#chapter thirty-seven

[redux-iterum]

Charred Legacy: Chapter Thirty-Seven

(AO3 counterpart here.)

When Fireheart awoke that afternoon, he internally cursed the blinding white of the snow reflecting the bare sun directly into his eyes. He considered just turning his back to the clearing and falling asleep again, but… perhaps not. Something was niggling in his mind, kneading on it with urgency. Silently, he stood up and went around Ravenwing to step into the open.  

No scent of fire, at least. No dogs, either.

Now, why was that something pushing him to the apprentice’s den?

He had a faint idea, but his optimism was fighting back against that notion, whispering to him, Cloudpaw’s been staying home. You’ve checked on him so many times. He’s still here.

His practical side knew better. Hoping against hope, Fireheart crept to the doorway of the den and poked his head in.

No Cloudpaw.

Son of a fox.

Fireheart looked down. His eyes followed a trail of pawprints, perfectly preserved thanks to the snowless daytime, all the way to the entrance of camp. They were small and carefully spaced out, but even Cloudpaw wouldn’t be able to avoid making a path for his uncle to follow.

And follow he did, at a trot that broke into a run as the pawprints spread out and carried on through the woods. Cloudpaw was well ahead of him; maybe he had left as soon as everyone was asleep.

Don’t yell at him when you find him, his mind said - in a careful way, like it was afraid of its own reaction to the reminder. Be kind and compassionate. He’s not going to react well to a loud voice and scolding words.

Maybe it was the remnants of last night’s events, or just that he had had that talk with Cloudpaw for nothing, but Fireheart was struggling to cool a slightly-too-warm frustration that was begging to boil into anger. He fought it back as hard as he could the entire run, barely remembering to keep an eye on the tracks and follow them exactly.

The snow had been piled up by the fences when Fireheart reached the Houses. He took a moment to catch his breath, finally focusing on what was in front of him. The grass was largely still snowy, but the road and pathways were clear and shining from the sunlight.

That was fine. He had a good idea of where Cloudpaw was at this point.

As his eyes roamed, a black-and-white head was barely visible over one of the fences. With a forced cheer, Fireheart trotted up to that fence, calling, “Hey, Smudge!”

Sure enough, his old friend turned his head and peeked down in surprise. Fireheart waved his tail and waited for Smudge to climb onto the edge of the fence—though, curiously, he didn’t jump down this time. He simply sat there, his tail tapping apprehensively on the fenceline.

“Glad the dogs haven’t gotten you yet,” he said, somehow looking relieved and uneasy at the same time. “We’ve heard a lot about them recently. Apparently they’re close by now.”

“Yeah…” Fireheart sighed. “They’ve killed a few of my Clanmates and mauled an apprentice. It’s a bad time for us right now.”

“I can imagine. I’m—”

“Listen, Smudge,” Fireheart said, surprising himself at his brusque tone. “Did a white-and-ginger tom come through here today?”

“Ah, yeah.” Smudge grimaced, huddling a tiny bit. “He’s been coming by a lot recently. I’m guessing that’s Cloudy?”

“Cloudpaw, yes.”

“Well, I’m sure you can guess where he’s going.” Smudge’s tail swished to the side, scattering a bit of snow and sending it over the rail. “I hope you don’t mind if I stay home this time. I’d like to keep out of family business, and, uh…” He gave Fireheart a nervous look. “You don’t seem to be in the mood for friendly banter.”

“Frankly, I’m not,” Fireheart said. “Sorry, I’ve got to go find him. Stay safe.”  

“Right,” Smudge said, and then quieter, “Right. You too.”

Fireheart didn’t wait for him to disappear back into his yard. He just started off again at a trot, too... Stressed? Frustrated? Anxious, maybe? Whatever it was, he was feeling too much of it to just walk. He tried to pick out exactly what his emotional state was as he went along, unaware of the road becoming somewhat dry and nearly warm under his paws.

He found Rosy’s home quickly, and the closer he got, the more he could hear voices coming from inside her yard: one high and sweet, the other youthful and sheepish.

Fireheart stopped just a body-length away from the fence and stood still, taking slow, quiet breaths to calm himself. It did nothing to cease the fusion of negativity brewing in his gut and chest, but he could at least put on a kind face. He bunched himself up and cleanly leapt onto the railing.

Cloudpaw was reclining with Rosy in the middle of the yard, on a soft, brown cat-bed. Rosy was grooming him, purring.

“And does it…“ Cloudpaw started, then trailed off as a shadow blocked his spot of sunlight. His eyes rose up along the shadow’s path, all the way to his uncle. He froze, fur puffing out in alarm.

Rosy followed his line of sight and stared at Fireheart. She didn’t look particularly delighted to see him, either. The pair stood up as Fireheart jumped down into the yard, their pelts brushing and Rosy’s thin tail protectively wrapping around Cloudpaw’s puffy back legs.

Fireheart blinked slowly. It did nothing to ease either of them. Nor did his question: “Care to explain why you’re here again, Cloudpaw?”

Cloudpaw didn’t get a chance to answer before Rosy straightened up and glared at her brother, surprising him enough to lessen some of the gut-negativity. “Why didn’t you tell me about everything that’s going on? To protect my feelings?”

So she was going to be the one to handle with care. Fireheart breathed in. “Rosy—”

“My Cloudy has been in danger this entire time, and you didn’t tell me!” Rosy snapped. “The dogs and the fire, having to move so far away, losing his friends like that!”

“And his family,” Fireheart said, with a bit more venom than he intended. “Brindleface and Ashpaw. His mother and brother.” His eyes went to Cloudpaw. “Or did you forget to tell her that part?”

Cloudpaw looked down and away shamefully.

“The ones who never told him about me, right,” Rosy said, even snappier. “And that’s not to mention your authority being like it is! An insane leader—”

“She,” Fireheart said with slow, intense emphasis, teeth slightly clenched, “Is not. Insane.”

That got Rosy to back off a bit, her outrage flickering into a startled face. Cloudpaw flinched and stared up at Fireheart, looking very afraid.

It took everything Fireheart had in him to reel it back in, though he wasn’t able to sheathe his claws, the frustration now in that full boil of anger it had been fighting so hard to get to. Slowly, he focused in on his sister, his eyes locking hers in a stare.

“I warned you,” he said calmly, “when you gave him to me. Life in the forest is dangerous. I told you that, and you insisted anyway. Don’t get mad that my warning was accurate when it was you who chose to ignore it.”

Despite his attempts at an even, almost flat tone, heat escaped out of his mouth and slightly burned his words. Rosy’s fur prickled uneasily, and Cloudpaw still regarded his uncle with fright.

“Now.” Fireheart looked at him, earning another flinch. “You yourself know exactly how dangerous it is right now. And you also know that we had a conversation about you not coming here without my word. Yet, oddly, you’re here anyway, and I had to follow you here in the middle of the day, when everyone is conveniently asleep and can’t stop you.” His eyes narrowed just a fraction. “Would you like to explain yourself to me?”

Cloudpaw darted a glance at Rosy, then meekly stepped forward and lifted his head a little higher.

“Well, um…” His feet shuffled guiltily. “Last night, when you came home, you said you saw a dog and a cat die, and… and I got scared about the dogs again, and, well, I just– I wanted to see Rosy, too…” He swallowed. “It’s safe, you know? Like I said. I feel safe here. The dogs can’t get me in this yard.”

Whatever he was looking for in Fireheart’s expression, he evidently didn’t find it, because he hung his head again.

This did nothing to assuage Fireheart’s anger, but a bud of compassion started unfurling in his heart. With that, it was easier to ignore the boiling. He took in a very long breath, finally managed to sheathe his claws, and speak with a more genuine tranquility.

“You know the dogs are likely roaming the Houses right now,” he said. “And if they aren’t, they’re in the woods, where it’s even more dangerous to be out on your own—”

“And all the more reason he should be here,” Rosy said, stepping to the side a little to slightly lean into Cloudpaw. “I’ve decided—he’s staying with me until those dogs are gone.”

Fireheart didn’t have a heartbeat to recognize his surprise before Cloudpaw jerked his head up and stared at her, saying, “What?”

“You’re going to be much safer in this house with me.” Rosy gave a firm nod. “You can go back as soon as they get rid of those dogs.”

Fireheart spoke sternly. “That’s not your decision to make.”

Rosy’s mouth dropped open. “I’m his mother!”

“And you gave up being his mother as soon as you had me bring him to the forest,” Fireheart said. A part of him wilted at the stricken horror on Rosy’s face, but not a big enough part to kowtow to her. “He was raised in ThunderClan. He lives by ThunderClan’s rules. Even if you don’t.”

“You can’t– you—” Rosy stuttered, faltering in her words until she turned quickly to Cloudpaw. “Cloudy, you’ll stay, won’t you? It’s up to you! You can be here as long as you want, and then you can go back!”

“His name is Cloudpaw,” Fireheart said quietly.

Rosy started an arguing word, bristling, but Cloudpaw interrupted her by giving a weak little cough.

“Um…” He tilted his head apologetically. “I should go home. My sister, I don’t want to scare her. An– and I should keep helping with Brightpaw. Visiting her and talking to her and everything.” He peeked at Fireheart. “And eparme would get in trouble if I’m gone without him.”

“But…” Rosy stared at him, aghast. “But those dogs, Cloudy!”

“Rosy,” Fireheart said, managing a softer tone. “I’ll die before I let them get to him.”

Cloudpaw turned his head and blinked at his uncle in a mix of gratitude and fondness. To Rosy, he said, “Yeah, um, I’ll be okay. We can come back later, too.”

Rosy looked between them, starting many words and not finishing any of them. Fireheart took the opportunity to crook his tail for Cloudpaw to follow him, which he slowly did as Fireheart turned around and started for the fence.

