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shouyuus · 6 months ago

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─── Ⅵ FIGURE EIGHTS

violet; 28,888 words; fluff and smut (at the end), semi enemies to lovers, fake dating, hockey!vi x figure skater!reader, ice dancers!meljayce, miscommunication, smau-intermissions, toxic ex!cait, simpgirl!vi, slowburn, the gays r bad at feelings, lots of making out that almost leads to something, emotional edging (for YOU lol), fingering (both receiving), thigh riding, oral (r!receiving), slightly unhinged!reader, no "y/n"

summary: a hockey player and a figure skater kind of, sort of, not really, but then actually fall in love. what could possibly go wrong? (narrator: apparently, everything.)

a/n: YALL. yall. YOU. ALL. lmfao. i can't believe i finished this (i say, after writing any fic longer than 5k words). but i TRULY doubted for a second that i would bc as i kept writing, it kept... getting longer? i hope that this doesn't drag, and that you guys like it. it's really a fucking labor of love. like heavy emphasis on the labor. shoutout to @vifilms for being my emotional support, and to my irl bf for actually physically reading through like 90% of this fic out LOUD with me to make sure the dialogue doesn't sound awk. BUT ANYWAYS. pls enjoy and PLS tell me what u guys think!!!! the smau fake texts won't start till chapter three, but ! it's my first time making like.. fake texts so sldkfjsd.

TABLE OF CONTENTS ━

prologue: party people

chapter one: shut up and kiss me

chapter two: fists to a knife fight

chapter three: love's dream

chapter four: for cup's sake

chapter five: don't hate the player (suggestive)

chapter six: six (nsfw)

─── TAG YOU'RE IT .ᐟ.ᐟ

pls comment below if you'd like to be tagged for this series! :) if you're already on my vi-taglist via my normal taglist link, then you're all good. if you only wanna be tagged for this series, comment below! pls pls have your age visible somewhere on your blog as this will be an 18+ fic!!!! thank you!!!

prologue: party people

─── Ⅵ IT STARTS WITH A GAME of spin the bottle — a college party post-game, the home team the exhalant victors, the crowds of adoring fans the worshippers at their beer-tower altars, doing keg stands and shot-gunning cans of cheap bud lite for an approving grin or a wink.

“Remind me why we’re here again?” you ask, jerking back as a drunken guy nearly topples into you, the red solo cup in his hand sloshing over onto the already sticky linoleum floor.

Mel sighs, “Because, darling, you promised me that you’d come out at least once if me and Jayce made it through the Challenger Series this year.”

She tugs you behind her, weaving through the crush of bodies till the cramped living room area opens onto a much larger patio, the mid-autumn chill cooling your skin.

“It was a joke,” you say, whining slightly even as Mel grabs what looks like an unopened hard cider from the table and presses it into your hand.

“Yes, and one that hurt my feelings,” Mel sniffs, turning her nose up, though a grin teases at her lips, “so to make up for it, you now have to stay at this party and have some semblance of a good time.”

And that was three and a half drinks ago, because sometime between then and now, you’ve found yourself pulled into an unwitting game of spin the bottle with what seems like half the entire hockey team, sitting next to Mel, her boyfriend Jayce on your other side, chatting animatedly with one of the girls hockey girls. You overhear the words “creatin” and “Bulgarian Squat” and decided that it’s time for you to tune out of the conversation.

“Vi, it’s your turn!”

Vi, your thoughts linger over the sound.

It’s a pretty name.

You glance up at the girl sitting across from you, Number Six — you’ve always known her as that, what with the tattoo on her cheek (there were rumors that it’s actually not real and she just reapplies one of those temporary tattoos every two weeks) and the fact that it’s her jersey number, it’s really not too hard to remember.

“Yeah, yeah,” she says, laughing as she reaches for the empty beer bottle in the middle of the circle. Her right hand’s bandaged up and you can’t help staring at it. When you look up next, it’s to catch her watching you, your eyes meeting in a startling clash of raw contact — the cacophonous noise of the party dulling out to a thin whine somewhere at the back of your head as you stare at her and she stares right back.

You’d never noticed that her eyes, even in the dark, beneath the dim, flickering patio lights, reads mourning-dove blue, so subtle it’s almost gray, so sharp as she takes you in that your stomach drops from inside you. She smirks and twists her fingers expertly around the bottle, setting it whizzing.

You tear your eyes away, your breath sent astray in your chest by just that look alone. You frown at the spinning bottle, your mind abuzz with fragmentary thoughts you can’t quite string along for long enough to form a full sentence — eyes… her lips are pretty… wasn’t she dating… someone? who??? what’s her name again? something pretty —

“— right, ice princess, you ready?”

“Huh?” you jerk your eyes up from the bottle to find everyone watching you. From your left, Mel nudges you with a sanctimonious grin, her eyes flickering down to the bottle and back up towards —

“Go on!” she hisses, even as you blink uncomprehendingly down at the bottle pointing right at you.

Across the circle, Vi’s questioning smirk is all the answer you need as your alcohol-addled brain finally puts together the pieces.

“R-right…” you push up onto your knees, but something holds you back, a niggling feeling in the back of your brain as Vi’s smirk grows wide and she jerks her head towards the living room.

“Want a bit of privacy? Or… would you prefer an audience?”

Half the circle wolf-whistles at the insinuation, the other half roll their eyes, leaning back on their elbows as if to settle in for a long night.

You lick your lips, feeling your mouth scald dry.

“Privacy. Please.”

You follow Vi stiffly from the patio back into the stuffy house, her fingers closing around your wrist as she tugs you behind her through a long hallway splitting off from the main living room, branching into a series of what look like bedrooms. Half the doors are closed, illicit sounds echoing out from behind them, but Vi finds an empty one near the end of the hallway and pushes it open, leading you inside.

“Oh wow,” you say, looking around the room. It’s a typical fratboy’s room, full of suggestive posters, the floor littered with questionably laundered clothes.

“What, not your ideal setting for a makeout-sesh with a stranger?”

You frown as your eyes slingshot back to Vi, her standing feet from you, hands tucked loosely into her pockets, watching you with dark, firefly eyes.

“Thought we were just supposed to kiss once.”

Vi chuckles, closing the distance between you in a few quick strides, crowding you up against the closed door.

“Sure. We can do that. Or…” she makes no effort to hide the way her eyes flicker down to your lips, trailing back up in a line of fire that sizzles against your skin. “I could show you what a real good time looks like.”

Your breath crystalizes in your chest, and the strange, tickling feeling traces down the back of your head till it gathers, hot and unconscionable at the nape of your neck — a spin-click wheel of half-formed thoughts and images ticking by behind your eyelids as you try to remember why the hell this feels so wrong.

And then, it clicks, and you press a hand to Vi’s chest just as she’s leaning down to graze her lips against yours, the friction so delicious you almost lose your train of thought.

“A-are you sure this is a good idea? Didn’t you just break up with that track and field girl? Caitlyn?” you blurt out, a culmination of all the snippets of whispered conversations and half-caught glances of the pair of them across campus. The It-Girl Couple, people called them, the hockey team star and the track and field genius. They were hard to miss, and even harder to forget.

A moth-wing-flicker of emotions crosses Vi’s face as she takes half a step back, her expression morphing into one of shock, and then hurt, and finally, hard-lined disgust as she looks down at you with a thin-lipped grimace.

“Oh fuck you.”

She yanks you from the door, storming out without a backwards glance. You catch yourself against the half-made bed, your breath coming in heaving pants as your head spins. Guilt curdles in the bed of your stomach like spoilt milk, and it only takes you half a second to realize that of all the things to say, that probably was the worst possible choice.

You’d heard mention of the breakup, even if you didn’t have any stakes in this so-called game. It was harsh and messy and loud, and it had spilled across campus like a backed-up toilet, oozing foulness and stank across the grounds till not a single person was left unstained in the aftermath.

“Wait —” you stumble after Vi, but it’s too late. By the time you reach the patio doors, she’s already settling back into her place in the circle, an easy grin slung across her lips.

You swallow, pushing through the door to scurry over to Mel’s side. Mel beams at the flush in your cheeks, convinced (just like the rest of the circle) that it’d been one hell of a kiss, judging by how entirely breathless you are.

“Damn Vi, you gotta learn how to go easy on them figure skaters, hm?” Margot smirks, her eyes glittering as she looks you over, “look at the poor darling — she can barely breathe!”

Everyone laughs, and Vi flashes a convincingly satisfied smirk, shrugging up a shoulder. You glance at her, only to shiver at the arctic ice behind her gaze as your eyes catch once more.

“What can I say? Easy isn’t a setting I come programmed with.”

You duck your head as Vi casts you one more frigid look before turning to laugh at something a teammate has just said, and the circle devolves into good-natured banter and pocket conversations. You gulp around your too-dry throat and pluck Mel’s drink from her hand, tossing the rest of it back in a single gulp. She blinks at you, eyes wide.

“Darling, are you —”

“I — I’m fine just — it’s — I think I’m gonna head back.”

Mel frowns, “Are you sure? I mean —” she looks towards where Vi’s been pulled into an impromptu arm-wrestling match with some dude from the football team, “you could try and —”

You shake your head, “No, I — I think I’m good. I had a good time, I just —” you run a hand through your hair, “I’ve got practice tomorrow and Amara’s gonna murder me if I get there late.”

Mel stares for a second before relenting, a soft sigh on her lips.

“Alright, alright — go on then. I’ll… I’ll see you tomorrow at practice, yes?”

You give her a tight-lipped smile, reaching out for a quick hug before ducking out of the party, skirting the edges of the growing mosh pit forming in the living room till you finally find yourself out on the front steps again.

You close your eyes for a second, pressing your back to the frat house door, feeling the dull thump of the music inside reverberating through the thin wooden frame as you breathe in and out.

You can still taste the heat of Vi’s breath on your lips, feel harsh sting of ice as she’d caught your eyes after. The chill air, once refreshing, pebbles your skin and an involuntary shiver shakes down your spine. You wrap your arms around yourself and give your head a good shake.

Whatever, you think, stepping off the porch, casting your eyes up at the star-strewn sky, a whisp of warm breath fogging up the air before you.

Not like it’ll matter. Bet she won’t even remember me after tonight.

taglist: @traiitorjoe @rizzscary @wetcat020 @alex-thegiraffeboyy @nanasemo @saturnhas82moons @unear7hly @drsnowrose @grantaires-waistcoat @isab3lita @ally-all-around @starrysetup22 @lipsent @lewd_alien @jack-frost-2010 @starsfortaylor @onesockcat @lesbian-useless @armins-slvt

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novthirty · 3 months ago

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🐦‍⬛ OUT OF BOUNDS — you get isekai-d into the n109 zone [series masterlist]

synopsis — the monotony of your university days is interrupted by a stroke of misfortune, one which lands you in the world of love and deepspace, the game you had been casually playing for the previous months. with no way to return home, sylus offers you the job of being his personal secretary. — a continuation of the one-shot “out of bounds”

pairing — sylus x non-mc! reader

tags — reader is not mc, isekai/transmigration, fluff, angst, mutual pining, slice of life, boss/employee relationship, slow burn

word count — 37.3k [ongoing]

a/n — turning this story into a multi-chap for sylus’s 2025 bday! to those who asked to be tagged under the one-shot, i’ve already included you in the taglist here ❤️ just lmk if you’d like to be added/removed!

ao3 | masterlist | playlist

CHAPTER ONE — DESCENT

after finding yourself in an unfortunate accident, you wake up in the world of love and deepspace. you go from burned out college student to secretary at your wit's end. wc: 4k

CHAPTER TWO — PENDULUM

spring blooms even in the barren cityscape of the n109 zone, and before you know it, you’ve carved yourself a place in sylus’s life. but like a pendulum stuck in perpetual motion, the two of you swing back and forth— growing closer and retreating with every movement. wc: 6.8k

CHAPTER THREE — COUNTDOWN

the night softens people in ways that can only be done in the haze of darkness, revealing a vulnerability too fragile for the harsh rays of the sun. you know this could be more, you know this could be everything. but the clock ticks down to what you know is inevitable. wc: 7.9k

CHAPTER FOUR — INEVITABLE

it’s hard to shine when you’re standing between the sun and the moon. wc: 18.6k

CHAPTER FIVE — TWILIGHT

coming soon!

