with him just about everywhere. She got most-way into the bathroom, he lunged in after her. Being a hunter gives a person knowledge about anatomy and killing cleanly, so I guess he had no problem plunging that thing directly in a way that would puncture her heart. He didn’t expect to nick her lungs but it didn’t matter. Her heart bled into her lungs. She died too quickly to understand what happened to her.

Being a hunter made him a more capable killer with a weapon but it didn’t make him smart about getting away with murder. The security camera caught him doing everything except the act as well. It didn’t take law enforcement but a minute to figure him out. He was caught in the middle of a half-assed suicide attempt after the security footage was watched and the knife was traced back to him. The first half of the security cams were enough to fry him. We know what he did.

After his crime, Dan left the GDGNG in an emotional frenzy, only coming back for a moment to ransack the cash register in hopes of making it look like a robbery before getting into his truck and leaving. About thirty minutes pass, then this odd mass of dark black purple and blue opalescent light and camera fuzz slowly moves from the hallway back into the middle of the counter space, behind the cash register. Ten more minutes pass, my car pulls into the parking lot.

Every time I touched her - it, the light, I DONT KNOW - I was seen in the video actually touching it. Just watching, I could feel some semblance of that same feeling, just in the very tips of my fingers. It all went the same way. It handed me my things, it held my ten dollar bill - that really stuck with me at that moment because up until then, I wasn’t sure if any of it had happened at all or if I was truly losing it. That was proof to me; seeing those detectives and doctors faces of puzzled disbelief seeing the very same thing I was.

The second half of the tape was left out of criminal proceedings, naturally.

Yet after a while of fruitless treatment, the doctors sat me down and were frank with me; there is no explanation for what’s happening - not one they’re realistically finding - unless they pick one and just assign it to me. Eventually, they ruled it was a “temporary bout of psychosis brought on by trauma” essentially saying that finding “a dead girl” was too much for my brain to comprehend. They gave me a clean bill of mental health, they gave me back my shit, and let me leave.

I hadn’t cried in a while at that point but sitting there in the same clothes (yeah they didn’t even give me something clean to leave with) with the gas station store bag packed in with my wallet, car keys, and random shit that was in my pockets… Well, yeah. It reasonably brought on the waterworks. I pulled out the keys and my wallet but stared at the rest for a while before finally pulling out the generic THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU plastic bag.

A mountain dew, some noodles, chips, chocolate, and gum. I picked up each and held them in my hands for a moment before moving onto the next one. I could’ve waited until I got home but knowing this would probably be my only quiet moment before family absolutely smothered me like I knew they wanted to, I felt I needed to do it then. I got to the last item, a pack of pink bubble gum. The weight and density felt off and the shape of the brightly printed packaging was bulging at the corners. With shaking hands, I removed the somehow untampered plastic wrap to find what I already knew in my heart would be there.

A name tag, pristine. Printed KATY with tiny little pink butterfly bubble stickers.

The Glorious Day Gas ‘n Go was closed within the month of that horrible incident. All four pumps had already been removed by the time I left the hospital. Even though that little corner store was barely even part of our shitty church town, the embarrassment of a passion killing at a gas station was not a lovely look and the owner was quickly elbowed out of business and eventually out of town.

What I didn’t expect to later find out was the overflowing compassion for Katy. Nobody blamed her for not locking that door. Actually, come to find out, the owner could’ve set it to automatically lock and chose not to. He felt Katy would only learn to be less absent minded that way. People didn’t see it that way.

People held memorials. There were quite a few photos, bears, flowers, and other things now placed lovingly outside the building. People loved her more than she gave herself credit for.

It’s been a while since then and I consider Katy a dear friend and someone close to my heart. The story of her death has become more of a local scandal and I suppose one day it will become urban legend, though as far as I know, nobody knows the truth of what happened to me that night.

I saw her one more time; just once. I drive out there every few months, just to remind myself of her. I think I lingered the longest the year anniversary of that night. Right before I went to start my car to head back home, I felt that familiar static energy in my fingertips and it caused me to look up at the deeply dilapidated building one more time.

The silhouette of a person stood where the cashiers counter once was.

l swear, she way toying with her hair.

#made this #it’s been a while but i finally have a story i feel like posting #fiction in case i need to stress that

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