“We’ll see you again, Rosy,” Fireheart said. “Even if it takes a while. He’ll be okay, I promise.”

Nothing from her. He could feel her stare on the back of his head when he turned away. Cloudpaw mumbled something to her and, after Fireheart, jumped onto the fence. The pair jumped down together and started off at a brisk walk, which Fireheart only allowed to slow down once Rosy’s house was gone from their sight.

“Thank you for coming home,” he said to his nephew. “I know that was hard for you.”

Cloudpaw still looked very nervous. “Are you going to yell at me?”

Fireheart blinked. “No, of course not.”

“Okay…” Cloudpaw’s ears lowered. “Just– you look like you’re going to start screaming right now.”

That worked; the bubbles and searing heat of fury quelled as Fireheart now fully understood the fear on his nephew’s face. He stopped walking, shut his eyes, and willed the remaining emotions to sink out of his belly, down his legs and through his toes. The road wasn’t as receptive as soil, but it still accepted them, and soon he couldn’t feel even a slight bit of the warmth anymore. Now, all he had was a cooled-down chest and a stomach that wasn’t churning.

He opened his eyes again and looked at Cloudpaw, who was watching him anxiously.

“I’m sorry,” Fireheart said, quiet again. “I’m not trying to scare you. I understand why you came here, even when you knew you shouldn’t.”

Cloudpaw relaxed a fraction. Then he stiffened again. “…Am I going to be punished?”

Fireheart took a moment to consider if he should; punishing his nephew would require an explanation to anyone in the Clan who was curious, which would likely be everyone. He didn’t want to reveal Cloudpaw’s adventures and risk him getting in trouble with all of ThunderClan. On the other paw, the conversation they’d had clearly wasn’t enough—maybe he did have to punish him. But then again, that could just as easily drive Cloudpaw back to Rosy, possibly forever…

“No,” he said at last. “Not yet. But I’m not sure how else to make it clear to you that this isn’t the right thing to do, if you do it again.”

Cloudpaw’s chin wobbled. “I won’t. I really won’t.”

“Good,” Fireheart said. “Thank you.”

They resumed walking, both silent. Exhaustion from early rising was finally hitting Fireheart, causing him to yawn more than once on their way out of the Houses. Cloudpaw seemed a bit sleepy himself, blinking slowly and lowering his tail nearly to the ground.

Fireheart looked at his nephew with a bit of cheek. “Don’t think you’ll get to sleep in tonight. As far as the Clan knows, you’ve been in camp all day. Maybe you went out to make dirt, but that’s it. You should be very well-rested, so we’re going to act like you are.”

Cloudpaw chewed air nervously. “We won’t do fighting training tonight, will we?”

“No,” Fireheart said, casual. “But I think we’ll hunt as best we can until we manage to catch something.”

“Oh.” Cloudpaw blinked. “That’s not too bad.”

“It could be better.” Fireheart stepped into the snowy grass. “Being tired while trying to hunt is pretty difficult. And I’m not going to let you take a nap out here, either.”

Cloudpaw sighed in somewhat-joking disappointment. “I guess that’s fair.”

Fireheart tapped his side with his tail. “Just don’t tell Goldenflower. She’ll get upset with me.”

His apprentice tilted his head. “How come?”

With a twitch of his whiskers, Fireheart replied, “I never told you that story, did I? Well, once, after I took my journey to the Mother…”

[longagoitwastuesday]

I am liking Jujutsu Kaisen, way more than I imagined I would, but I foresee it will let me down and it's keeping me from enjoying this as much as I could haha

I think the characters and dynamics are well set, and I think many of them have an incredibly good and deep potential, but I would be willing to bet they'll not get a proper development, enough for them to really hit. A well assembled set of gears is not enough to make the movement go, you have to wind the clockwork.

I think Gojo and Megumi have a fascinating and very complex dynamic, but I doubt it will be given the time and care that imo it needs to actually work. And it is going well enough for now! One could see the intimacy between them was deeper than the one Gojo had with, say, Yuji and Nobara ever since the very first few episodes despite the fact Fushiguro too was a first year. But the pieces forming what they have are extremely complex, and it just wouldn't be realistic if it doesn't show, even if in a not showing way, or if it doesn't have consequences or implications.

It's one of those dynamics that shape one's life, the way one regards the world, the way one establishes or not relationships with other people. It's one of those dynamics that could be full of fondness, gratitude, resentment, admiration, trust, and that imply intimacy, the good kind or the bad, even if in just the knowledge of someone who's been a constant through your life. It could, and would, imply a myriad of feelings, and probably in such a mix it could imply contradictory feelings too. Even the nothingness would weight, even the nothingness would be significant and meaningful.

Gojo took Megumi and his sister under his wing, the son of a man who murdered him, because of both selfish and selfless reasons. Megumi looks like Toji. What does Gojo feel about this? How does Gojo deal with this? How does Gojo go about taking care of Megumi? Would he walk him to school? Make him breakfast? Celebrate his birthdays making him blow candles? Did he take him to the zoo? Does the relationship between them feel professional or is it something more? Gojo appreciates his students, but is Megumi to him just another student? When Gojo faces Sukuna in Megumi's body, did he see the kid he raised, or does he just see Sukuna in one of his students' body? Did he have one faint wavering instant? And how does Megumi feel about this? Is he resentful of him? Resentful of the situation? Of the selfishness behind his actions? Does he feel like a pawn? Is he grateful? Does he resent feeling grateful? Would he rather not? Does he love Gojo? Does he feel nothing about him other than what he could feel about a teacher that sort of annoys him but knows he's reliable in his strength? Does he think it unfair, cruel or unfeeling that Gojo is close, closer perhaps, with Yuuji or Yuta, considering their story? When Sukuna slices Gojo in two, does the remnants of Megumi's soul tremble?

And not just Megumi and Gojo. Yuuji and Nanami, Gojo and Nanami, Yuuji and Fushiguro, Nobara and the boys, or Nobara and Maki, Todo and Yuuji or Yuta, Gojo and Yuta, Megumi and his sister. Gojo and Geto, even! If the pieces are well set, the dynamics are intriguing, interesting, and have potential to be deep, but then the characters have like two plot relevant scenes that punch you hard, but little more, it's not nearly enough. Especially not nearly enough for the enormity that is shonen dynamics and situations. And the potential existing at all, and then not delivering, makes it all the more frustrating when you're left with something mediocre that could have been so good.

The development of dynamics through not only a few plot relevant gut wrenching moving scenes, but also the smallness of life, is important. The friend who recommended this to me said that those things were just unnecessary filler, but I disagree. I think there's a big difference between a large amount of anime-only filler episodes whose existence is based on the fact they had run out of manga chapters to animate, and moments of quietness. The low stakes character-driven moments of quietness can be so telling and so insightful, and they are so satisfactory when brought back later in higher stakes situations. My friend teased me there was no scene of Gojo making breakfast to Megumi, that it would be an idiotic idea, but it would be so telling. How he makes breakfast, what they eat, if he tries hard or if it's all mechanised, if they have personal bowls or if they use whatever, if he just buys them some pastry on the way to school, if the way they have breakfast changes through the years, or if he doesn't make them breakfast at all! All that would be very insightful on their dynamic and its evolution. All that would give a glimpse on how they regard each other and why, even in the present. All that could become meaningful in tense situations and high stakes scenes.

These moments also let the plot breath; if a lot is happening all the time, if every character is always experiencing trauma after trauma, the entire story is so emotionally draining that at some point you don't even care all that much. Besides, these nothing moments or low stakes plot arcs, besides deepening and developing dynamics, also let some in-world time pass, which would make the intimacy and bond between characters more believable imo; between Yuuji eating Sukuna's finger and their last confrontation in December how much time has passed? A few months? Am I truly to believe these characters are so everything to each other in only a few months?

Without some smallness, some repetition, some daily life, some low stakes not plot-centric development, the dynamics don't hit, they don't truly feel fleshed out, and dynamics as complex as the ones Megumi and Gojo have, or as supposedly meaningful as the one Megumi has with Yuuji or his sister, should be fleshed out if they're going to exist at all. Otherwise they'd risk making the writing feel awkward and fake. Besides, if the dynamics felt well fleshed out and realistic, they would shape the way the characters interact and act, and how they deal with situations, thus being plot relevant.

The shonen genre has so much happening all the time, the stakes are so high, the dynamics are so rooted in big events and the relationships carry enormous weight and implications. Yet they barely get developed, and it feels so stupid, so plain, the absence of something so important noticeable like a constant void, a shapeless nothingness present in every scene. It makes the characters feel like cardboard figures. Jujutsu Kaisen is already getting a better job than many, but I doubt it will do enough for what I've heard, and I fear I am bound to feel let down, and bound to feel unmoved.

After all, if not enough time and care has been given to develop a dynamic, I am not going to feel pressured by the high stakes; if not enough time and care has been given to develop the dynamic between Megumi and Yuuji, as good potential as it has I am bound to feel little for this last confrontation between Sukuna and Itadori, and his effort in getting Megumi back.

[followtheechoes]

just watched the riverdale finale. keep in mind that I watched season 1 and the first couple episodes of season 2 and then abandoned ship. I do not know character names for new characters. I'm also kind of curious if the gang exists anymore and if so what place they have in the 1950s timeline

[maternalcube]

wow! i got a comment on wattpad that might actually be like. from an actual reader. for the first time!

[s4sharkteeth]

wolfgang is slowly turning into the group leader isn’t he….that’s not good

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[renee-writer]

April 15th Chapter Thirty-seven

AO3

They stumble back into the trenches, muddy and bloody. All, to a man, have wide staring eyes, shell shocked. The hands, holding tight to their rifles, tremble. The first battle has begun.

 

William, Jamie, and Ian, are still in one piece. They are in the same unit and crouch together in the bloody mud.