CHAPTER SIX

coming soon!

EPILOGUE

coming soon!

—————————————————————

taglist — @mangooes @mentaltrouble2201 @animegamerfox @crazy-ink-artist @phisen @jeondyy @t4naiis @wifunozomi @munimunni @blessdunrest @rafayelridesfisheatsfish @paintedperidot @mansonofmadness @pillarofsnow @sylususeyourevolonmepls @angelichiaro @mephisto-with-a-knife @crimsonmarabou @hikaru-sama @flamedancer13 @tati-the-fangirl @ameili @poptrim @caramelizedpopcirn @cupid-gene @vvonunie @lunia-likes-pomegranet @iamawkwardandshy @tinyweebsstuff @astolary @vyntheria @theloveofnagiseishiroslife @velourmobius @beaconsxd @hon3yydew @kira-loves0905 @codedove @that-lost-one @colonelcalebs-pipsqueak @kaiii07 @bohoooitsme @everythingistaken00 @rmjace @red-raf-sy @goddexxluv @seris-the-amious @stellisangelicus-world @alhaith4ms @young-adult-summer @junrui

— main taglist is closed! for everyone else who asked to be tagged, i’ll try my best to @ everyone in a reblog 💕

note: if you requested to be tagged before it closed but your @ isn’t here, i’ve unfortunately removed it as your mention settings may be limited to certain people 💔

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aprilisthecruelestmonth · 5 months ago

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April is the Cruelest Month Whump Event 2025!

Here we are again! The second year of AitCM!

It's a good month to whump our favorite characters!

In AitCM, to complete, you only have to write 15 days, and the other fifteen days you read & rec a fic that fits one the prompts for the day. (Feel free to create and promote art pieces as well!)

This not only makes it easier to fit into a busy schedule, but it helps promote your favorite writers!

You are more than welcome, of course, to write all thirty days or rec all thirty days—or both—but that is not necessary to complete the challenge.

Join us in filling the world with spectacular whump stories!

Tag us in your stories, recs, and art!

The prompt list for your convenience:

Day One:

Cornered-|-Whipped-|-Blood on hands-|- “Please… let me go”

Day Two:

Brave face-|-Branding-|-Self-sacrifice-|- “Pick on someone your own size”

Day Three:

Paranoia-|-Framed-|-Can’t Speak-|- “I don’t want to hear it”

Day Four:

Falling from a high place-|-Hunted-|-Fever-|- “I’m scared”

Day Five:

Slavery-|-Mind Control-|-Forced to beg-|- “It’s too late to ask for forgiveness”

Day Six:

Overprotective-|-Hidden Injury-|-Amputation-|- “I can’t do this”

Day Seven:

Panic Attack-|-Poisoned-|-Exhaustion-|- “No, no hospitals”

Day Eight:

Blackmail-|-Cursed-|-Made to watch-|- “Why did you do it?”

Day Nine:

Amnesia-|-Explosion-|-Failed Escape-|- “I don’t feel a pulse”

Day Ten:

Touch starved-|-Gunshots-|-Presumed Dead-|- “It’s your fault”

Day Eleven:

Nausea-|-Concussion-|-Secret Reveal-|- “Why did you come back?”

Day Twelve:

Dehydration-|-Tied up-|-Torture-|- “I wish you were dead”

Day Thirteen:

Explosion-|-Fainting-|-Fighting through the pain-|- “What did you say?”

Day Fourteen:

Medical Injury-|-Drugged-|-Pre-mortem Autopsy-|- “It’s not too late”

Day Fifteen:

Screams-|-Drowning-|-Fallen through the ice-|- “I’m so, so sorry”

Day Sixteen:

Sleep Deprivation-|-Choked-|-Hostage Situation-|- “Give them room to breathe”

Day Seventeen:

Phobias-|-Burned-|-Public Execution -|- “Just grin and bear it”

Day Eighteen:

Abandonment Issues-|-Used as Bait-|-Unconventional Weapon-|- “We can’t leave them”

Day Nineteen:

Stranded-|-Animal Bites-|-Self-surgery-|- “Not everyone makes it out”

Day Twenty:

Earthquake-|-Collapsed-|-Suffocation-|- “Everything hurts”

Day Twenty-One:

Stockholm Syndrome-|-Broken Bone-|-Withdrawl-|- “Don’t leave me here”

Day Twenty-Two:

Migraine-|-seizure-|-Running on Adrenaline -|- “Don’t speak”

Day Twenty-Three:

Confrontation-|-Stumbling-|-Scar Reveal-|- “Don’t let them in”

Day Twenty-Four:

Vengeance-|-Humiliated-|-A Game of Roulette-|- “Why can’t I move?”

Day Twenty-Five:

Stalker-|-Blindfolded-|-Friendly Fire-|- “You said you loved me”

Day Twenty-Six:

Infection-|-Beaten-|-Failed Escape -|- “It’s too late. They’re inside”

Day Twenty-Seven:

Weeping-|-Kidnapped-|-Running out of air-|- “It’s not my blood”

Day Twenty-Eight:

Over Work-|-Accident-|-Head Injury -|- “Where does it hurt?”

Day Twenty-Nine:

Windstorm-|-Broken Trust-|-No place to go-|- “I don’t want to talk about it”

Day Thirty:

Being Carried-|-Hyperventilating-|-Waking up disoriented-|- “I just need a hug”

Alt prompts:

1- Insomnia

2- Fall Guy

3- Whumper turned Caretaker

4- Twisted Knife

5- Pick who dies

6- Hot Coals

7- Ice Burns

8- Pulling Teeth

9- Waterboarding

10- Electrocution

Choose one or more of the prompts daily (or use an alt prompt) and get to work!

The minimum requirement is 100 words. It's not terribly strict. If 100 words seems too daunting, try to get as close as you can. There is no maximum word count, though.

Post your stories to our Ao3 collection:

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/April_is_the_Cruelest_Month_2025_Event

Do your best and get to whumping!

Special thanks to Lynn(justanotherinterneruser) for helping put this together. <3

#writing prompt #whump writing #whump prompt #writing #whump #whump tropes #whump community #whumpblr #Aprilisthecruelestmonth #aitcm2025

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cherrixpie · 5 months ago

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HOW NOT TO DATE A SLYTHERIN

SERIES MASTERLIST

tags: secret relationship trope, potter!reader, gryffindor! reader; wc in total: 26.9k

chapter one: being the chosen one's sister, you keep your relationship with theodore nott a secret, despite all the hardships that came with sneaking around.

chapter two: when sneaking out of your dorm, theo is almost cornered by ron. your friends start to get suspicious of you, as you get paired up with theo for potions and have to keep the act up.

chapter three: a gryffindor slytherin brawl leads to an argument between you and theo, who is tired of keeping you a secret.

chapter four: when you get reckless without secret after a heated quidditch game, harry finds out about your relationship with theo.

chapter five: the fight with your brother leaves you picking up the pieces, sharing an intimate moment with theo and mending your relationship with your brother.

chapter six: you are afraid telling theo you are a virgin might turn him away, but you couldn't have anticipated his reaction. [nsfw]

#slytherin boys x reader #harry potter #harry potter x reader #slytherin boys #theo nott x reader #theodore nott x reader #theo nott #theo nott x you #theodore nott #theodore nott x you

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starkeymeow · 2 months ago

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PLOT you enter the hunger games a proud weapon of your district, only to find your sharpest blade is the boy beside you, and you’re not sure which one of you the capitol wants to break first.

CONTENT rafe cameron x reader au, blood, violence, murder, manipulation, grief, hallucinations, intense survival situations, just the hunger games sobs

main masterlist | tag list | post-games idea | edit

prologue — “rafe cameron and y/n y/l/n, this year’s tributes for district two!”

reaping ceremony; district two is coming. and it’s already soaked in red.

chapter one — “i don’t plan to die.”

the train ride to the capitol; the parade; rafe and reader step into the arena of public eyes, and they already know it’s all a game.

chapter two — “if anyone was gonna die, might as well be me. someone who at least knows what they’re walking into.”

the night after the parade; reader and rafe find each other on the balcony.

chapter three — “rise and shine, sweetheart.”

the first day of training; reader and rafe show each other what they’ve got. sneak peak to district fours tributes.

chapter four — “y/n y/l/n, with a score of . . .”

the rest of training week; the private sessions loom, and every tribute sharpens themselves into weapons, including y/n.

chapter five — “i don’t think he ever really saw me. just some idea of who he wanted me to be.”

caesar’s interview, the world watching; on the final night before the arena, rafe and reader tear down their last walls and find something almost human in each other.

chapter six — “win.”

the bloodbath; steel, blood, and desperate survival, reader and rafe fight their way out, but not everyone makes it.

chapter seven — “they could’ve fucking killed her.”

the birch forest is not all what it seems. an ambush shakes the group; kie’s injured.

chapter eight — “you think it’s a trap?” “everything’s a trap.”

the group finds some new solid ground to camp on; y/n finds the roses. y/n and topper come across their first mutt of the arena.

chapter nine — “just you ‘n me for right now, huh?”

rafe and reader are alone; reader finds out about the rose thorns toxins. they share a moment before their first sponsor gift comes.

chapter ten — “you’ve got that hero edit shit going for you.”

rafe and reader reunite with kie and jj again, but it doesn’t last long.

chapter eleven — “i’m not dying for their cameras.”

the gamemakers open up a feast at dawn; devastated with the loss of kie, jj makes a sacrifice.

chapter twelve — “do you trust me?”

the final fights; glory, victory. rafe and reader make a decision that puts them down in history.

part thirteen — “make it worth it.”

reader wakes up from weeks of being in a coma; enobaria gives y/n a talk. y/n sees rafe for the first time in weeks and someone she never expected to see so soon.

part fourteen — “i don’t wanna be alone tonight.”

collection of imagines: rafe and reader move into victors village. y/n’s mom visits. snow proposes that rafe and y/n move into the same house together. reader has a nightmare.

part fifteen — “she’s good. the kind of good that makes you want to be better. even when you’re sure you can’t be.”

caesar’s interview with panem’s new victors; rafe and reader get closer.

part sixteen — “you’re owned, my dear.”

the victory tour commences; rafe and reader join together in the capitol for a victory ball to wrap up the tour. y/n finds something shocking about her victory.

part seventeen — “snow’s gonna kill me.”

collection: aftermath of reader refusing being sold. reader finds out rafe has to take her place, but while out one night, rafe comes back home to reveal he finally broke.

part eighteen — “we’re in the same boat now. might as well get used to each other.”

rafe and reader meet 18-year-old finnick odair the following year. headcanons and ideas of their dynamics and how post-quell plays out.

part nineteen — “i wanna be more than that.”

rafe confesses his love to reader who’s avoidant; reader lets rafe touch their back for the first time since the implants.

part twenty — “may we meet again.”

the 74th hunger games commences. rafe and reader must mentor cato and clove; y/n is devastated to find the victors are falling into the same footsteps as her and rafe.

chapter twenty-one — “even the strongest cannot overcome the power of the capitol.”

catchup of post-74th; president snow announces the quarter quell three months before the reaping.

chapter twenty-two — “i volunteer as tribute.”

enobaria has to decide whether to stand for or stand down when it comes to who will be reaped into the games; rafe volunteers.

chapter twenty-three — “you’re different than i thought you’d be.”

haymitch finds you and rafe on the train ride to the capitol about the rebel plan; you meet katniss before the tribute parade that night.

chapter twenty-four — “anyone can swing an axe, but not everyone knows how to make one from twigs and wire.”

day one of training; you spar with johanna. everyone gets to see katniss work her magic up-close.

chapter twenty-five — “if it means she gets out of this alive, i’ll let her charm every last person in this damn place.”

days two and three of training; you find a new ally in peeta mellark.

coming soon.

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gojover · 1 month ago

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SOFT AS IT BEGAN ⋆ 01. THE REAPING.

district four’s only victors—satoru gojo, dazzling and deadly, and you, cunning and stubborn—are dragged back into the arena for the quarter quell. with the capitol watching and a rebellion brewing, the hunger games are no longer just about survival. they’re about trust, betrayal, and the unresolved past that still burns between you.

— pairing: gojo satoru x fem!reader — tags: romance, angst, eventual smut, action, slow burn, hurt/comfort. the hunger games!au, dystopian!au, enemies to lovers!au. this chapter contains: alcohol consumption, profanity, death & violence, blood. — word count: 6.2k

series masterlist ⋆ next

District Four didn’t have much to offer, but there was always the beach, and the sun, and the sand. Satoru could collect seashells if he wished—he had a pile of them already, in the corner of his bedroom. He didn’t have to work. The Capitol provided him that luxury, at the expense of twenty-three lives.

He could spend his days ambling over the soft, golden sand of the strip of coast right outside the Victor’s Village and drink himself to oblivion. If Satoru lived alone in the Victor’s Village, he might’ve.

Small joys in such a cruel, cold world.

He wasn’t the only victor District Four had to its name. There was you, who won the Hunger Games right after he did. He had mentored you, taught you all the right ways to play the Capitol crowd and win favours. He had honed your cunningness and cleverness, and helped you survive in the arena. You weren’t his favourite tribute—the twelve districts had to send one boy and one girl, each; he had favoured your fellow tribute—and truth be told, Satoru had had no idea what he was doing. It was his first time being a mentor, after all.

Your victory was a fluke.

It had been five years since your Hunger Games, and six years since his. This year marked the 75th Hunger Games—a grim anniversary draped in spectacle. Seventy-five years since the thirteen districts of Panem had dared to rise against the Capitol. Seventy-five years since the thirteenth had been razed to ash and silence. The thought was droll, in a bleak, bitter sort of way. Nothing in Panem ever changed. Only the methods of punishment grew more inventive.

On the morning of the Reaping, Satoru rose before the sun did and made his way to the beach.

He could’ve slept in. Reaping Day was the one day the people of the districts were granted a few extra hours of sleep—if they could manage it. The ceremony itself wouldn’t begin until the afternoon, when the Capitol’s cameras were in position in the district square and the selection of the tributes was broadcast live to all of Panem. But Satoru knew that sleep rarely came to anyone on this day. Not to the children. Not to the families who might lose them. And not to the victors who knew exactly what it meant.

He walked barefoot down to the shoreline, sand still cool against his feet. The sea stretched endlessly before him, indifferent and eternal, like it had been watching all this time and simply chose not to intervene. He envied it, sometimes—the sea’s freedom. Its refusal to care.

The Victor’s Village sat far enough from the rest of District Four that the sounds of waking life didn’t reach him here. Satoru could almost believe, if only for a moment, that there were no Hunger Games; no Capitol; no Reaping. Just the salt air, the breeze tugging at his shirt, and the slow pull of the waves crashing onto the shore.

He was crouched in the sand, fiddling absently with a broken piece of sea glass when he heard footsteps.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” he asked dryly, not looking up.

Your voice came from just behind him. “Didn’t even try.”

He stood slowly, brushing the sand from his hands and tucking the sea glass into his pocket. The two of you hadn’t spoken much in recent months—not since the last Games. He didn’t like you much, though it was a stupid thought to entertain. You’d done what you did to survive, the same as he had, and yet, every time he closed his eyes, all he could picture was his best friend lying prone on the arena’s ground, while you stood over his dead body.

You stepped closer, the crunch of sand underfoot sounding louder than it should’ve in the morning hush. The wind carried the scent of salt and seaweed, tangling through your hair and tugging at the hem of your jacket. You stopped beside him, arms crossed. He glanced at you out of the corner of his eye. You looked older than he remembered, but so did he. The Hunger Games did that to a person.

“I ran into Pearl last week,” you said. “The new Peacemaker whose husband works for the Gamemakers.”

Satoru resisted the urge to snort. A Peacemaker, in charge of maintaining discipline in the districts, married to a Gamemaker who lived in the Capitol and worked on creating the Hunger Games, was an odd pair, at least by his standards.

Instead, he exhaled slowly, dragging a tired hand through his hair. “You’re going to have to be more specific. This new batch of Peacemakers is nothing more than a bunch of rich bastards with too many opinions.”

“She was drunk,” you continued, ignoring his jab. “I think she told me something I wasn’t supposed to hear.”

“Go on.”

“It’s the Quarter Quell—”

“I know that,” Satoru snapped.

The Quarter Quell, held every twenty-five years, was a special edition of the Hunger Games. This year would be the third Quarter Quell. In the words of President Snow, they were designed specially to keep the memory of the districts’ rebellion fresh in each generation’s mind.

“Just get to the damn point,” he said.

“She said that the Quarter Quell would be different this year. Something symbolic.” Your lips curled into a sneer at that. “A return to the Games’ original purpose. A reminder that no one’s truly safe—not even us. She said that this time, they’d be reaping from the pool of victors.”

His eyes narrowed. “That’s just Capitol talk. They love theatrics.”

“Do you really think the Capitol would joke about this?”

Yes, he wanted to say, but truthfully, it was hard to decipher between what was true and what was a lie when it came to the Hunger Games. Like trying to differentiate between poison and nectar when both looked the same and smelled sweet.

Satoru finally turned to face you, the morning light catching the pale glint in his eyes. You didn’t flinch—or perhaps, didn’t allow yourself to—but he suspected that it had always unsettled you, the way he looked at people like he was trying to peel back their skin just to see what was underneath.

“So you think it’s real,” he said.

“I think the Capitol would never waste a good opportunity for cruelty,” you said.

He stared at you for a long moment, like he was trying to find a lie in your face. He wouldn’t. Not about this, at least. A gull cried overhead, its shadow skating across the sand. You shifted your weight, arms tightening around your frame. The breeze whipped your hair into your face, but you made no move to push it away.

You both knew the rules. District Four had only two victors. If the Capitol wanted a show—wanted irony, cruelty, symmetry—then of course they’d make you two fight. Mentor and tribute. Killer and survivor. The boy who taught you how to win, and the girl who used it to kill the person he loved most.

“You should’ve let me die,” you murmured, turning to the sea. Your eyes scanned the horizon like the ocean might offer a different reality. Foolish, Satoru thought. The sea was unforgiving, no matter how adept you were at staying afloat.

“I tried,” Satoru said.

“Not hard enough,” you said.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. You weren’t worth the effort.”

But the venom in his voice wasn’t convincing. You both knew what it was: guilt, calcified into something meaner over time.

The sun rose higher, casting everything in amber. Soon, the district would stir. Faces would fill the square. Two names would be drawn, and for once, no children would be volunteered as tributes.

Satoru didn’t often indulge in alcohol during the day. The numbing haze it offered was tempting—too tempting, most days—but he liked his senses sharp. A victor inebriated was about as useful as a tribute dead. And dead was something he still wasn’t ready to be.

He’d left the beach not long after you’d spoken. The words still sat heavy on his chest, like water in his lungs, refusing to drain. That was three hours ago.

Now, he sat in one of the Victor’s Village’s garishly upholstered armchairs—Capitol chic, which was to say it was both uncomfortable and absurd. Deep maroon with golden trim, stiff in the wrong places, and far too elaborate for a man who still slept on the left side of the bed, because the right side used to be occupied by somebody else.

Shoko dropped a packet of nicotine patches onto the glass coffee table between them. The foil crinkled; it landed beside his half-finished glass of dark liquor, casting a warped reflection in the amber. Their ritual was familiar: Capitol alcohol for black market medicine. She never asked why he drank. He never asked who she was patching up in the alleys near the docks.

He also didn’t have the heart to tell her that he wouldn’t have any use for her exchanged goods after today.

“You should be getting ready,” Shoko said, pulling back her brown hair into a knot at the nape of her neck.

“For what? A glorified roll call?” he said.

“For someone who’s about to be paraded in front of the entire district, you’re unusually morose.”

He picked up his glass and tipped it towards her. “Must be the company.”

“And here I thought we were friends,” said Shoko, deadpan.

They were. Or, at least, they were what passed for friends after the Games: two people bound not by warmth or laughter, but by the quiet understanding of what survival cost. Shoko hadn’t set foot in an arena, but she had pieced enough broken bodies back together to know the rules didn’t end when the cannon fired. If anything, they only got worse. She was the last thread tying him to who he was before—before the arena, before the fame that stank of blood and nightmares, before he lost his best friend.

Satoru, for all his evasions and sardonic grins, hadn’t dared cut that thread yet.

He didn’t respond, just leaned forward to pour another finger of liquor into his glass. The liquid sloshed slightly, but his hand wasn’t trembling. He couldn’t allow it to. Shoko’s gaze drifted to the window. Outside, the cobbled streets of Victor’s Village gleamed under the Capitol-mandated maintenance—fresh flowers, freshly-polished plaques, marble clean enough to reflect light. An illusion of peace, gilded and enforced.

“Where’s the victor girl?” she asked.

“Do I look like her babysitter?” he snarked.

“I’ll never understand why you can’t forgive her,” Shoko said slowly, shaking her head. “Poor thing.”

Satoru stayed quiet. If he said something now, it would be only out of anger, and he didn’t want his last words to Shoko to be something he didn’t mean. He lifted his glass and drained it in one gulp, then stood up just as the first of the district bells began to toll.

“You ought to go,” he told her, “or they’ll punish you for being late.”

“And they won’t punish you?”

He smiled faintly. “Victor’s privilege.”

Shoko didn’t move. She stared at him with the same expression she wore when inspecting a wound she knew she couldn’t stitch closed—measured, resigned, maybe even a little angry at the fact that she cared at all.

“You keep hiding behind that title like it protects you,” she said.

“It does,” Satoru replied.

The second bell rang, lower than the first, echoing across the district. Outside, the shadows of Peacekeepers could be seen filing into position, lining the walkways between the manicured hedges. It was a parade for the Capitol cameras, all pageantry and propaganda. The returning victors, the new tributes, and, hidden underneath them all, the reminder: you can survive the Games, but you’ll never leave them.

Shoko stepped around the coffee table, retrieving the nicotine patches. She tore one open and handed it to him, hesitating only a little. “Here. In case you decide you want to live a little longer.”

He took it without a word and slid it into the pocket of his jacket. Their eyes met once, briefly, the tiniest amount of affection they would allow themselves to show to each other.

“Don’t let them twist her into you,” she said quietly, turning around to the door.

Satoru didn’t reply.

He waited until the door shut behind her, until her footsteps disappeared down the pristine path. Then, slowly, he turned toward the tall mirror by the fireplace. The Capitol had commissioned it, of course—tall and ornate, trimmed with a frame of curling leaves and thorns dipped in gold. His reflection looked out of place in it. Older than he should be. Less victorious than they claimed.

He tugged at the collar of his jacket and stared himself down.

Forgive you? No, not yet.

The third bell chimed, sharp and final.

Satoru Gojo stepped out the door with a smile plastered on his face.

The streets of District Four were deceptively beautiful.