 

“I thought it would be like shooting a buck. It isn’t. They don’t die right away, either. The screams! They haunt our dreams, even when we can sleep.”

 

Brian reads the letter from his eldest son. Mary received one, asking after the children, telling her that they are alright. He gets the ones they can’t write to their wives.

 

He folds it with trembling hands. It joins the others in an old cigar box. One day, when he is much older, Willie will be able to read them. He and Fergus, Wee Ian, Quinton. His grandsons will know why their father’s are the way they are. Or, no how they used to be.

 

He shakes his head. No, they will return. Scarred and battered but home.  He lowers his head and once again prays for them.

 

Claire folds the letter after reading it to the children. Her hands rest on her huge baby bump. At six months, it shouldn’t be this big. She has a strong feeling that she is having twins. This is a concern she has yet to share with her husband. He has enough going on. If two arrive, then she will tell him.

 

“Da da bye bye?” Faith questions. They are doing all they can to keep his memory alive in her. Her brothers talk about him all the time. Mainly when playing soldiers.

 

“Daddy and our uncles are off fighting the bad men.” Quinton answers.

 

“Aye Faith, he is going bang bang.” Fergus places his fingers out, in pretend guns and makes shooting noises.

 

“Daddy and your uncle’s will be back.” Claire adds, frowning at her boys. They both lower their heads. She is glad that Jamie and the others are heroes to them. It is just being reminded of the horrors they are going through isn’t easy.

 

She knows that herself and Mary and Jenny are only getting the cleaned up version of what they are experiencing. Her father-in-law looks increasingly wane every time the post comes. They are sharing with him the worst of it.

 

“Fergus and Quinton, go write letters to your daddy.”

 

They turn and go to do it. She places Faith in her shrinking lap and starts to rock her. Her eyes are far away.

 

“Oh, oh, owe!” she screams as the pains of child birth wash over her.

 

The screams of dying men surround him. Even so, he hears Claire, as if she was right beside him. He knows the baby is coming.

 

“Just a bit more. The baby is almost here.” The midwife sooths. She clings to Jenny and Mary. Each have one of her hands as she presses the baby out.

 

Ian let’s out an unholy scream beside him. He drops and Jamie falls down beside him. It is his leg. It is gone.

 

“A strong lad.” She announces, lifting the baby up. Jenny moves to assist, taken her new nephew in hand, so the midwife can deliver his sibling.

 

Jamie pulls his belt off, fashioning a tourniquet while screaming for the medics. “You stay with me Ian! Do you hear me! Stay, Jenny and those babies need you. Medic!”

 

“Ian!” Jenny feels faint and finds a seat holding the baby fast.

 

“Henry after his late grandpa.” Claire says between breaths, believing Jenny was naming the baby.

 

“Do you have a name for another lad?” The midwife asks, “For Master Henry has a baby brother.”

 

While Claire lays, cradling her newest sons, Jenny explains that she believes something happened to Ian.

 

“We shall pray.” Mary declares. Always a devote woman, with her husband and brothers -in -law in the middle of a war, her prayers have increased. As the mistress of the house, she leads her family in morning devotions and evening prayers.

 

He is gathered into a MASH tent. Jamie prays as he continues to fight. He prays for both Ian and Claire.

 

“John,” she announces, “It is a form of Ian and honors Jamie’s  good mate. Henry Lambert and John Brian. That is their names.”

[steele-soulmate]

Princess of Candy Coated Lies, Modern Royalty AU- King Peter Steele & Single Mother OFC, Soulmate AU

Chapter 37

SUMMARY: Single mother Molly Anne Harper does the best she can do, given her circumstances- since she broke up with her ex-boyfriend by sending him to jail, she’s been struggling to be the best mother to twin daughters while working barely minimum waged jobs. But when she meets her soulmate- King Peter Thomas Ratajczyk of Brooklyn- she quickly finds herself falling heads over heels in love with the guarded, battle damaged ruler. Likewise, Peter finds himself with a family of a women and two little girls who call him daddy. But what happens when their father gets out from behind bars and starts to cause mayhem?

A Soulmate AU where you never know what the first words your soulmate says to you until they say it

CHAPTER WARNINGS: none applicable

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHORESS: This fic is dedicated to SkullWoggle on AO3 and @rock-a-noodle on Tumblr.

WORD COUNT: 1172

I took in a deep breath as Peter, the twins and I were led deeper into the bowels of the law firm. My kingly husband kept one hand comfortingly on my shoulder, his other arm holding Evie protectively on his hip. Aria held onto my hand, her thumb rubbing gentle circles into my nervous wrist.

“In here, Mr. Charles is expecting you.”

Peter thanked the secretary before knocking on the door politely, entering when a voice on the other side called out for us.

The office was of a moderate size, holding a desk, two chairs, a small bookshelf and a little couch with a pillow and a blanket folded up neatly and off to one side. The wall behind the desk was plastered with neatly framed photographs, showcasing Mr. Charles’ life- from service with the Brooklyn Navy to date nights with a pretty woman who had dark alabaster skin and twinkling amber eyes to marriage to pretty interracial children with dark bronze skin and sky blue eyes.

“Hello, it’s nice to meet you, sir.”

My eyes trailed away from the photo wall and took in my husband shaking the hand of a man who I assumed was Mr. Charles. Built like a brick wall with a broad chest, neatly combed back graying hair and a square jawline, I knew within a second that he was a warrior through and through.

Peter quickly introduced his family before we all took our seats, ending up with a girl perched on either of the king’s knee, much to the lawyer’s amusement.

“Now, do you have the birth certificates, my lady?” he asked me, waiting patiently as I pulled out a file folder and then handed it over to him. Inside I had tucked the paperwork that would be needed for today and a picture of Aria and Evie mere moments after they both had been born, both babies receiving skin to skin from their exhausted, battle worn mother. “Perfect, perfect!”

He copied some stuff from the birth certificates onto the paperwork before handing the four of us nice pen ink pens and beginning to show us what to sign, explaining what we were signing and why.

He explained to us that in addition to filing the paperwork to make the twins the king’s children legally, he would also change their last names, to which Aria loudly screamed that she wanted to be her daddy’s girl.

“Inside voice, Aria,” I scolded her gently as Peter reached up to causally rub at his ear. “You nearly blew out daddy’s eardrums!”

“Sorry daddy,” she meeped timidly before returning to her previous statement of sitting across his chest, swinging her feet.

Peter just chuckled as he pressed a whiskery kiss to her temple before returning to his previous task of signing the adoption paperwork.

“And just one more thing…” Mr. Charles announced, sliding a final sheet of paper over to me. “There are basic disclaimers saying that you consented to having your daughters being adopted and have their names changed, and I also have one for you to sign, your majesty.”

I scribbled my name onto the paper, feeling a weight being taken from my shoulders at the news that King Peter Thomas Ratajczyk was now Aria’s and Evie’s legal father.

“By the power vested in me,” Mr. Charles, announced, spreading his arms. “I now declare Aria Hope and Evangelina Lynn as now official members of the Ratajczyk family.”

“YAY!” Aria squealed excitedly. “Can we go get ice cream to celebrate now?”

Her father burst into a loud rumbled of chuckles as Mr. Charles reached into his desk drawer and brought out a bowl of candy.

“Happy Halloween!” he chuckled as the girl quickly made their selections. “Do you have any plans for tonight?”

“We are taking the girls out trick or treating with my sister’s daughters tonight,” my husband explained, brushing their curls away from their faces before bestowing loving kisses onto their cheeks. “Aria is going to be Captain Brooklyn and Evie will be a butterfly.”

“Fun!” Mr. Charles stood up and walked us to the door. “Will you both be dressing up?”

I could tell that Peter was silently balking at the idea of dressing up.

“No, not this year,” I said in a diplomatic tone of voice. “The girls asked us to come trick or treating with them while we were tucking them into bed last night. We don’t really have any time to whip anything together in such a short amount of time.”

“Ah, understandable,” he smiled as he opened the door for us. “I’ll call you if anything comes up, alright?”

“Perfect.” We all shook hands once more before leaving his office. Right before we left the building, the girls held their arms up, clearly demanding to be picked up and carried to his manly muscle car. Peter had told me that he was looking into buying a safer car to transport us around Brooklyn.

“My Doom Buggy is barely even street legal,” he confessed in a sheepish voice late once night, his hand gently cradling my cheekbone. “I have three or four cars in mind. I just need to put some time aside to go to the dealership and sit in them and drive them around some.”

“Okay,” I told him, our legs tangled in an impossible knot from endless cuddles and sweet kisses. “Will you take the girls with you?”

“If they want,” he shrugged, rolling onto his back and dragging me with him to sprawl across his chest. “I’m not going to command that they come.”

“Okay my love.”

TAGLISTS ARE OPEN/ ASK BOX IS OPEN/ REQUESTS ARE OPEN/ PLOT BUNNIES ARE WELCOMED

If you liked this, then please consider buying me a coffee HERE It only costs $3!!!

PETER STEELE TAGLIST

@rock-a-noodle

@ch3rry-c0la

@rockstarslutt

@angelxfuckk

[kissylec]

LOVE YOU GOODBYE ──── a rafe cameron smau.

a social media au by kissylec

if tomorrow you won't be mine, won't you give it to me one last time?... being a secret is hard, and even more when prince kook himself is the one hiding you. a bittersweet wheel of emotions comes to you when you decide to put an end to a situationship that is hurting you, not taking into account how difficult it would be to get away from the oldest of the cameron siblings.

pairing . . . rafe cameron x pogue!reader warning .ᐟ . . . inspired by love you goodbye by one direction, obx spoilers, half canon half not, curse words, angst, sexual innuendo, allusion to smut, forbidden love, rafe is kind of an ass, reader is friends with the pogues, english is not my first language so bear with me kissylec says . . . SO NERVOUS OMG, this is my first smau so i'm scareddd. i'm new to all of this so pls be patient with me 😿 again, english it's not my first language so 😆🙏 i will be posting some chapters later in the week, hope you guys like it 🫶💐

TAGLIST IS PERMANENTLY CLOSED.

masterlist .ᐟ 𝜗𝜚 navigation .ᐟ

chapter one. chapter two.

chapter three. chapter four.

chapter five. chapter six.

chapter seven. chapter eight.

chapter nine. chapter ten.

chapter eleven. chapter twelve.

chapter thirteen. chapter fourteen.

chapter fifteen. chapter sixteen.

chapter seventeen. chapter eighteen.

chapter nineteen. chapter twenty.

chapter twenty-one. chapter twenty-two.

chapter twenty-three. chapter twenty-four.

chapter twenty-five. chapter twenty-six.

chapter twenty-seven. chapter twenty-eight.

chapter twenty-nine. chapter thirty.

extras . . . one. two.