Stone-paved and sun-warmed, they twisted lazily along the coastline, lined with whitewashed cottages and storefronts draped in netting and dried coral. Bougainvillea climbed the walls, fuchsia and silver-white against the salt-stained brick. Wind chimes made of driftwood and shell danced in the breeze, their soft clatter mingling with the distant crash of waves. Wooden boats bobbed in the harbour, their sails furled tight, hulls painted in colours once bright but long faded by the sun. If someone passed through the district quickly enough, they might even call it peaceful.

Satoru knew better.

Every flower was trimmed for the Capitol’s cameras. Every cottage window was scrubbed clean; every storefront was made to look quaint but never poor. It was curated beauty, scrubbed clean of anything that might offend the Capitol’s delicate sensibilities.

Every child was trained for the sea, and then—inevitably—for war. District 4 was a district of fishermen, yes, but it was also a district of Careers. A place where kids learned to wield spears before they learned to read, where swimming and fighting were taught in the same breath, and discipline came in the form of bruises and bent knees.

There was pride here—too much, perhaps. Pride in strength. Pride in surviving. Somewhere along the line, that pride in survival had turned into pride in bloodshed, and now it was hard to tell one from the other.

And yet, for all their training and tradition, District 4 had only two victors to its name. Two, in over seventy years of Games. It was a quiet disgrace, a smudge against the reputation they’d worked so hard to polish. The Capitol never said it aloud, but the resentment was there, simmering beneath their sugar-sweet praise. Their tributes were supposed to be killers, paragons of grace and brutality, but most died with their throats slit in the first few days.

When the Capitol looked at you and Satoru, it looked with expectation. Pressure. Hunger. You weren’t just victors; you were proof that District Four could produce something lethal. The Capitol wouldn’t let you forget it, and it was evident in the way the Peacekeepers trailed you and Satoru as you made your way to the square.

So, no. He didn’t buy the pretty picture. He’d come to loathe it and love it, in equal parts.

“Is it weird that I feel… relieved?” you asked, looking down. Your boots scuffed against the cobblestone.

“Relieved that no kid has to die this year?” Satoru said, his voice low. “No. That’s not weird.”

Last year, it was Junpei and Mai Zen’in. The year before that, the mayor’s daughter and the butcher’s son. The year before that, it had been the twins from the cliffs, Reika and Ren. They’d held hands as they climbed into the transport, matching defiant stares fixed on the cameras. Satoru may not have seen eye-to-eye with you, but in this, as the only mentors your district had to offer, you were jointly determined. It was cruel, the way the Capitol spun the twins’ narrative. There was nothing more tragic than siblings being put in a bloodbath and forced to kill each other.

You and Satoru did all you could to ensure their survival. They’d died anyway—Reika on the second day with an arrow to the heart; Ren lasted three more before he threw himself off a ledge rather than be cornered.

Ten tributes in the five years since yours, two more since his. Satoru remembered them all. Names, faces, screams. He kept them catalogued like wounds, sharp and painful. You didn’t forget your district’s dead—not when their ghosts walked the streets in the form of little siblings, grieving mothers, empty chairs at dinner tables.

He glanced sideways at you, eyes catching the tremble in your jaw. You didn’t say anything, but he could tell this wasn’t just about relief. It was guilt, too. You’d won. They hadn’t. Satoru knew perfectly what that felt like.

You exhaled. “They always look so small when they’re called. Doesn’t matter how tough they act, how many knives they’ve trained with. They always look like kids.”

“Didn’t we?” Satoru said.

He didn’t mean for it to come out as cruel as it did. You flinched, just barely, but he saw it: a crack in your composure, hairline thin, quick as lightning. Satoru looked away. The breeze picked up, bringing with it the sharp tang of brine and the distant screech of gulls. Somewhere in the harbour, a rope hit a mast with a dull clack clack clack, rhythmic and lonely.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You did,” you said quietly. “But it’s fine.”

It wasn’t, not really. But what else was there to say? You had looked like kids. You’d been eighteen—too innocent, too young, bruises blooming purple down your arms after weeks of Career training. Satoru remembered seeing you on stage beside him, hands clenched into fists, mouth pressed into a line like you’d rather spit than smile. It had been his first year as a mentor, and despite his Games having left him shaken already, it was your Games that truly wiped any traces of joy from his mind.

“The twins’ mom still leaves candles by the pier,” you said. “Every month. Two. One pink, and one blue.”

“Yeah. I know,” Satoru said.

The hill began to slope downward, toward the square. The stage always felt out of place here—too polished, too clean. Like someone had taken a piece of the Capitol and dropped it into the heart of District 4 without bothering to see whether it fit. The wood was sanded smooth, gleaming under the afternoon sun, and the Capitol banners draped behind it fluttered; red silk, gold trim, all show. Two glass bowls were placed on pedestals, and normally, they’d be filled to the brim with narrow slips of paper. This time, there was only one piece of paper in each. A microphone was placed between them, tall and thin.

Children were already gathered below, arranged by age, corralled behind thick ropes like livestock awaiting auction. Girls to the left, and boys to the right. The youngest looked terrified, faces drawn tight with fear at their first ever Reaping. The older ones stood stiff-backed, trying to appear braver than they felt. To the side stood those who had outgrown the age for the Games: men and women with sunburnt faces and wind-bitten hands who stood with their arms crossed tightly.

The Peacekeepers led you and Satoru down the path, in between the girls and boys. The children looked at him, wide-eyed and stricken; the older ones stared at him with more wariness. He looked away, fingers curling into fists inside the pockets of his jacket. The Head Peacekeeper—the new one, who’d inadvertently let slip the secret about this year’s Hunger Games—nudged you both up the stage. Satoru stood with his hands behind his back, the bitter taste of judgement and expectation lodged in his mouth like rot.

The metallic clatter of heels against the stage broke the silence. The Capitol’s escort for District Four ascended with a flourish.

Coral was her name, and she’d been the conductor of the Reaping since Satoru was born. She was dressed in seafoam and pearl, hair coiled into a towering spiral that mimicked the curl of a nautilus shell, the tips dipped in shimmering silver. The strands were woven through with glinting beads and wire shaped like sea creatures—delicate crabs, jewelled anemones, and a single translucent fish pinned just above her ear. Her lipstick was the same shade of a coral reef just before it bleached. Her lashes batted with forced warmth, eyes bright beneath a mask of powder and paint.

“What a fucking clown,” he heard you mutter under your breath. Satoru snorted and disguised it as a cough. There was no love lost between you both and Coral. Your disdain for each other only seemed to multiply with each new Reaping.

The Capitol, he thought grimly, had a twisted sense of humour. A woman named Coral for the district by the ocean. It was almost funny, if it weren’t so cruel. Everything about her was an imitation of the sea—costume over understanding, performance over truth. She smiled as if she hadn’t just flown in on a private hovercraft to announce death in front of children.

“Welcome, welcome!” she trilled into the microphone, loud and obnoxious, in that strange Capitol accent of hers. “District Four, it is always a pleasure. Happy Hunger Games—and what a special occasion this year’s Reaping promises to be!”

The crowd murmured. You cursed at her quietly once more. Satoru bit back his smile; you were providing some amusement, at least, before Coral announced the inevitable.

“This year marks the Seventy-Fifth Annual Hunger Games,” she continued. “And as you all know, every twenty-five years, we celebrate a Quarter Quell—a commemorative twist designed to remind us of the sacrifices that brought us peace.”

Her voice lifted slightly on the word peace, as if it were something alive, fluttering in the air like the Capitol’s gaudy banners. Satoru fought the urge to look at you, because if he did, he might laugh, and if he laughed, he might get shot.

Coral stepped back from the microphone, flourished a glittering envelope from her sleeve, and held it up.

“With the approval of President Snow,” she announced, “it is my honour to read the card that was sealed in this envelope seventy-five years ago by the original founders of Panem, to be opened today.”

She opened the envelope with a dramatic flick of her fingers.

“On the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Hunger Games,” she read, “as a reminder that not even the strongest among us can overcome the Capitol… the tributes will be reaped from the existing pool of victors.”

Gasps rippled through the square. Some of the children whimpered. A few of the older teenagers exchanged wide-eyed looks of disbelief. A boy—not even thirteen, probably—turned to the boy next to him and whispered something frantic, something like what does that mean? only to get knocked on the back of his head by the nearest Peacekeeper.

Satoru didn’t blink. The performance had begun.

Coral gave the crowd a moment to process. She nodded solemnly, as if she actually gave a shit, and spread her arms.

“As District Four has only two living victors, there will be no draw today,” she said. “No need for names. By default… our tributes for the Seventy-Fifth Annual Hunger Games will be Satoru Gojo—” she paused, smiling as though his name was something to be treasured—“and…”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” you muttered, and, grabbing Satoru’s hand, you stepped forward, nudging Coral out of the way.

“What are you doing—”

“People of District Four,” you said loudly, ignoring Satoru’s flabbergasted glare and Coral’s protest. “We are your victors. We survived the Hunger Games. We were supposed to look after those who were sent in after this, and in this—in this, I regret to say, we’ve failed.”

Coral’s mouth opened in shock, but no words came out. Her wide eyes flicked between you and Satoru, who still hadn’t moved, his hand slack in yours. The crowd had quieted, like someone had pulled a thread too tightly—and now, everything was still, holding its breath.

You stepped forward once more.

“We failed them,” you continued. “We smiled for the cameras and waved from our trains and made speeches written by people who never saw a child die. We survived—and then we disappeared into the Victor’s Village, and the comfort and silence it gave us.”

Satoru could feel Coral’s fury simmering behind you, the way her breath turned short and shallow. She was probably already thinking of how this would look to the Capitol. What it would cost.

He didn’t care, and neither did you.

Satoru looked out at the people of District Four—his people. He saw the girl in the front row with the callused hands and the storm-coloured eyes. He saw the old man with the limp, gripping the hand of a child too young to understand what you were saying. He saw Shoko, standing to the side, her eyes wide and her mouth parted slightly. He saw grief.

He saw fear.

“We’re not proud of what we’ve become,” you said. “We were kids when they threw us into the arena. But we came back. And I—I can’t live with pretending that what’s happening now is normal. I won’t.”

There was a rustle behind you, the shift of fabric as Satoru finally stepped up. He raised his free hand—not waving, not saluting. Just open, trembling slightly; he was unsure what gesture could ever be right here.

“I—” he started, then stopped, and cleared his throat. “What she said. All of it.”

Someone in the crowd let out a choked laugh, but it was the kind that came too close to crying.

“I used to think,” Satoru said, steadier now, “that surviving was enough. That if I could just get through it, I’d earn the right to be left alone. But the truth is, we’re not alone—and we never were.”

His hand squeezed yours.

“And maybe we don’t have power,” you said. “Not compared to the Capitol. But we have voices. And I think—I think we should start using them. Before it’s too late.”

It was the old man with the limp who acted first, his eyes fixed on you both. His hand, weathered by time, trembled as he brought his thumb to his lips; then, slowly, he moved his hand across his chest before lifting it outward, palm open, towards you and Satoru.

The old sailors’ farewell. Satoru remembered being a child and playing at the docks when some of the older fishermen taught him about it. It was the gesture made to those who were being sent to sea, with long voyages ahead—a gesture for them to come back, safe and sound, with tales of joy and abundance. No one had ever used it since Panem was created.

Like a stone being dropped into still water, others in the crowd began to mirror him. One by one, people raised their hands to their lips, then pressed them to their hearts, before lifting them towards you. It spread like wildfire, like the way a spark can catch in dry grass. He didn’t know if it was a sign of solidarity or defiance, but at that moment, it didn’t matter.

It was a rebellion all the same.

The crack of a rifle split the air like lightning.

The old man, his back straight despite his age, crumpled to the ground in a spray of blood. His limp body collapsed as a single shot rang out from a Peacekeeper’s rifle. His grandchild, confused and scared, began to wail, covered in his grandfather’s blood.

The child’s wail cut through the stunned silence like a blade, sharp and raw and impossibly small. For a second—maybe two, maybe ten—no one moved. You were frozen behind him, eyes wide, mouth slightly open, like you couldn’t believe what you’d just seen.

Neither could he.

The blood seeped quickly across the stone, impossibly red against the grey, reaching the child’s shoes.

Screams tore through the square. People surged backwards, pushing and tripping over one another. Mothers grabbed their children, elders stumbled, younger ones shouted in protest and disbelief. Some tried to run. Some simply stood there, lost in horror.

Satoru tried to jump off the stage, acting before he could think, arms outstretched towards the child, towards the body, but strong arms grabbed him and held him back.

“Get off me—let go—” he snarled, teeth bared like an animal. You were shouting too, your voice cracking as you fought the Peacekeeper trying to drag you away.

“You killed him! He was unarmed!” you screamed, writhing, kicking, doing everything you could to make them hurt. “He saluted us! That’s all he did!”

“Let go of her!” Satoru roared, lunging towards you, twisting violently, only for the butt of a gun to slam into his gut. He doubled over with a groan, teeth clenched, and still, they carried him away.

The Peacekeeper holding Satoru grunted, pulling his arms behind his back with bruising force. “Enough.”

“No,” Satoru spat. “Don’t you dare fucking tell me that. That was a child’s grandfather—”

“Stand down or we shoot again.”

That made Satoru freeze.

You were still thrashing behind him, a wild thing burning in the sunlight, but when he said your name—just once, low and urgent—you met his eyes, and you stilled. Not because you were afraid, but because you understood.

They would kill someone else. A child. You. Him.

“Take them,” the Head Peacekeeper barked.

They dragged him from the platform. Somewhere in the distance, someone cried for help. Somewhere else, someone shouted murderer.

But he wasn’t allowed to look. He wasn’t allowed to stop. Your feet caught on the steps as the Peacekeepers forced you down them. Satoru was only a few feet behind you, but it still felt like miles. His hair was falling into his eyes, his back bent slightly where the rifle butt poked into him. Still, he fought against every hand that tried to hold him still, even if it was more subdued now.

The child’s sobs followed him like a phantom.

The doors of the Justice Building yawned open before him, all pale marble and clean lines and hollow promises. The air inside was colder than it had any right to be, and it swallowed the sunlight in an instant.

You were shoved into a corridor, Satoru beside you now, guards on either side. You looked at him. Your lip was split where one of the Peacekeepers had hit you in your struggle. Satoru was sure he didn’t look any better; the scratches nicked on his cheeks stung.

“I saw it,” he said, hoarse. “I saw his hand.”

You nodded, swallowing hard. “So did I.”

“He was saying goodbye.”

“He was hoping we’d come back.”

The guards didn’t care. They didn’t speak; they merely kept moving you forward, step after step, deeper into the building, deeper into the Capitol’s grasp.

Satoru closed his eyes and imagined the frail, lifeless body of that old man. He was going to be sick. He thought about the years they’d all lived through, about everything that had brought them to this point. All those people who had died before them, who had given up their lives just for the chance of a better one.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. You and he weren’t supposed to be this.

He turned to look at you again, and for the first time in five years, he felt that familiar feeling creeping in—the feeling that no matter how much he wanted to fix things, he couldn’t.

“You’re okay,” he muttered, more to himself than you. But it felt like a lie. He didn’t know what was happening anymore.

The Peacekeepers shoved you inside a room. “Sit,” one of them ordered gruffly. “We’re receiving orders from the Capitol soon.”

Satoru had forgotten that the Reaping was always being broadcast live to everyone in the country. His head hurt. Numbly, he moved to the nearest chair—some old, stiff wooden thing—and collapsed onto it.

Did you know what you’d done?

You didn’t sit. Your arms were still trembling, and the moment the door clicked shut behind the last guard, it was like all of it—everything he’d swallowed down to keep from screaming—came clawing its way back up.

“You shouldn’t have said anything,” Satoru said.

You blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You shouldn’t have—you shouldn’t have said anything about using our voices, or—” He was staring at the floor, hands pressed against his mouth like he was trying to physically hold back everything he wanted to say. “We should’ve just let the Reaping happen like it always does.”

“He was shot in front of us. He saluted us, and they shot him—”

“Because of us!” Satoru exploded, finally looking up at you, eyes wild and bloodshot. “We incited this! You think President Snow won’t twist this into some Capitol propaganda? You think he won’t use that child’s face?”

You shook your head. “So you’d rather we be their good little Victors again? Keep our heads down while they murder people in the square?”

“I’d rather you stay alive!” he snapped. “I’d rather not be left alone, all over again.”

The silence that followed was thick and ugly. He dropped his gaze again, chest heaving like the fight had drained him of all the air in the room.

The door opened once more.

“What an entertaining little lover’s spat,” a voice sang out mockingly, clapping slow, deliberate hands. “Really, I should’ve brought popcorn.”

Satoru’s gaze snapped up.

Coral pouted, sickly sweet, leaning against the doorframe. “Unfortunately for you both, the fun’s over. We must leave immediately. President Snow wants to see you.”

Neither of you needed to ask why. Both of you already knew.

Satoru rose slowly from his chair, his shoulders stiff and aching. You walked out first, following Coral out of the Justice Building.

“Chin up, darlings!” Coral tossed a cruel smile over her shoulder. “After all, it’s not every day you start a rebellion on live television.”

After the Reaping—if it could even be called that—the crowds had emptied. What remained were scorch marks on the stone, drops of blood already dying in the last light of the day, and the haunting echo of that child’s sobs still ringing in Satoru’s ears.

You walked ahead of him, shoulders squared, back straight, silent. Peacekeepers flanked you both, rifles in hand, boots smacking against the concrete.

The train that would take you to the Capitol loomed just ahead, lacquered ink-black. It wouldn’t be his first time boarding this very train, but, with his pulse pounding in his throat, Satoru desperately hoped it’d be his last.

“Satoru!”

He turned instinctively. He knew that voice. It had raised him, fed him, scolded him. He’d known it since he was a boy too small to reach the docks without running.

Reiko and Ren’s mother, Midori, was pushing her way through the barrier, eyes glassy. A Peacekeeper stepped forward to stop her, but she ducked under his arm and threw herself in front of Satoru.

She looked older now, greyer and more wrinkled than he remembered. The toll of losing both her children at the same time had not failed to leave its scar on her. Satoru felt a lump form in his throat; he’d been too ashamed to look her in the eye, ever since he had broken his promise of keeping her children safe. But her hands were still strong when they grabbed his, shoving something into his palm, curling his fingers around it before anyone could see.

“You listen to me,” she hissed, close enough that only he could hear. “This was your mother’s. She would have wanted you to have it.”

Satoru opened his fist. A golden pin, drawn in the shape of a mockingjay—a muttation created by the Capitol—rested in his palm, warm from her hands.

“I kept it hidden all these years,” she whispered. “Don’t let them take you too.”

A Peacekeeper barked something unintelligible and shoved her backward. Before Satoru could react, the Peacekeeper who’d tried to stop her from reaching Satoru stepped forward and struck her hard across the face with the back of his hand. The sound echoed down the platform like thunder.

She crumpled to the ground, blood at the corner of her mouth.

“No—” Satoru lunged forward, but two Peacekeepers grabbed him, dragging him towards the train. “Let me go! She didn’t do anything!”

You were screaming now, too, struggling against the grip on your arm, reaching for him.

The doors were already sliding open.

The last thing Satoru saw before he was shoved into the train was Midori’s body being dragged away, her feet scraping against the concrete. The door slammed shut behind him.

“Fuck!” Satoru twisted away from the Peacekeepers holding him, chest heaving, eyes fixed to the window. His hands were shaking. He tucked the pin into his pocket, trembling. “Fuck! Fuck, fuck—”

You wrenched him by his shoulders, forcing him to face you instead. Your lip was bleeding again. “Look at me.”

“They—”

“Get your fucking act together, Satoru,” you said.

He nodded once. Again. Closed his eyes, and hid the shaking of his hands by fisting his fingers together in his jacket pockets.

The Capitol was waiting. Satoru found himself hoping—perhaps foolishly—that the odds, no matter how bleak, would be in his favour.

a/n: thanks for reading! sorry for such a short first chapter, but i wanted to use this as a prologue of sorts. rest assured that all the future chapters will be much, much longer :) thank you to @mahowaga for beta reading & letting me ramble about this fic with her ♡

art credit: _3aem

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk x reader #jjk angst #jjk x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen angst #jujutsu kaisen x you #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru angst #gojo satoru x you #gojo x reader #gojo angst #gojo x you #satoru x reader #satoru angst #satoru x you #gojo satoru #satoru

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nereidprinc3ss · 1 year ago

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do you believe me now? | 4

in which spencer reid and inexperienced fem!reader are interrupted at the most inopportune of times. he calls you on the first night of his case. dirty talk turns into a hard conversation. we get a glimpse into spencer's past, and we finally learn why he's so hesitant to sleep with you.

series masterlist

18+ (smut) warnings/tags: dirty talk, phone sex/mutual masturbation, softdom!spence, obligatory he talks u through it, lots of graphic discussions of sex, established relationship, angst (sorrryyy!) a/n: so remember how i said you'd need the bonus chapter to fully appreciate/understand this part? i was wrong!! it will come in handy probably in the next part tho:) also idk how these parts keep getting so long im sorry! anyway, i love you all so bad. thank you for bearing w/ my craziness. PLEASE let me know your thoughts on this part!! i adore hearing from you!! kisses

(also special thank you to @fliesforeyes who convinced me phone sex w/ spence could be done!! i will link his phone sex blurb here :)) thank u binx!!

“Three million six hundred eighty four thousand three hundred thirty two times fourteen million seven hundred sixty one thousand nine hundred seventy one.”

You’ve lost count of how many stupid math questions you’ve asked your human calculator boyfriend, just to see if he can actually do them. Spencer is silent for a second, and you think you’ve finally stumped him.

“That one is complicated.”

You sit bolt upright in his bed, looking down at him and pointing an accusatory finger. His brows raise at the manic look in your eye.

“You don’t know.”

“I do know. I meant it would be hard to explain if you aren’t a math person.”

“Bullshit!” You scoff, “you don’t know!”

“It would display on a calculator as five-point-three-eight-eight-E-thirteen. It’s a really big number.”

“Oh, really big, huh?” you mumble, searching for your phone blindly in the sheets and scrambling to open the calculator app. “Um… what numbers did I say?”

Spencer repeats them back to you and you press the equals sign.

You look at it.

And then you set your phone down.

“I was right, huh?” he smiles up at you, probably reveling in your pouty wrongness.

Too proud to admit it, you collapse on top of him, burying your face in his shoulder.

“I don’t like this game anymore. What the fuck even is an e? Why are we doing algebra?”

Spencer laughs, brushing your hair aside.

“The e stands for exponent. It’s to the power of ten.”

“Ever heard of a rhetorical question?”

“Yes, I have.”

It’s hard not to snort even at his dumbest jokes.

“You’re annoying. Let’s do something else.”

You roll over onto your back again, letting your head flop over to look at Spencer, whose hair is exactly the right amount of messy after a long day, falling in impossibly soft waves over the perfect lines and contours of his face. Despite lounging, he’s still in his suit from work—he’d left Quantico and immediately picked you up. There were no solid plans for the evening, so after both of you pretended that you wanted to go out for a while, you ended up back at his apartment.

He looks good. Almost too good.

“Something like what?” he smiles lazily, reaching over and tracing his fingers over your cheek.