© KISSYLEC. 2025 — please do not plagiarize, repost, translate or claim any of my work as your own.

[ittybittyfanblog]

Error 404: (Self-Aware!AU, Sylus Edition)

Summary: A LADS self-aware!AU featuring Sylus (+ maybe the other MLs!) and an oblivious player. That’s it, that’s the plot. Tags: player!reader x sylus, fem!reader x sylus, reader x lads, maybe some suggestive language?? will add more tags as the story progresses A/N: This is gonna be a multi-chapter fic! I’m still not sure whether to do the boys in rotation, or just focus on one ML per series. Don’t take my word for it atp tho – I’m not even sure if I can actually finish a series lol.  Also, I’ve had the creative liberty of changing stuff from the actual gameplay here and there. (Except for the self-awareness. That’s most definitely real.) Hope you enjoy~!

Pt. 1 - Pt. 2 - Pt. 3 - Pt. 4 - Pt. 5 - Pt. 6 - Pt. 7 - Pt. 8 - Pt. 9 - Pt. 10

It’s a quarter past eight and you’re still on your desk working overtime on a Friday night. 

You let out a big sigh, leaning back on your office chair after an unhealthy duration of bad posture from hours of slouching down in front of your computer. There’s nothing ergonomic about the way this job is killing you, and the ache in your lower back can attest to that. 

An irate orange tabby plops himself in front of you, blocking your view of the glaring screen and you figure that it’s time for a break. 

“Me-oow.”

“I know, I know,” You answer tiredly, standing up to dodge a stray paw clawing your way and you hear cracks in three different places that are honestly unbecoming of a woman your age. You haven’t even reached thirty yet, for god’s sake. “I’m a bad mother. But mom also had to skip dinner to make it to the seven PM meeting, so cut me some slack, okay?” 

A high-pitched “meooowr!” is the only response you get; it seems like there’s no excusing late dinner time this time around. 

As much as you’d like to hem and haw and complain, the main reason why you’re still keeping this job is because you can work remotely. If it weren’t for the fact that you’re stuck most days at home working hours past your regular nine to five, having to be on-call around the clock at all times, and that you’ve consumed more sodium than a nitrite victim with the way you live off cup ramen, then, really, it beats working in an office where you’d physically have to clock in and out from exactly nine to five. 

Your right eye twitches. No, I have not fallen in love with the system that exploits me, thank you very much. 

“Here is your Fancy Feast, your highness,” you tell the hungry feline who’s already ignoring the hand that feeds for the bowl full of white fish paté. He eats healthier than you, sure, but you work like this for him to eat like this. The life of a single mom is an uphill battle, but extremely rewarding. 

You raise your hand to pat your son’s head lovingly, aborting the gesture halfway when you hear a warning growl. Alright, tough crowd. 

After nuking a half-eaten takeout box in the microwave and grabbing a cold Bundaberg from the fridge, you hunker down on the “chaise lounge” (see: an old wingback and a rattan ottoman you’ve refurbished as a makeshift seat a few weeks back when you had guests over) for a late meal. 

You barely register the taste of lukewarm rice on your tongue, mouth moving mechanically while your mind runs on autopilot about everything and nothing at the same time. 

Maybe it’s time to check Jobstreet again

Is there like a laundromat near the area that’s open twenty four seven

Eugh, I hate cold peas

What do we feel about Chromakopia? 

I will… die alone

I really need to stock on some fresh produce this weekend—

Ping! 

A notification from your phone pulls you out of your thoughts—and like a well-trained dog pavlov’d into responding, you visibly perk up at the sight of your lock screen lighting up and the familiar banner you’ve already memorized by heart. 

Your Galaxy Explorer rewards are here. Did you put my hotel’s address as the shipping address? 

Ah, just like clockwork. 

You press on it with a quiet, bubbling anticipation, chewing on the plastic spork as you wait impatiently for the silly mobile game that’s been your short respite at intervals—for more than you’d care to admit—to boot up. 

Offhandedly, you wish that the devs would add more variations to the game’s push notifications; more random, personalized stuff like maybe a reminder to drink water, or a fun update about their day. What you’d give–pay–for a: "Less on the overtime, kitten. I miss you,” dialogue from a certain character, but you digress. 

Oh, well. Probably better this way, lest you dig yourself deeper into delusion. 

The game greets you with the usual picturesque view of a silver-haired man sitting cross-legged on a chair, looking all the bit at ease in his signature crimson and white button up. The warm ambience of the Destiny Café at night draws you in, already pulling your attention away from the never-ending stream of thoughts in your brain. 

“Before seeing you, I thought today would be another dull day,“ Sylus comments airily. The way he drawls out the words in that deep timbre of his voice never fails to make your heart flutter – just a teeeensy bit.

“Ever the charmer,” you sigh happily in return, situating yourself more comfortably on the sofa, almost horizontal from how far you’re leaning back on the cushion. “You’re looking awfully normal tonight. What, no pineapple glasses for your favorite girl?” 

Having bypassed the initial cringe of talking to yourself after literal months of gameplay, it almost comes off natural, the banter. You’ve already accepted the fact that you’re crazy about a fictional, pixelated man—what’s pretending to have actual conversations with him gonna do? It’s not as if he actually hears you yap your nonsense; there are worse things in the world than a parasocial attachment to an otome game character. 

Your little jab at the sometimes random addition to his choice of attire earns you a laugh from the man itself—or at least it looks as though it does, making you blink momentarily in surprise. Happy coincidence, I guess.

You shake your head, cracking a smile, then proceed to do the routine of completing the daily agenda and then some. 

It’s tedious business, sure. You’ve dedicated hours upon hours on this game and you’re honestly starting to feel pretty bored with some of the gameplay elements, but you *do* like the ritualistic nature of ticking off the tasks one by one. It’s almost ironic— the way you dutifully do one thing after the other in this game, just to avoid the pile of work that’s waiting for you in real life. 

It’s not as if anything, or anyone’s relying on you to do your daily log-ins, so you suppose it’s due to that lack of pressure as well. 

Pulling yourself away from the five-star Xavier memory card you’ve grinded to level seventy, you stare despondently at the sad little 2 on your remaining energy. The embarrassing amount of materials you lack to ascend the card seem to mock you, even as you exit the Memories window. Another goal for another day, perhaps.

All tasks on the daily agenda are complete, except for one that you’ve always saved for last.

You’re met with a standing Sylus on the game’s home screen, arms crossed and wearing an expression you’d almost describe as impatient, if you didn’t know any better. The sight makes you grin. 

Cheekily, you poke his crotch.

You’re looking forward to getting a playful remark, or if you’re lucky, a blush along with an embarrassed retort about your shamelessness. 

 What you get, however, is a resounding scoff. Your eyes snap back to his face – from, ahem, your prolonged staring at the area below his waist – and you do see the familiar tinge of pink on his cheeks, but what he says in response catches you off-guard.

“You spend that much resource for a card that isn’t mine?” Sylus tsks, both his voice and expression coming across as… affronted? “Kitten, I’m actually hurt.” 

Huh?

You haven’t heard that line from him before. Was there a recent update you weren’t aware of? The man in question then appears to look amused, from the way you’ve been rendered speechless by the unexpected dialogue. 

All at once, you gasp when you realize what the new response means. 

“That’s so smart,” you say giddily. You see Sylus cock his head to the side, synchronously quirking an eyebrow—expectant. “They actually added a feature that lets them know which memory I’ve upgraded last, and make you react to it. Oh, that’s so cool!” 

If you weren’t too busy being excited over what you think is a new update from the game,  you’d see the chagrined look on Sylus’ face. But when you glance back at him, all trace of the emotion is gone before you could notice anything different. 

“Don’t worry, Crow Man. You’re still my favorite,” you assure him, making his mouth tick upwards in a semblance of a smile. He looks pleased all of the sudden, his demeanor shifting into something more relaxed.

Then a pout forms on your face. You crinkle your nose in frustration as you complain, “It’s just really hard to level your cards up at this point. It takes ages and a shit ton of energy just to level you up past seventy five.” Sighing, you add, kind of bitterly, “And I’m too broke to be spending money on growth packs.” 

Checking the time on your phone, you see that you’ve already spent more than an hour on your self-imposed break time and you know that you ought to get back to work soon. With a groan, you pull yourself to sit upright, savoring the last few minutes of free time before you slave off for the rest of the night. 

You’re about to clean up what’s left of dinner when you notice the oddly thoughtful look on Sylus’ face. 

There’s a deep furrow in his brows as he brings a hand up to cover his mouth. He closes his eyes shut for a few seconds. He's never done that gesture before... Ugh, he looks really hot–

Suddenly, you see a flicker—then a weird, sort of graphic distortion happening in the background. Uh, what??

A beat; then a glitch on the screen. “Ah, shit.” 

The game crashes.

You exhale loudly as the game’s interface goes back to the loading screen, tapping your thumb impatiently as the bar slowly loads to 15%... 50%..... 81%....... 