“Something… naked?”

His grin widens and he shakes his head.

“Me naked or you naked?”

Pretending to think about it, you roll your bottom lip between your teeth.

“Mm… why not both?”

“Hm. Why do I feel like I know where this is going?”

The mattress sinks underneath your elbow as you prop yourself up, dropping your head over Spencer’s to kiss him.

“Because you’re so smart, and you think it’s a great idea.”

He entertains your kiss for a moment. Just a moment.

“You sound sure of yourself.”

“Because I am!” You finally give in to your impulses, tangling your fingers in his hair and looking at him meaningfully. “It doesn’t make any sense for us to have not had sex. I don’t care about any of your weird, cryptic moral reasoning.”

He grabs your wrist carefully.

“It is not moral,” he scoffs. “We haven’t even talked about it yet.”

“Really? Because I feel like we’ve talked about it a lot.”

He begins to reply, but you realize you don’t want to get into a debate over whether you’ve technically talked about it yet. “I don’t even care! If that’s all that’s standing in your way, then let’s talk about it. Right now.”

Spencer sighs, his eyes darting between yours as he reaches up to cradle your cheek.

“Fine. But I have things to say you’re not going to like.”

“So business as usual?”

He rolls his eyes. You allow yourself a tiny self-satisfied smirk, forever relishing in his poorly-hidden soft spot for your constant teasing. Spencer ignores this. Which is probably for the best.

“I know you probably won’t see it this way, but—sex is different than everything else we’ve done so far. It can be really fun, obviously it feels good, it facilitates deeper feelings of connection—that’s all true. Which is why, in my opinion, it’s incredibly important that you be selective with who you sleep with. Because it’s so easy to do something you regret, and sex is vulnerable. It should always be with someone you trust and—and… care about.”

A pink flush stains his cheeks like watercolor as he stumbles over the last few words. It makes your heart flutter against the confines of your chest.

Maybe best not to think about the absence versus presence of certain four-letter words and what they may or may not mean. You’ll move on to more pressing matters and pretend like it doesn’t ache just a little in your whole body.

You cover his hand with your own.

“Are you going to break up with me anytime soon?”

Spencer’s eyes widen, filling with genuine horror and confusion.

“What? No!”

“Are you going to cheat on me?”

“Absolutely not, I—”

“Then I’m not going to regret it. Issue resolved. Moving on.”

“Honey, I just want you to be 100% sure that I’m what you want.”

“Oh my god,” you groan, flopping onto your back once more. “I have begged you to sleep with me on multiple occasions. We have been dating for months and I liked you even longer before that. I think about it literally every time I see you. I don’t know how to be any surer.”

It’s quiet for a moment as you study the imaginary pattern on the ceiling. The rebuttal you’d been anticipating doesn’t come—instead, the mattress shifts next to you. Spencer enters your field of vision, now leaning over you with a little smile on his face that gives you butterflies.

“Every time?”

“…yes, every time,” you agree, voice considerably thinner than it had been a moment ago. Spencer glances at your lips as he speaks.

“Interesting. And what is it that you think about exactly?”

You groan again, attempting to roll facedown, but he pins your shoulder to the bed. The way he’s sweetly kissing down your cheek and jaw is infuriating because you know it’s a false pretense.

“Ugh, I don’t know! Don’t make me answer that!”

“You said if talking about it was all that was standing in my way, we would talk about it. Now I want to talk about it. Come on,” he says, voice low and cloying against your throat as he attempts to tease the answer out of you. “Tell me what you think about when you think about us having sex.”

You let out a shaky breath at the feeling of his lips skimming your neck, hating how easily he can reduce you to this.

“I… I always wonder what it will feel like. Sometimes I wonder if it will hurt.”

Spencer sighs, interrogation by way of seduction momentarily forgotten. You silently curse yourself for saying something so un-sexy.

“It might, sweetheart. That’s one of the reasons we’ve held back. I… really don’t want to hurt you. I don’t even know if I can.”

You grab his face in both hands, forcing him to look at you with more confidence than you feel.

“Sometimes I worry about it, too. But I like you a lot more than it scares me. I still want to.”

He kisses your palm.

“You’ll be okay. It doesn’t hurt for everyone, and even if it does, you’re resilient.”

“Exactly. So you have to get over yourself.”

Spencer laughs like he wasn’t expecting to, eyes sparkling as he regards you.

“Yeah. Yeah, maybe I do.”

He’s smiling again as he leans down and kisses you—a slow, lingering thing which tastes like spearmint as you part your lips for him.

“Please?” you whisper against him after a long moment. He hums, keeps kissing you.

“What is it that you think you want? You don’t even know what you’re asking for.”

“Tell me,” you beg, chasing his lips. “Tell me what you’re going to do with me. We can talk about it. This is talking about it.”

Spencer exhales deeply, wedging a thigh between yours. Immediately you clamp around it, trying not to grind against him too overtly.

“You want to know what I’d do to you?”

“Yes—” you paw at his jacket. Surprisingly, he doesn’t stop you from pushing it off. Your heart pounds.

“Well… we both know how anxious you get,” he muses, pressing his lips so delicately to your fluttering pulse-point in emphasis, and then back to your mouth. His thigh pushes harder against you to supplant the absence of his lips as he speaks, though he kisses you sporadically and between sentences. “You’re hard to get out of your head when you’re nervous, you know that? I watch it happen. One minute you’re with me, and then you start overthinking, and getting self-conscious. The only thing that seems to relax you is letting me touch you—so first I would touch you like I’ve touched you before. I’d make sure you know how pretty you are and how good you deserve to feel.” You whimper inadvertently at his words, arching into him and grinding against his leg as he pauses to kiss the sensitive soft spot below your jaw. “You’re going to need to be really ready to let me in. Do you know what I mean by that?”

As he asks, he pushes his thigh against you harder. Your body responds immediately, arching into him and seeking more friction. When you squeak, he takes it as a no.

“I mean I need you relaxed and wet. You’ll excuse my crude language.”

You pull at his tie, breathing heavier now and so turned on it’s almost painful.

“What are you gonna do after that?”

“What else is there to do but fuck you after that?” he breathes. “You want me to tell you how I’d fuck you?”

Something about it makes you whine salaciously. You’ve heard him curse—you’ve even heard him talk about fucking you. But it feels more real now; when it’s low in your ear and you’re covertly undressing him and he’s pushing your shirt over your stomach promisingly.

“Yes, please.”

He hums against your jaw, nipping and brushing his lips over the skin as he considers. Leaves you waiting.

“I would have to take my time with you. You’ll be overwhelmed. I know you think you won’t, but you will. I’m going to have to be so, so careful with you, angel. It’s going to drive me insane. But it will feel good for you.”

“Why careful? I don’t want that.”

He chuckles. A chill runs down your spine.

“Yeah, you do. You’re going to want me to be careful when I’m—” he pauses, pressing his thumb to your bare lower tummy and dragging up to a spot below your belly button. He presses down lightly again. “Right here. Approximately.”

The surface of the sun has nothing on the temperature of your skin in this moment, as you writhe underneath him in both arousal and embarrassment. Mostly, burning need. You feel almost sick with it.

“Please don’t make me wait anymore. Just do it, please, Spencer. I need it to be you, I don’t want it to be anyone else. I promise I’m ready.”

It’s silent for a moment. Your heart quickens. You sense his walls wearing away, his instinct to keep you intact for god knows what reason crumbling. He’s finally going to give you what you’ve been begging for.

Spencer opens his mouth, eyes glimmering—

And then his phone rings.

You both freeze—he melts dejectedly before you do, more accustomed to an ill-timed phone call and realizing the finality it can present.

He’s breathing heavily against your neck, as if maybe whoever it is will just hang up. But the phone keeps ringing.

“I’m sorry.”

Your stomach sinks as he sits up, grabbing his phone from the side table and rubbing circles on your inner thigh as he answers.

“This is Reid,” he says, lackluster.

If you wanted, you could hear what Penelope is saying—but you don’t bother listening. It’s going to be a case. Spencer is about to leave. The details are his problem.

“Okay. I’ll be there in an hour.”

He hangs up, tossing the phone onto the mattress and not speaking for a moment, just continuing to rub your leg apologetically. Watching you almost mournfully—taking in your disheveled hair, your likely blown-out pupils, the shirt pushed almost over your chest.

“I have to go right now,” he finally manages with a heavy sigh, gently pulling your shirt back into place.

You sit up, shedding all the hopes that had been building for the evening, and try to sound chipper—though all you feel is bitter disappointment that goes deeper than you understand.

“I know. Go ahead, I can get a cab home.”

He frowns, running his hand over the back of your hair.

“I don’t love the idea of you standing on the sidewalk waiting for a car in this part of town so late. Do you just want to stay here for the night and go home tomorrow?”

You force a smile. Great. So you’ll be spending the night in his bed after all—just without him.

“Sure. Thanks.”

“Yeah.”

Neither of you are feeling particularly grateful.

Soon you’re walking him to his own door. Both of you come to a stop in front.

“I’m sorry,” he sighs again.

“Spencer, it’s fine. It’s your job. You don’t need to apologize. You were very clear about this part when we started dating.”

“I know, but… it’s easier in theory than in practice.”

You smile. If Spencer is a reflection of you, it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. His hair is still messy from your fingers running through it and he’s missing his tie. You hope all his coworkers see and feel bad about taking him away from you.

But it’s not their fault. You just want someone to blame.

Instead you mould yourself to his body, wrapping around him like you belong there. He returns your embrace, pressing his lips into the crook of your shoulder and rubbing your back in that way he always does with you.

In that moment, your affection for him becomes so profound it’s like a chemical reaction—everywhere he touches burns and you love him so fucking much it aches in every inch of your body the way your muscles do when you have a bad fever. Love is the most terrible of afflictions, you realize. It is a fever dream. It’s every fiber of your being screaming to tell him how you feel, to beg him on your knees not to go because you love him like a child loves a parent or a bee loves honeysuckle or the ocean loves the horizon. Pared down to your most basic components, the barest version of yourself, you require him. Your soul needs his soul.

“Spencer?”

“Hm?”

It’s nothing more than an absentminded hum against your skin.

“I…”

Should you be looking him in the eye when you say this? Should you say it right before he has to leave? Just because you say it doesn’t change the fact that he’s about to be gone for several long days. Maybe this is a terrible time to admit something that suddenly feels so true and so consequential.

He senses your internal conflict, pulling back despite your resistance and holding your face between his hands.

“You what?” He murmurs, soft eyes bouncing back and forth between your own. Fuck—you feel so observed, now. Like he can read your mind.

“I forget.”

FUUUUUUCK.

Spencer blinks. Processes. You watch the disbelief crystallizing over his eyes like ice freezing over a lake.

He knows.

He knows you didn’t forget, and he probably knows what you were going to say, and he’s going to tell himself he was wrong to spare your dignity.

Everything hurts when he kisses you. You wonder what regret tastes like.

“Well, let me know if you remember.”

It’s too gentle and at the same time he can’t hide the edge with all the tenderness in the world. You nod as if in a trance, already looking forward to dissociating as you lie in bed and stare at the dark ceiling.

Two small goodbyes are exchanged, slightly stifled now, as if shared between drunk strangers who have sobered up and are mutually embarrassed about how candidly they’d interacted before.

You close the door behind him, doing up all the locks, and meticulously flick every light switch in the apartment off before climbing into his bed—though you don’t really feel like you deserve to be there anymore.

But perhaps this is all an overreaction. It’s not like you owe it to him to say I love you, or anything—it was bad timing, anyway. And why can’t he say it? In fact, why hasn’t he said it?

Maybe you have it all wrong.

Maybe he doesn’t feel that way about you.

You fall asleep before you allow these questions to make you sick.

24 hours go by.