“Maybe make sure to patch up first before releasing an update next time, jeez—huh?” 

For a quick second, nothing seems to be amiss. But then the first thing you see on the home screen is Sylus’ figure standing before you, wearing an expression one could only describe as a cat that ate the proverbial canary. 

He speaks— and it’s another intro you haven’t heard him say, ever. 

“You should’ve told me sooner, sweetie,” he almost coos the words out, making your eyes bug out in shock. 

“Now, why don’t you go check your–” he pauses, and his mouth moves as if he’s rolling the word out, testing it. “Inventory?” 

Sylus slides his gaze towards the upper left corner of the screen, a coy smirk still ever-present on his face. 

There, you see something you haven’t noticed earlier: two notification badges. One on your mailbox, and another on the Hunter’s Info tab. Bewildered, you press on the mail icon first, despite the insistence for you to start with the latter. 

You see a new message: [For You]

A small gift, to bridge our worlds closer. – S 

Nothing is attached to it. You read it twice, perplexed.  

“You’re quite the contradictorian, aren’t you?” Sylus tuts as soon as you return back to the home screen, his gaze boring into you even when he tilts his head sideways in mock exasperation. “Mmm, I suppose it doesn’t matter. Take all the time you need, sweetheart.” 

Helplessly, you open your inventory next. 

Your jaw drops. 

“What. The fuck,” You whisper to yourself, voice wavering in disbelief at what you’re seeing, and the sheer amount of what you’re seeing. “This—this can’t be real.” 

You see that all the materials you own, from the bottle of wishes to the ascension crystal boxes, have been multiplied a hundred times over.

And on top of that–

Ninety nine thousand red dias????

You cannot believe how this—this recent… update (or is it a bug? Infold sure isn’t this generous) didn't make the news. Even as someone as uninvolved as you are with the community and the game’s latest releases, something like this for sure would’ve made headlines on Twitter (X), at least. But you haven’t heard anything. Nada. 

Holy shit. 

You feel a little light-headed, both from incredulity and excitement. Needing a moment to calm yourself down, you exit the Inventory tab in a daze.

You stare at Sylus. He stares back at you with what looks to be mirth in his eyes. 

Skeptically, you mutter, “did–did I get hacked or something?” 

Anticipating another unexpected dialogue to prompt up, you wait for a full minute without saying anything else. And for a moment, the man in front of you looks indecisive, contemplative. 

There’s something very odd, very… human in the way he’s looking at you. He looks as if– as if he’s—

His face falls back into a neutral expression. Not unlike how his idle animation usually looks. 

..

…

….. It doesn’t seem like he’s going to initiate a conversation any time soon, so you hesitantly poke him on the nose. 

“Even in the worst-case scenario, there’s no need to panic.”

You’ve heard that one before.

So he’s back to normal now. You temper the small disappointment that blooms in your gut. 

Shaking your head slowly, you try to make sense of all the stuff that just happened, but a sharp bite on your ankle pulls you out of your reverie. 

“Ow–!” The sight of your cat flopping near your feet reminds you of the time. More importantly, the backlogs waiting for you at your desk. 

“Wait, shit– I gotta get back to work.” This… unbelievable stroke of good luck (?) is gonna have to take a backseat for now.

You grab the carton box and the half-empty bottle of sparkling peach as you stand up. Making quick work of throwing the container in the trash and gulping down the rest of your drink, you rush into your room and back in front of your PC. 

Cracking your knuckles, you gingerly set your phone against the monitor. Setting the timer to one hour in Quality Time, knowing fully-well that you’re going to have to keep extending it until the wee hours of the morning—or until your battery dies, whichever comes first—you give Sylus one last look, letting out a long exhale before locking in.

“Just keep me company for the night, alright? I’ll figure out what’s going on once my shift’s over.” 

-

It could just be your overactive imagination, but you swear you hear a quiet chuckle from the man polishing his gun in your peripheral.

[juyeoz]

˙ㅤ۪ 𓂋 FOR THE PLOT! — AN 02z SMAU

∿ THE PLOT IN QUESTION 📁 A crush from kindergarten, a classmate from second to fifth grade who you refused to admit you liked (even with a blushing face), and a childhood friend you never saw in any other way surrounded your school life. What if, the three boys you had forgotten about return to your life, and you can’t help but fall for all of them? Also, what if your feelings for these boys all existed at the same time?

∿ 📢 CASTING ≋ childhood-crush!jay, childhood-crush!jake, childhood-friend!sunghoon x fem!reader (ft. 02z + niki from enhypen, chaewon and yunjin from le sserafim, karina from aespa, juyeon and sunwoo from tbz, sohee from riize, nayeon from twice, rei from ive, seoyeon from fromis_9, belle from kiof, zhanghao from zb1, taehyun from txt, taeyoung from cravity, jaemin from nct dream, mingi from ateez, choi yena, and includes mention of other idols too)

∿ GENRES 🔗 › smau + written, childhood crushes/friends to lovers, highschool au, nonidol au, reverse but not so reverse harem, fluff, angst, and crack.

∿ CONTAINS 🔍 profanity, 02z aren’t the same age, random timestamps, kys/kms jokes, joking threats, no official faceclaim but images may be used, y/n goes on dates w all three boys (diff days), and y/n is lwk leading them on but they don’t get heartbroken (??).

∿ SCHEDULE 📰 ongoing (updates are everyday)

TAGLIST IS CLOSED!

PROFILES › ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR

CHAPTER ONE — let you break my heart again

CHAPTER TWO — WHAT THE FUCK IS TRIPLE BALL

CHAPTER THREE — chronicles of narnia 2 (0.6k words)

CHAPTER FOUR — jake?????? like nerdy boy jake?????

CHAPTER FIVE — #ResortToDominican

CHAPTER SIX — clock it

CHAPTER SEVEN — so basically diva down

CHAPTER EIGHT — cute 😊

CHAPTER NINE — need him miss him want him 💔💔

CHAPTER TEN — calm luh facial structure (0.4k words)

CHAPTER ELEVEN — MONTHLY REUNION (0.4k words)

CHAPTER TWELVE — for the 𝖕𝖑𝖚𝖍

CHAPTER THIRTEEN — a date?

CHAPTER FOURTEEN — “nah id win” ahh reply 😭🙏

CHAPTER FIFTEEN — panda enthusiast

CHAPTER SIXTEEN — keep laughing.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN — blue icing cupcakes (0.6k words)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN — keep yourself on ur toenails

CHAPTER NINETEEN — SIKEEE YOU THOUGHT 😂😂���

CHAPTER TWENTY — because i know i did

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE — cute ay eff!

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO — even as a joke

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE — my fave soccer play

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR — #ourbad

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE — white roses (1.2k words)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX — i’m sorry (1.0k words)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN — start running hoon!!!!!

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT — FUCK YOU MR LEE

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE — death of him (1.2k words)

CHAPTER THIRTY — don’t hit him up 😆

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE — loving you from a distance

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO — mabagal (1.3k words)

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE — U DOWNBAD FREAK

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR — Join me.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE — UNSTOPPABLE FR 😂😂😂

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX — single and NOT able to mingle

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN — in love or mentally ill

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT — gave a fuck

CHAPTER THIRY-NINE — i’m going to reply to

ENDINGS (FORTY) — SUNGHOON JAKE JAY

COMPLETED!

© JUYEOZ

[yutarot]

in perfect sync. j.jh smau

♫⋆♪ ₊˚. humour, friends to enemies to lovers, secret relationship, forced proximity, college au, dancer au, hiphopdancer!jaehyun, fboy!jaehyun, balletdancer!yn

synopsis. your dance college wasn’t the easiest to get in to, let alone was it easy to stay. so what happens when your college decides they need to cut two of the dance teams from competing ever again, the ballet team and the hiphop team. will both teams get along in order to solve their connected issue, or will they fight to get their own team back to competing again? only you and hiphop dance team captain, jeong jaehyun, can decide your teams fates. but there’s one problem, you hate eachother.

WARNINGS: mention of drugs/alcohol, language, jokes about sex, mention of injury, some usage of ballet terminology, lots of extensive lore?, angst, lots of angst, slowburn as fuck obviously, major character betrayal, lots of lying, i mean LOTS of lying, jaehyun is an asshole for like 50% of this, the plot gets v messy and confusing but i live for that so

DISCLAIMER: all portrayals of people are fake and from my imagination, in no way am i claiming that they act like this irl.

written wc: 8.8k

STATUS: complete! — 09.03.24 - 10.02.24

TAGLIST - OPEN!

MASTERLIST

[profiles one] || [profiles two]

[one — jungwoos scared of girls]

[two — that can’t be good]

[three — well that sucks]

[four — he’s stalking you]

[five — we were just friends]

[six — the man he was] half written

[seven — i need to talk to you]

[eight — i’ve waited so long]

[nine — roses]

[ten — im over you]

[eleven — ur over me?]

[twelve — betrayal] written chapter

[thirteen — dimples]

[fourteen — conflict] written chapter

[fifteen — i never knew]

[sixteen — you’re welcome, btw]

[seventeen — she deserves to know]

[eighteen — it was me.] written chapter

[nineteen — hey guys…]

[twenty — collab of the century]

[twenty-one — i’m happy he’s over u]

[twenty-two — i did it for you] written chapter

[twenty-three — no one knows except..]

[twenty-four — that same old dimpled smile] written chapter

[twenty-five — everything about you]

[twenty-six — however hard it may be.] half written

[twenty-six and a half — it’s finally happening]

[twenty-seven — they can wait]

[twenty-eight — ive nothing to fear] written chapter

[twenty-nine — they don’t know we know they know we know]

[thirty — in perfect sync.] written chapter

end.

replies, likes and reblogs are all greatly appreciated! feel free to send thoughts and requests in my asks: characters, scenes, chapters etc.

[thenerdsofcolor]

NOC Exclusive Clip: Archie Questions What He Wants in the Last 'Riverdale' Musical Episode

NOC Exclusive Clip: Archie Questions What He Wants in the Last 'Riverdale' Musical Episode @CW_Riverdale #Riverdale @TheCW @warnerbrostv #ArchietheMusical #NowLeavingRiverdale @ArchieComics

It’s almost time for the final Riverdale musical episode and this one is centered on the one and only Archie Andrews. “Chapter One Hundred Thirty-One: Archie the Musical” airs this Wednesday at 9 PM and The Nerds of Color has an exclusive sneak peek featuring KJ Apa, Casey Cott, Karl Walcott, and Nicholas Barasch. Continue reading Untitled

[bread-crum206]

A Game of Hearts

Series master list:

Summary: Y/N’s father is a VIP for the games, he makes a deal with the Frontman that if he marries his only daughter that he will continue to sponsor the games. However, Y/N is not fond of this decision as she loathes the games and in turn, loathes the Frontman as well. Will she grow to love him? Will he let his walls down?

Chapter one: Ultimatum

Chapter two: Separate Worlds

Chapter three: A Stormy Prison

Chapter four: Beneath the Surface

Chapter five: A Dance of Silence

Chapter six: In the Quiet of the Storm

Chapter seven: Closer Than Before

Chapter eight: Cracks in the Armor

Chapter nine: Under Pressure

Chapter ten: Unmasked Tension

Chapter eleven: The Hunt Begins

Chapter twelve: Under Watchful Eyes

Chapter thirteen: Behind Closed Doors

Chapter fourteen: Eyes on the Game

Chapter fifteen: The Game, the Silence, and the Weight of the World

Chapter sixteen: A Moment of Vulnerability

Chapter seventeen: The Panthers Eyes

Chapter eighteen: The Panthers Threat

Chapter nineteen: A Dangerous Encounter

Chapter twenty: Walls and Tension

Chapter twenty-one: The Distance Between Us

Chapter twenty-two: Power not Pity

Chapter twenty-three: Beneath the Mask

Chapter twenty-four: Fractured Walls

Chapter twenty-five: The Invitation

Chapter twenty-six: Fight

Chapter twenty-seven: Disappear Without a Trace

Chapter twenty-eight: The Weight of Silence

Chapter twenty-nine: Unspoken Promises

Chapter thirty: Fractured Lines

Chapter thirty-one: Behind the Walls

Chapter thirty-two: A Line in the Sand

Chapter thirty-three: What He Left Behind

Chapter thirty-four: Lines Crossed

Chapter thirty-five: Fractures In The Mask

Chapter thirty-six: Unfinished Conversations

Chapter thirty-seven: Something to Hold on to

Chapter thirty-eight: Closer Together

Chapter thirty-nine: A step forward

- More to come! :))

———————

I’m making this a large series!!

Thank you!

[nereidprinc3ss]

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

[renee-writer]

Out of Time Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-seven

AO3

The journey is hard, with Claire near term, Charlie dealing with early pregnancy, and all the babies and children. Hard but joyful. For the first time in over a year, there is no fear.

 

Oh, they still keep guard but, the deep terror that accompanied moving before, is gone.

 

“How many more days?” Claire asks one evening.

 

“Two, if we keep moving at this pace. Why?”

 

“I am not sure we are going to make it.” Her hands are on her baby bump. They had discussed waiting until their child was born. But, with the majority suffering from cabin fever and the children going stir crazy, moving immediately seems preferable.

 

“Are you having pains?” He kneels down beside her, his hands going to either side of her bump. The wind picks up around them as they sit in the makeshift tent.

 

“I just feel it will be soon. A mama knows.” She smiles over at their sleeping daughter. A miracle, as Jamie thinks whenever he sees her. She looks like him and his family now, where before she looked like her mama, God’s mercy to spear them all memories of her father. Incredible.

 

“Aye, they do.” He carefully exams her outside before laying her carefully down and doing an internal exam. What he finds, shocks him. “Claire, you are in full labor now.”

 

In fact, she is almost fully dilated. “But I have just felt some pressure.” She argues.

 

“You are going to feel more as you are at nine almost ten.” He calmly says. Inside, he is a mess of nerves. There is a reason doctors are told not to treat their own loved ones. He has no choice.

 

“Oh Lord!” her breath starts coming faster.

 

“Breath baby. Just think, at least you aren’t withering in pain.”

 

She barks out a laugh. He has a point. “Alright, let’s do this.” Her elbows dig deep in the ground, as her body gets in position. Behind her, their first born sleeps in a pile of blankets, completely unaware her life is about to change.

 

Jamie sterilizes his hands and lays a blanket under her and one to the side. His surgical scissors are also close by. He is as ready as he can be.

 

A deep breath as she starts to push, the pressure growing to an unbearable point. She has to push.

 

He places some oil on her bulging perineum, easing their baby out. He swipes the baby’s mouth out and tells his wife to pant. One final push after and he holds their son. The lad looks as startled as his papa. From her question to his birth was only a half hour.

 

“Jamie, what?” She asks.

 

“We have a son. He is a bawl lad.”  He lifts him up to his mama. This one looks like his original sister, all Claire.

 

“Oh my baby! Look at you!”  She is laughing through her tears. “How amazing and thoughtful you are son.”

 

“Aye, but a bit of warning would have been nice.” Jamie says as he delivers the placenta into the blanket and gives it a good look over.

 

“True.” She stares into his eyes as his first home gives the last it can give. Daddy cuts the cord. “So, what do you say Jamie? What shall we name him?”

 

“Mackenzie Alexander.” He announces. She nods.

 

“Perfect. Simply perfect!” She brings wee Mac to her breasts.

[reignpage]

Physics Tutor!Nanami

Law of Love: following the stars across the universe to you

Content: final chapter of the pre-relationship arc, fluff and smut, 18+ mdni, not proofread Word Count: 6.1k Guide

Nanami Kento is a man of science. 

Always has been, likely always will be. 

Everything is measured, from his coffee (exactly one and a half tablespoon of coffee grinds and three hundred millilitres of hot water, no sugar, straight off the boil), to the temperature of his shower (thirty-eight degrees) and even to the number of steps it takes to get from his shared apartment to his Monday morning lecture hall (one thousand, six hundred, and seventy eight usually). 

So, it would be no surprise to anyone that he’s counting down the seconds till the clock strikes five on a Saturday afternoon, phone in one hand in case you get lost, or universe forbid, bailed, and coffee in the other.

He should have done this a long time ago, should have invited you here, or invited himself over to your place, anything to get you alone. No, not in a creepy way. He just wants to talk, to get everything out in the open, to fix things. 

After an embarrassing night of drinking more alcohol than he really should have, he resolved to send you a message imploring you to come to the Eden Observatory. Nanami isn’t exactly sure why he chose this place of all places — a girl like you should be taken somewhere fancy, like a five star restaurant, dazzled on an ice rink, or led through a mall and told to choose anything and everything you want. 

Palms sweaty, he wipes them on his slacks. That’s another thing. He hasn’t opted to wear something cooler. Dressed in a plain, clunky sweater and overly formal trousers, he groans inwardly and regrets not having taken Haibara up on his offer to wear some of his hoodies and jeans. 

He can still picture his roommate’s lopsided grin and the enthusiastic thumbs up he gave which only made Nanami furrow his brows, feeling oddly like a child being dropped off at their first day of school. 

With the sun setting, he stands in front of the doors, fiddling with the keys, and waits rather impatiently. He’s booked it for the evening so there won’t be distractions. It’ll just be you and him and all the things left unsaid. 

A smile flutters on his lips. 

You came. 

You emerged from your car, a hot pink mini, and are walking up to him with a sway in your hips that is distracting him from the frown on your glossy lips. Dressed in a denim mini skirt and a thin sweater sloping off one shoulder, he wonders if you’re cold. It might not be full blown winter yet but it’s the kind of weather people usually sigh at. 

“That coffee better be for me because I desperately need it.”

“Is that so?” He hands you the coffee, a caramel frappe so sickeningly sweet he feels a toothache coming from just looking at it. You take it from him with manicured hands and pat his chest in a thank you, eyeing your surroundings. 

Rambling, you inform him, “I woke up at seven today. Seven, Kento! Like, actually seven. Why, you ask? Well, because I wanted to make sure I didn’t oversleep. Which is stupid because our meeting’s at five pm so I’m not really sure where I got the idea that I could somehow sleep through it from. And, like, I didn’t even sleep at all last night.”

“Oh, dear. That’s terrible.” Truthfully, Kento could tell you’re frazzled this afternoon; there are bags under your eyes and there’s a slight quiver in your hands. He’s clearly not the only one nervous. Strangely, that does nothing to soothe that ache in his chest. 

“And like, I really shouldn’t be here, y’know? It’s not smart, even my sister said so. But here I am anyways. Because apparently, I can’t get enough of sexy, blond nerds.”

Kento smiles, feeling content to stand outside, alone with you forever. The sun is peeking through the clouds, shining a warm beam on your face. You’re glowing. 

It’s the kind of scene a scientist gains nothing from seeing; it only highlights the daunting reality that there are mysteries in the world that will never be solved in one’s lifetime and can only be theorised, like a black hole. It’s all consuming, a rare and magnificent sight to behold, but one mustn’t dare get too close for once they cross it, they might never return. 

But your pull is so strong he just can’t help himself. 

“You were totally a pain in the ass last night, y’know?” You mutter, casually checking the chips in your nail polish. You’re just saying whatever comes to mind now. 

He grimaces. He remembers everything and gosh did he wish he didn’t. “I’m sorry for having been a bother.”

“It’s alright. God knows I’ve bothered you more often and far worse.”