24 hours go by and you really had meant to leave his apartment—it was just that you woke up late, and your phone was dead so you couldn’t call a car, so you charged it while you made breakfast, and then you ate, and then you decided to take a shower and wash your clothes, and then it was two in the afternoon and you hadn’t left yet and you decided to walk to the store and replenish the groceries you’d used up.

Maybe you got a bit distracted looking at flowers and other beautiful things at the market and by the time you got home it was 5:00, so you decided to wait until seven to skip rush hour. And then eight, just to be sure.

Before you know it, it’s midnight, and you’re dozing off in his bed again (teeth cleaned with the brush you’d bought at the store—maybe this whole situation hadn’t been entirely unwitting on your part.)

Throughout the day, you tried to let all your anxiety about the previous night melt away. If it’s something that needs to be addressed, Spencer will address it. Everything will work out in the end. That thought is how you’re able to doze off.

You’re almost asleep when your phone lights up and begins buzzing on the side table. You wince as your eyes open, not adjusting well to the harsh bright display and unable to discern who’s even calling you at this hour. Stupidly, probably because you’re half asleep, you answer without checking.

“Hello?”

Your voice is groggy, quiet with sleep.

“Shit, did I wake you?”

“Spence?” you whisper, stomach flipping at the sound of his voice on the other line. You feel caught, still sleeping in his bed.

“… yeah,” he chuckles. “Did you not check who was calling before you picked up?”

“I was asleep,” you pout. “Kinda.”

“Okay. Go back to sleep, honey. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

You sit bolt upright, phone balanced between tense fingers and speaking directly into the microphone.

“No! No, I’m awake. What’s up? Why did you call?”

A longer stretch of silence—you’re too sleepy to comprehend what it might mean, though never too sleepy to worry about it. With a pang of pain, you recall your strange goodbye, the words you hadn’t said.

“I just needed to hear your voice,” he sighs. You frown, staring at nothing in particular in the pitch black room.

“Oh. Is everything okay?”

“As much as it can be.”

“Right.”

More quiet. You chew on the inside of your cheek, stricken with a sudden feeling of awkwardness that you haven’t had with Spencer in a while.

“I’m sorry… I don’t really know what to say.”

“That’s okay,” he says, and you can hear the smile in his voice which makes you feel a bit better, “why don’t you tell me about your day? Or you can absolutely go back to sleep, if you’re too tired.”

“Don’t ask me about my day,” you whisper, flopping down on the bed once more. Shame seeps into your voice. He laughs.

“What? Why?”

“Because if I tell you you’re going to think I’m super weird and you’re going to break up with me.”

Laughter tapers off into gentler tones.

“I already think you’re super weird. It’s actually one of your most attractive qualities.”

Blood rushes to your cheeks.

“But it’s like… borderline crazy.”

Immediately, he replies, “for better or worse, I also frequently find myself attracted to crazy.”

“Thank you for calling me crazy and super weird,” you grumble.

“I also called you attractive twice. Tell me.”

When his tone takes on that easy, assertive quality, and it’s sort of raspy and low because it’s late and he’s been talking all day, and you can hear the lazy smile on his face—you imagine him laying on his hotel bed, arm slung over his eyes in the dark as he grins into the microphone—you have a very difficult time saying no.

“Fine. Guess where I am right now.”

“Um, I would hope you’re in bed?”

You smile to yourself, basking in the victory of successfully throwing him off his game even slightly.

“Guess whose bed.”

Silence.

“What an interesting question.” That cocky smile, the low drawling is back, and you chew on your lip, ignoring the shiver that runs down your spine. “If it’s not mine or yours, we’re going to have issues.”

“But if it is yours? You’re not going to call the police on me?”

“Why would I call the police? To tell them there’s a pretty girl in my bed and I don’t want her there?”

“To tell them your psychopathic girlfriend broke into your apartment and might be holding hostages there.”

Spencer laughs; a brittle, drawn out thing, flat and quiet as the desert.

“If you were a psychopath, calling the cops would be a waste of time. I would handle you myself.” The idea of being handled has your thighs clenching. “But—yeah, don’t invite anyone else in.” More humor finds its way into his voice, momentarily relieving some tension that had sneakily begun to build. “Having people in my space makes me anxious.”

“But not me?” Your whisper is half flirtatious, half insecure. Spencer’s reply is soft, as if he’s picking up on this from hundreds of miles away.

“No, not you. You are always the exception.”

“Good,” you say, cheeks aching as you half-bury your warm face into his pillow. “Because I made myself really comfortable. You have a nice shower, by the way.”

Spencer groans.

“You’re killing me.”

“What? What did I do!”

“Don’t talk to me about my bed and my shower. I might start to think you’re intentionally being a brat.”

“You asked me about my day! I’m just telling you what I did!”

But you’re also intentional teasing him for sure. After a pause, he sighs in defeat.

“You’re right. I did do that. Tell me what else happened.”

“Well,” you begin, all too eager, “I had to put my clothes in the dryer after I got out, so I borrowed some of yours. But then they were way comfier than mine, so after I went to the store I put them back on, and—”

“Okay.”

“Okay what?” you frown.

“Tell me what this is.”

“I—I don’t know what you mean.”

Lying to a profiler is usually pointless.

“I’m not stupid, sweetheart. Tell me why you keep talking about my shower and my bed and my clothes.”

Caught red-handed. Your skin heats up.

“I don’t know. I miss you.”

He hums in a way that blurs the line between sympathetic and patronizing. Even through the phone you can feel the bass of it in your bones. It changes the frequency you’re vibrating at. It’s hypnotic.

“But that’s not really why you’re being intentionally provocative, is it?”

“No,” you admit quietly. “I’m still upset you had to go last night.”

“So you’re frustrated and you’re taking it out on me?”

Your brow furrows. Well, when he puts it like that…

“I’m not taking anything out on you.”

“I think you are. And I don’t appreciate that, because I’m on your side, honey. Do you think I prefer being in a hotel bed by myself or being in my bed with you?”

Somehow, he makes you feel like a scolded child. But he makes it appealing in ways you don’t understand.

“Your bed with me,” you murmur, skin prickling with the coldness of his absence even as you curl under the blanket.

“Right. So why don’t you tell me what I can do for you right now, instead of punishing me for things that are beyond my control?”

“I wasn’t punishing you,” you mutter.

“No? You weren’t intentionally talking about using my shower and sleeping in my bed and putting on my clothes so that I’d have to think about what I can’t have right now?”

“I—”

“Believe me when I tell you I have been thinking about what I can’t have, all day. Your efforts are entirely redundant and you can’t say anything about yourself that is even close to as dirty as the frankly disrespectful thoughts I’ve been having about you for seventeen hours.”

The lack of air is making you so dizzy your vision goes gray at the edges.

“What… what thoughts?”

“None that you need to concern yourself with.”

“You can’t just say something like that and then not tell me!” you insist. He’s obviously giving you a taste of your own medicine and it’s fair but it doesn’t mean you have to like it.

“I can do whatever I want,” Spencer corrects cooly in a way that pisses you off beyond belief because he’s right. It triggers some adolescent immaturity within you—a desire to get back at him, so to speak. He wants intentionally provocative? He can have it.

“Fine. Then so can I. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it even if I could.”

“Spencer,” you warn. “If you don’t tell me what you were thinking I’m gonna—” you look around the room for ammo. “I’m gonna look through your nightstand!”

“Go ahead. I’ll warn you, it’s not very interesting.”

“Sounds like what someone who has something hide would say,” you mumble, crawling across the mattress through tangled sheets and using your phone flashlight to open the drawer.

Spencer is patient and silent as you take in its contents—a small blue leather-bound notebook (full of what looks like Russian), a fountain pen, a glasses case, various kinds of vitamins, and—

“Spencer Reid,” you say, dragging out his name and pretending nothing is fluttering in your stomach, “what are these?”

“I don’t know. I can’t see what you’re referring to.”

“Take a wild guess.”

“Oh, I have one. But I’d like to hear you say it.”

You realize you may have gotten yourself in deeper than you meant to by going through his stuff. Well—they don’t say karma is a bitch for nothing.

“What are you doing with a box of condoms?”

He chuckles and you feel it in your whole body, warm as you stretch across his mattress and eye the box like it might jump out at you.

“Those are years old. I’ve used three since I bought them.”

“Don’t tell me that,” you whine. “I don’t wanna think about all the other women you’ve seduced.”

“You wanted them to be for you, huh?”

You flush. Honestly you hadn’t even thought about that.

“I… I don’t know. I kind of just assumed…”

It’s silent for a second and you frown, realizing you hadn’t even considered protection when you’d imagined sleeping with him before.

“You assumed what, honey?” he asks, voice soft.

“It’s dumb. I can’t tell you.”

“You can tell me anything. I’m not going to think it’s dumb, I promise.”

You chew on your lip, letting your eyes unfocus on the box as you muster the courage to be honest.

“Whenever I imagined it… we didn’t… use anything.”

The words make you cringe even as you’re saying them. So does the quiet that follows.

“When you imagine us sleeping together, we don’t use a condom?”

“Ah!” The phone drops to the mattress as you cover your ears and roll onto your side, curling into yourself once more. “You didn’t have to say it! You make me sound so weird!”

“It’s not weird,” he laughs, because he can probably imagine exactly what you just did, “I just wanted to make sure I was understanding you. That said… we would definitely use protection.”

“Do we have to?”

The quiet words take even you by surprise—and they seem to stun Spencer as well. Several false starts are punctuated by a sigh as he gathers his thoughts.

“We really should, baby. That’s the kind of thing we need to take seriously.”

“But you’re… you’re good, right?”

Thankfully he picks up on your meaning.

“I am. I wouldn’t touch you if I weren’t.”

“And I’m good. So...”

“Hm. And has anyone ever explained to you where babies come from?”

You groan in frustration.

“Spencer, I’m being serious! There are ways to negate that.”

“Honey,” he murmurs, “I understand that. But it would be irresponsible of me to say yes. We can talk about it in the future, but—”

“I’m telling you it’s already dealt with. The chances of an accidental pregnancy are slim to none.”

The new information hangs in the air for a moment until Spencer speaks—to your surprise, his voice is low and humorous.

“That is… good to know. But even so—I’m setting a dangerous precedent if I always let you get exactly what you want.”

“Is it such a bad thing that I just wanna—I wanna know what it feels like? You don’t want that?”

“That’s not what I said. I want to know exactly what you feel like. I’m just hesitant to give in so quickly because it makes me look weak.”

You laugh breathlessly, caught between being turned on by the first part of his sentence and amused by the sarcastic second half. Your thighs clench and your hand absentmindedly wanders between them.

“You know what I was thinking about?” you ask. Spencer hums curiously. “I was thinking about when you let me, um… when you let me touch you how you touch me.” He hums again, but you can hear the amused curve of a smile in it now.

“When you had your mouth all full of me and you looked so pretty?”

“When I—yeah,” you agree, too caught up to deny his compliment as your fingers brush your most sensitive spot through clothing. “And how you got me all messy after. And I was wondering what it would feel like… inside me.”

He sucks in a breath. Your legs brush against each other and you twist slightly as you pretend like you’re not touching yourself just a little bit.

“You want me to come inside you?”

“Yeah,” you whisper, brain short-circuiting at the way those words sound in his voice.

—

On the other side of the line, Spencer isn’t doing a fantastic job of thinking clearly either. His dick is half-hard already and it’s only getting worse with each little noise you make that you don’t seem to realize you’re making.

“Really? That would be very messy, baby. I’m surprised that’s what you want.”

“But I really want it,” you breathe. He’s not even looking as he slips his hand under the waistband of his pajamas and palms himself, his other hand rubbing tiredly over his face as his phone rests on his chest. This was not how he intended for this call to go, believe it or not—but he’s here now.