Nanami wants to argue. He wants to say you’ve never bothered him, never once irritated him, but there’s nothing he could say to erase all those words he had spoken and wished he could erase. So, instead, he pulls open the door and offers his hand to lead you in. 

Immediately he regrets that. Why would you need his hand to cross through a doorway? Did he not get the memo that you’re living in the twenty-first century? 

Despite the twitch of his fingers, you give him a knowing smile before you grant him some mercy. Your hand is soft. So very soft. It feels light in his, and he worries that if he holds you too tight, he’ll break you like a beaker. Faint memories from last night come back to him, reminding him this isn’t the first time he’s held your hand. And he hopes it won’t be the last. 

“What are we doing here anyways? When you asked me to give you the opportunity to talk, I thought you meant in a cafe, or in your place. In fact, I was kind of hoping it’ll be in your place.”

He leads you through the grand foyer, the shiny marble floors perfectly polished despite the day guests. “I was hoping this would be somewhat like a date.”

“A date?” You screech. “Nanami, you didn’t tell me this was a date!”

“What difference does it make?” It sounds rhetorical, but you know better. He’s pleading, genuinely asking if making his intentions clear from the beginning would have made this outcome different, if you wouldn’t have come, and he would have been left wondering ‘what if’ for the rest of his life. 

Instinctively pulling your hand, you stumble into his chest when he doesn’t budge, doesn’t let go. Face burying between his pecs, you’re practically smothered in his hard body and his clean, musky scent. It’s so easy to forget that Nanami Kento, being a nerd and all, is actually an elite member of the List for a reason.

Your classmate isn’t like all the boys you’re surrounded by in frat parties. He isn’t a boy at all. The strength he carries in every limb and muscle reminds you of all the things he could do to you, of all the things you want him to do to you. 

He doesn’t push you away and you don’t make an effort to leave. Instead, he takes your frappe from your hand, worried that it’s dangerously close to tipping over onto your clothes. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t say it was a date. I didn’t mean to trick you. And well, it doesn’t have to be one if you don’t want it to be. But I’d like for it to be a date. Our first date.”

“But why would you want to date me? Haven’t I been horrible?”

Nanami feels something break inside. He likens it to the feeling one gets when they receive an anomalous result which throws off their entire research. Sighing, he attempts to nudge you so he can see your face but you only bury yourself in his chest further. He waddles you both over inside the double doors on the right with some difficulty, bringing the straw of your drink to your lips when you lift your head. 

“You haven’t been horrible. Not at all. In fact, I fear I’ve been horrible.”

“No! You’ve been great. Brilliant, even. You could never be horrible.”

He shakes his head. “I snapped at you that night. I jumped to conclusion and acted irrationally and emotionally. I’m sorry.”

“No, no, no. I was wrong for lying to you and luring you to the party. I was wrong for teasing you this entire time. It’s so mean and so stupid and I hate myself for it. But I just really liked you. You have the best reactions and I wanted to see them all. And it’s all just so stupid. Ugh, I’m sorry.”

A blush is rising up his cheeks. It’s clear neither of you are going to relent. Maybe you’re both to blame for the unnecessary back and forth, for this farce that eluded you in some cruel twist of fate. Maybe it’s neither of you. Maybe none of it matters. Not anymore. Not when you’re here, not when you came and you’re looking up at him like he’s…something. 

That trusting, longing expression on your face threatens to sweep his legs out from under him. He feels like he’s suspended in air, free diving with the ground nowhere in sight, and judging by the way his fingers twitch, seeking to touch your softness, he suspects he’s been falling for eternity.

“Don’t apologise,” he finds the courage to breathe out, “Not anymore. Let’s just enjoy what I’ve got planned.”

You beam, eyes darting to what’s behind him, the conversation already forgotten. Marvelling at the hall you didn’t even realise you entered, you pull away from him and spin around, trying to catch sight of everything. 

He’s led you to the planetarium. Having spent many hours doing demonstrations and lectures here to tourists, students on school trips, and for birthday parties, it was the only place he could think of that might impress you. And though he was worried you’d find this lacking compared to your other potential experiences, those fears vanish the moment your eyes fall on his again and a huge smile is pulling at your lips. 

“Ken! This place is beautiful.”

Nanami gulps. 

You just called him by his first name. No, by a nickname. Like before. Like how you used to. And he feels his knees wobble a little. Not even his family calls him by a nickname, and admittedly, he’s never been fond of people taking creative initiative on his name but he likes it when it comes from your lips. He’d consider changing his name to ‘Ken’ permanently if it means you’ll call him that forever. 

"Can you believe I've never been here before? That's actually like so crazy."

Space is projected above both of your heads, countless stars twinkling in the abyss, forming constellations and glittering around planets and galaxies. Ever so slowly, the picture moves, disappearing to the right and allowing more of the universe to be observed. 

He’s so thankful he pleaded his case to his manager, the elderly man who owns the place, arguing that it’s for a special cause, to cheer up a friend, that it would be informative for their tutoring session. Mr. Tanaka insisted that it’d be too costly to shut down the observatory for even just an evening and for something so trivial.

However, when Nanami had said, ‘she’d really appreciate it’, Mr. Tanaka’s entire demeanour had shifted from grouchy old man, to giggling gossip. 

“Oh, well why didn’t you say it was for your lady, Kento? Of course, you can lock up and bring her over. Show her around, really make her day. I’ll let you in on a little secret, old boy. That’s exactly how I wooed my wife. Oh, she was so overjoyed she could barely stop gasping. How glad am I that a kid as serious as you actually has an appetite!” Mr. Tanaka laughed heartily, and laughed even harder when Kento blushed.

Having thanked him profusely, Kento was just about to leave before Mr. Tanaka added, a wistful tone in his gravelly voice as he caressed a picture on his desk, “You have fun, alright, Kento? You enjoy every second of it. Don’t get lost in what the universe has to offer you when everything you could ever want is within arm’s reach already.”

Feeling somewhat unnerved by the sudden seriousness in the old man’s face, he could do nothing but listen, absorbing every drop of wisdom as if he’s being shown the key to the beyond of the conceivable universe. 

And then, Mr. Tanaka smiled so brightly, the student almost missed the agony pulling his lips down. 

“Because that’s the beauty of the stars, Kento. They twinkle for love.”

Seeing those very stars reflected in your huge, wondrous eyes and the way his heart stutters, Kento feels inclined to listen to the rambling, grumpy senior more often.

Sitting down onto the centre velvet seats, the coffee stands in the cupholder on the armchair separating the both of you. The seat’s are plenty spacious and they even recline. You both make yourself comfortable, looking up at the dancing stars. 

“Oh, look! That’s Orion. I like him best because he’s fashionable,” you announce,  pointing at the ceiling. 

“Fashionable?”

Explaining like it’s obvious, you fix him a stare., “Because he has a belt, Ken.”

And who is he to argue with you?

Nanami had learnt that, though you’d much prefer to gain your information from him than anywhere else, there are some things he simply cannot change your mind on. One such example would be the great pancake versus waffle debate that had taken up almost forty-five minutes of one of your tutoring sessions. 

You sincerely, with every ounce of your being, believed that waffles are better than pancakes. You insisted, pleaded, urged him to see your cause, but he wasn’t having any of it. 

“That has no relevance to thermodynamics, y/n,” he had said with a deadpan tone. “And in any case, they are made of the same thing so I don’t understand what difference texture makes.”

“Can’t we just take a break from all the physics talk? I wanna chat and gossip.”

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This is hardly the appropriate setting.”

“So,” you elongated, “take me on a date and we can argue about it.”

Nanami didn’t understand why one would spend a date arguing something as trivial as waffles versus pancakes when they were both the same damn thing but he couldn’t bear to encourage you. Instead, he clasped his hand and gave you a look he hoped would convey his thoughts. 

You only grinned at him toothily.

He gulped, then cleared his throat as he took his glasses off to wipe some invisible dirt. Opening the textbook at the correct page and slamming one thick half of it onto the table with more force that he had intended, he could only mutter, “I like waffles better too.”

“Aha!” You celebrated like a beautiful madwoman. 

Watching you clap and boo at planets and galaxies with seemingly no rhyme or reason, his opinion of you doesn’t change. You are just as crazy as ever. Whether that was yesterday, a month ago, or two years before. You still shine brighter than any celestial body. And maybe you’ll continue to do so in the years that follow. He hopes he gets to see for himself. 

Time passes as you two take turns highlighting asterisms and comets, discussing their history, their discovery and the next time they’ll pass again. Though he’s clearly the more knowledgeable of you two, you could give him a run for his money. 

“Cassiopeia, easily distinguishable because of her signature ‘W’ shape, was a vain queen from Greek mythology, punished by the gods for her arrogance. Her stars sparkle as though still boasting her beauty,” Nanami rattles off, almost on autopilot, just like he had been trained. 

“But because of the Earth’s rotation, her ‘W’ sometimes flips into an ‘M’, right? It’s almost as if the stars themselves are correcting her vanity.”

“That’s right.”

You’re more talkative than last night and he hypothesises it must be because you’re quiet when you drink. He was so nervous and out of place at the party he hadn’t even noticed just how much he resents not hearing your voice. Until now when he feels at bliss hearing your smooth cadence lull him to comfort.

Nanami prides himself in being a man of restraint. For many years, despite the girls who have twirled their hairs or pressed their arms next to his, his resolve to focus solely on academia had never wavered. Not once. His eyes never wandered up the legs of a woman or down their low tops, and he had never fantasised about much more than a cordial, research-based relationship with anyone. 

However, in this very moment, encased in the darkness of the planetarium, his eyes are sliding over to your crossed legs, bare and smooth, the fats of your thighs pressing against each other. Occasionally, they also venture upwards where your breasts are squished together on top of your crossed arms, and up that slender neck, settling on your glossy lips.

He gulps.