“Yeah? Is that why you’re touching yourself right now?”

You go silent—which is more or less exactly the reaction Spencer had been expecting. Patiently he waits for you to deny it, in three, two—

“’M not.”

Now, he could explain how he knows that’s a lie. How your breathing pattern changed, and your voice got softer and airier, and how you started speaking with smaller words in fragmented sentences. But he doesn’t feel like explaining any of that.

“I know that’s not true,” he murmurs. “You know what? It wasn’t fair to get you all worked up last night and then leave. I don’t want you frustrated, honey. I want you to do whatever you need to do.”

You make a little gasping noise, and Spencer can imagine the way your back would arch when you did it. His own hips buck slightly as his dick twitches under his fingers.

“Where are you touching?”

“Um—over my clothes.”

Cute.

“Go under them for me. Tell me how it feels when you’re touching yourself like that.”

It takes a moment, in which all he hears is the rustling of fabric, until you’re whispering, “feels… it feels good. I wish you were here.”

He inhales, freeing his cock and squeezing the base.

“I know. Just listen to my voice, pretty. I’m right here.”

Spencer allows himself a few slow tugs as he imagines what’s happening in his bed. You make a squeaking noise, like a held-back moan, and his eyes screw shut.

“I need them inside,” you whine, and he knows you’re referring to his fingers—the ones currently stroking his own leaking cock.

“You can use your own, just give yourself a minute first. Remember what I said about needing to be ready?”

“I am ready—” judging by the surprised chirp you interrupt yourself with, you’ve proven yourself right. What surprises Spencer is the weak sound of disappointment you make next. “Spence, it doesn’t feel the same.”

“We’re different sizes, honey. Your hands aren’t as big as mine. But you can still make it feel good.”

He almost says, 90% of the nerves in the vaginal canal are located in the lower third—in other words, within approximately 2.36 inches from the opening, which you can most certainly reach—but he refrains. He’s not sure if that’s good dirty talk.

“You have a really sensitive spot about three inches up, right in front. It’s going to feel a little different than the rest of you when you touch it. I want you to try and find it for me, okay?”

“Okay,” you breathe, ever-eager to please even from a great distance. There’s a quiet moment. “I can’t—I don’t think I can r—oh,”

The moan is so pretty Spencer can’t help speeding up the motion of his hand, hissing slightly as his fingers brush against the angry tip with every pump.

“Did you find it?”

“Yeah,” you whine, a weak, high-pitched thing. “Oh my god.”

“Be gentle,” he warns with some effort as his own hips jump slightly. “You’re really sensitive there. If you’re not careful you’ll make yourself sore.”

“I don’t care—holy shit—” the way your voice rises and tightens to a squeak at the end has Spencer moaning as he fucks his fist. A black hole forms and warps time, turning every minute into a second and every second into an infinity until he has no idea how much time is going by. He drags his thumb over the tip, smearing precum over his cock and whining as his jaw drops at the feeling. “Oh my god, Spencer,” in that same strained, high voice. “’M gonna—ah!”

He gets the general sentiment.

“What, baby? You’re gonna make yourself come all over your fingers? Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

“Mhm!”

“Yeah, I bet you are. It feels good, huh?”

“Yes,” you cry.

“See? You don’t need my fingers to feel good. Mine barely fit, you know that? I have to hold your fucking hips down whenever I put my fingers in you because you can’t stop squirming. I don’t know how you think you’re going to take my cock.”

“Spencer!”

He knows.

“Come, baby. Let me hear you.”

The delicate sounds you make as you bring yourself to orgasm tip him over the edge of his own—grunting as he comes all over his fist.

“Jesus,” he strains under his breath, the word dragging out into two long syllables as his hips buck involuntarily and cum drips down his knuckles. He’s lightheaded and he’s created a mess and it all happened so quickly. “Fuck,” he breathes, a rasping chuckle as he reaches for the towel he’d dropped on the bed after his shower earlier. “You conscious over there?”

“I’m conscious,” you slur, breathing heavily. “I’ve never had an orgasm by myself before.”

“Are you proud of yourself?” Spencer smiles, wiping his hand off and making sure he’s otherwise clean. “You should be. I am.”

He’s barely kidding.

“I’ll be proud when I can do it without your help,” you tease.

“But I’ll always want to help you with that.” His already warm face flushes further as he goes over what he’d said. “Sorry I was so vulgar.”

You laugh. He blushes even more.

“Are you? I think you secretly love being vulgar.”

“I don’t know why! I have no idea where it comes from. I would never speak that way in any other context. I should probably work on that. Sometimes I look back on the things I say and I’m genuinely appalled.”

“Well, don’t stop on my account. Personally I enjoy it.”

“Yeah, I think I’m corrupting you. You probably shouldn’t enjoy it.”

The truth of it weighs heavy on his mind, but he’s pretty sure his voice alone doesn’t betray that and you can’t sense it through the phone.

“Oh, my god. Do not do that falling on your sword shit. I like being corrupted by you. If you stop I’ll be very upset.”

“Well god forbid you get upset,” he teases gently. Idly he wonders if the reason he’s suddenly feeling so depressed is because his cortisol levels were already high from the case, and then he jarred his system with an orgasm, spiking his dopamine and ultimately causing it to plummet without the oxytocin release that post-coital physical contact would usually provide.

Or if it was something else. It could also be something else.

For the millionth time, he wishes he was with you. Part of him also wants to go to sleep. But mostly he wishes he was with you.

—

A comfortable silence settles over the conversation. In the ditch between words, you’re mapping constellations in the texture of Spencer’s ceiling. If you squeeze your eyes almost shut, you can imagine it really is the night sky. You can imagine he’s really here.

You think about what he said—his apparently mindless vulgarity. Did it mean anything? Or was he just rambling to get you off?

“Spencer?” you murmur.

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

He sounds earnest, perhaps a little tired, as he replies, “always,” through the little metal rectangle on your chest. He likes me and my questions are important to him, you repeat to yourself silently as you work up the strength.

“If Penelope hadn’t called, last night… were you going to have sex with me?”

Your lip tastes like his toothpaste as you chew it. Spencer sucks in a breath of air like he’s about to speak—and lets it fizzle out like foam on a carbonated drink.

“I don’t know,” he finally admits, lamely. “That wasn’t my plan, but you can be extremely convincing when you want to be.”

“But why can’t it be your plan?” It’s an almost whine, pouty and childish—but the next words are quiet and pained. “Is it something I’m doing wrong?”

“No, no! It’s not you. You’re perfect. It’s—it’s complicated. It’s a me thing.”

Such trite words—such a ubiquitous, simple excuse sounds almost comical from his mouth when you know he’s capable of all the eloquence in the world. It’s not you, it’s me. It’s ridiculous.

“Okay. Let me simplify this for you,” you begin with an uncharacteristic assertiveness that surprises even you. “I want to have sex with you. Either we are going to have sex or we’re not. So your future branches in two diverging paths. In one, we have sex, and then we keep having sex. In the other we never have sex ever. If you want to ever have the privilege of fucking me, then we just have to do it. Otherwise it simply will never happen. And I’m not eternally patient, Reid.”

Go me, you think, slightly breathless from your monologue.

“Watch your mouth,” he says dryly. Something about the chastisement makes your stomach flip and your whole body tingle. “When you talk to me you call me Spencer. I will also accept Doctor Reid.” You wrestle down a smile, refusing to let him change the subject. A delayed sigh from him sobers up the conversation. “You know what I want. I’ve been very clear with you about that. But…”

“But…?”

Another sigh. A deeper, shuddering sigh, like his breath is searching for balance. Like Spencer is in a precarious position for which he was unprepared.

“But—but to be completely honest… I worry that you’ll regret choosing me. And I know virginity is a social construct and I’m not implying that your worth will somehow be diminished if we have sex but regardless of my views on virginity as a construct, having sex for the first time can be weird and scary and it’s incredibly intimate and I don’t want you to regret your first time like I regret mine because you chose the wrong person.”

The words come at you so rapid-fire it takes you a moment to process them. And aside from all the ways you want to reassure him that you will not regret choosing him—that you could never, ever regret anything about him—one thing stands out.

“You regret your first time?”

Something between a scoff and a sigh travels through the line. You can tell he’s not annoyed at you for asking so much as he’s flustered himself with all his own words as he occasionally does.

“Yeah. Yes. Sometimes I do. The person—she didn’t… like me as much as I liked her. And I was really, really in love with her, and she knew that and she knew she wasn’t in love with me—or maybe she was, I don’t know—but my point is, when one person likes the other more than the other person like them, things get complicated. And however you feel about me—that’s fine. It’s fine. I don’t want you to feel bad if we don’t feel exactly the same way about each other. I understand that this is newer for you, it’s different, I—I just don’t want us to do something we can’t undo because I don’t want to relive that. And I’m not saying it will never happen but I just don’t want you to make this choice when… when right now, I think we’re in different places emotionally. Regardless of that, I want you to choose the right person. I don’t want you to choose me and then find out that we feel differently after we sleep together and leave you feeling like you signed up for something you didn’t understand. I’m sorry. Maybe telling you this is selfish. But I’ve been thinking about it and trying to ignore it and I think I just have to be completely honest.”

Your ears ring like Spencer just fired a blank right into the microphone. Like you just got backhanded across the face and now you have the world’s worst case of whiplash.

Every finger is numb and your blood is so cold it feels blue as it slithers thick through your veins.

What you want to do is scream. What you want to do is go back to last night and stop yourself from almost telling him I love you, slap yourself and keep your cards a little closer to your chest. Because now he knows, and he doesn’t feel the same.

You want to scream bloody murder.

But when you try, when you unhinge your jaw and part your chapped lips and expect a bellow to come hurdling up the corridor of your throat with so much force it rattles your bones, all that falls out is a small, “oh.”

Maybe that’s worse.

Spencer doesn’t reply. You hate yourself for feeling obliged to fill the silence.

“I didn’t realize you…”

I didn’t realize that you don’t love me back.

I didn’t realize I like you more than you like me.

I didn’t realize you’d tell me to masturbate in your fucking bed and then drop this not even five minutes later.

If Spencer Reid was able to talk to you over the phone with the same amount of affection and familiarity as always, like everything was still okay, knowing you love him and he doesn’t love you the whole time, he is not who you thought he was.

“I’m sorry,” he lamely says again, like it could ever help.

More silence. Now you can’t bring yourself to speak, so Spencer does.

“I realize how awkward this is. I really didn’t mean to put you in this position. Especially not over the phone when I—god, I’m stupid. I’m sorry. But can we—can we talk about this in person when I get back? Please?”

Is that what grownups do? Is the proper etiquette for him to take you out to dinner and explain why he’s not in love with you? Is he going to break up with you?

What does one even wear to a breakup date?

“Okay,” you whisper. Your eyes sting, your everything stings, like you’ve been wrapped in a shroud of briar. Sheets that were soft a moment ago feel like sandpaper on open wounds. You feel like an open wound.

Spencer sighs. It’s a sound of relief that confuses and hurts you even more.

“Okay. I—okay. Thank you. Um—I’ll let you go back to sleep, now.”

“Okay,” you repeat—as if any of this were okay. But you can’t keep being that stupid girl who feels it all so much harder, who loves easily and begs to be loved in return, too naive to assume that someone who treats her so kindly might not reciprocate her feelings. It has to be okay, because if it’s not, you’re silly and dramatic and you’re just proving him right.

“Goodnight,” Spencer whispers, and you can’t help but feeling that it’s the last time you’ll ever hear those words from his mouth while you’re in his bed. And he’s not even fucking here.

So you pull the blanket a little higher. You let your tears stain his pillow because they’ll be invisible by the morning. It will be like they were never here. Like you were never here.

“Goodnight.”

part five