Shuffling in his seat, he’s trying to ignore the sudden tightening in his trousers. But it’s so very difficult. Especially when your perfume invades his senses and your plump lips wrap around the straw of your drink and you make a slurping sound that sends shivers down his spine. 

“W-whenever you’re ready, we can head to dinner,” he offers, attempting to distract himself with the next stage of his plans. “There’s a great place ran by a family friend who’ll make whatever you want, on and off menu. He’s truly a terrific chef and an even better man. 

“Dinner sounds great and all. But Kento,” you begin with a hum, sparkling gaze shifting to him, “is there a reason you’re gripping the armrest like it owes you money?”

You’re teasing him again, he can tell. He’s grown painfully familiar with that saccharine tone your voice takes when you’ve got him in the palm of your hand. 

The atmosphere has changed. The light and joyful air has evaporated and neither of you are laughing over how wrong those Ancient Greek philosophers were anymore. Instead you’re adding fuel to a fire he’s been trying to douse, lest he burns you with his impure thoughts. 

Clearing his throat, he attempts to deny your accusations. “I’m not.”

“Oh, so now you’re lying to me with the stars as our witness, Ken? And what’s next? You’ll lie to me when I ask why you seem to have a situation right…over….here?”

Nanami is powerless against the gravity of your long nails scraping along his tensing thighs. It’s merciless and climbing higher and higher until he feels a rumble in his chest, and he finds himself gripping your wrist with his shaky hand and he’s hauling you over. 

In a sudden turn of events, you find yourself straddling him, hands clutching his broad shoulders for purchase, whilst his own grab your waist. Nanami has no idea what came over him. Perhaps it was that animalistic urge that humans have yet to evolve past taking control for a second. Just as likely, it was the long buried desire to put you in your place. 

“You tease too much,” he whispers, taking your hands, fingers skimming underneath the sleeves of your sweater to tickle the inside of your wrist, and lifting them to the metal frame of his glasses. 

You pull it off and as you watch it dangle in your fingers, the glass reflecting the universe, he surprises you with his lips engulfing yours.

He kisses you, at first, like you’re fragile, like this moment is precarious and one wrong move could set it all off. But once the taste of you settles on his tongue, his resolve snaps altogether and he’s deepening it like he’s dreamed of doing for far longer than he’d care to admit.

Gasping, you allow him inside your mouth, tongues clashing and winding together. It’s a little messy, a little clumsy, but it’s making you hot all over. It’s the way he’s moving with no method, no rhythm, and instead, allowing himself to be guided purely by a desire to taste, to explore, and to consume you. 

“Ken,” you moan into his mouth. 

Nanami groans, digging his fingers into your waist, a pinkie tucking itself under the hem of your sweater, amazed by the softness he finds there. “You taste so sweet.”

You part from him to peck at his jaw, the stubble there eliciting a low whimper from you. With a giggle, you say, “That’s probably the coffee you got me.”

“Whatever it is, it’s delicious and I want more of it,” he growls. It’s a kind of noise he had never made before, didn’t even realise he was capable of making. A hand crawls up your back, embedding itself in your hair before it pulls your head back to crash against his lips again. 

Your hips are grinding together and the hardness there is meeting your moistening panties perfectly. You hope you don’t make a mess on him but that worry is thrown far in the back of your mind when he bites into your bottom lip. Emboldened by his firm, wandering hands, you grab that cold thing beside you and make enough space to take a sip. 

Kento is confused, dazed, but he can barely see without his glasses, and so, in the blur of it all he fails to see you’ve picked up your frappe until you kiss him again and something creamy and sugary tingles his tastebuds. His eyes roll back. Your tongues are mixing it up, really rubbing it in, and he sucks all that you’re willing to give him in desperate gulps. 

Feeling your hard nipples poke him through your sweater and his, he bucks his hips up, nudging your clit and you both moan. 

“S-stop,” he breathes out. “W-we can’t.” 

Blinking furiously, you nod, pushing off but his arms cage you in, keeping you in his lap. ”Ken?”

“I’m sorry. I promise I want to. Really. But, I d-don’t…”

Picking up his forgotten glasses and sliding it back into place, you then cradle his face. His eyes meet yours clearly and he smiles sheepishly, feeling more vulnerable with it on. His lips are shiny with both the coffee and your liquid, you swipe with your thumb. “You don’t what?

“I don’t… I mean, I’ve never…”

“You’ve never been with a girl?”

Nanami nods, thoroughly embarrassed. There’s no way you’ll like him now. He’s ruined the mood. He came so close to having it all but he just had to go and destroy everything by revealing he is the stereotypical nerd and you’re way too good for him. He feels an urge to run, to hide and pretend none of this ever happened, that he hadn’t gotten too big for his boots and thought he could conquer a huge mountain and get to the peak with you. 

You must be disgusted to have been touched by a loser like him. Maybe you already knew from the clumsy way he kisses or the shaking of his hands, and the way he seeks your gaze but cowers when you meet his.

Nanami Kento is a man of science and he should have stayed that way, should have never dared venture further than a man like him was ever meant to. 

But when you smile at him, staring up through those long, fluttering lashes, he decides right there and then that he’s more than willing to submit to a higher power. For there is no probable way you were made by chance like he or anyone else was—you must have been sculpted by God himself, and sent down to tempt his honour, to humble his arrogance, and crumble the very foundations of his character. 

And how gladly he’d let you. 

“Kenny, you silly man. I don’t care about things like that. In fact,” you whisper conspiratorially and lean in close, nibbling on his ear, “I’m getting really wet from knowing that I’m going to be your first.”

He dies. 

Right there and then, Nanami dies. 

He feels his soul, of which he only discovered a second before, leave his body and ascend high into the celestial clouds, mingling with those stars that seem to twinkle harder as if amused by the dumbstruck look on his face. 

Like something had completely changed in his DNA make up, he takes you by surprise and presses his palm against your soaked gusset. You jolt. 

“You’re really wet.” He thumbs at that little bulge, watching the way your jaw drops. Piercing his body, your moans echo through his ribs, pounding against his heart and filling his veins with something far too addictive. “Does knowing that you’re the first girl I’ve ever kissed, ever wanted to taste here, and wanted to know how she feels inside turn you on?”

There’s no hint of playfulness in your voice any longer when you whimper a 'yeah, Ken', hips stuttering against the pressure of his palm cupping your heat in its entirety. He can’t fathom how someone like you could find someone like him attractive, and to this extent, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care enough to map out all possibilities and make hypotheses — he doesn’t want reason and logic and practicality. 

Not now. 

No, all Nanami wants is to know you, inside and out. So, he pulls your panties to the side, hands still shaking a little, and he groans at the disastrous sensation of your drenched core leaking onto his skin. There’s no technique to his touch; he’s just feeling you. There are folds and bumps he’s theoretically aware of but to touch in person is insanity. 

Your face is making all sorts of expressions: brows furrow when he follows the seam of your lips, nose twitches when his finger teases at your quivering entrance, and your mouth parts when he bumps against your clit. 

“Tell me how you like it,” he pleads. “Tell me how to make you feel good.”

‘Pitiful loser’ must be written all over his face because you smile. You smile and thrust your breasts in his face just as your fingers wrap around his and you guide him. Urging two fingers inside, you allow him to sink in slowly, observing using his tactile receptors the pulsing heat of your walls, the squishiness, the texture, and the way he’s gliding inside. 

“Just touch me, Ken. Feel me. Get familiar because you’re going to make this your second home, okay?” 

“Okay.”

He thrusts those fingers in, seeking that spot that’s supposed to make women gasp and writhe. The sounds coming from you are obscene and it’s making him delirious. You’re growing impossibly wetter, hips stuttering, grinding on his palm, and he’s watching everything. 

Something about how hard he’s staring must make you uncomfortable because you laugh and slide your thumbs under his glasses, holding his lids close. 

“Don’t stare so hard, Kenny, you look like you’re trying to work out an equation.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles. And then you take off his glasses again, baring his face to this otherworldly dream, but when he opens his eyes, what he sees threatens to collapse his own world beneath him. You’re wearing his glasses, or at least he thinks so; his vision is blurry. How he hates his visual impairment more than he ever has before. 

Pressing a kiss on his forehead just as you moan against his skin when he hits a good spot inside you, you shakily ask, “H-how do I look?”

“Beautiful,” he breathes out. 

You laugh again and he throbs inside his trousers. Then, his vision is being obscured all together by your sweater — you’ve encased his head within and his face lies between your lovely breasts. 

Nanami’s heart stops. 

He swears it does. 

“Play with them a little, won’t you, Kenny? I like my tits teased before I cum.”

He doesn’t know which part of what you just said is that final stake in his heart but he does as you say. He licks and sucks and nibbles, listening out for your moans and feeling for which makes you clench harder on his fingers. Nimble hand not slacking for a second, he rubs your clit with his thumb and prods that soft spot you seem to really like. 

Never understanding men’s obsession with breasts, Kento is more than aware of the irony of the situation now that he’s moaning around your nipple, rolling it on his tongue. There have been so many Tuesday evenings spent watching these very same breasts press against the desk as you complain about all the worksheets he had prepared for you. So many walks along campus to get to his next class spent grumbling about how you really should wear a bra more often if you’re planning to jump around like that in front of those jocks. 

But now, he has those very same breasts surrounding his face, threatening to suffocate him, and he thanks the heavens you didn’t wear a bra today. 

“Oh, Ken, fuck!”

“Gosh, a-are you orgasming?” His words are muffled around your nipple and the vibrations seem to fuel you. 

You giggle breathlessly, “It’s ‘cumming’, Ken. Can you -ha- say it for me?”

“Are you c-cumming?”

Through some sort of miracle, you eventually do cum on his fingers, and he hurriedly untangles himself from your sweater to observe the way your face crumples up in bliss, to see the way you flood his hand with your intoxicating cream, and how you’re spasming in his lap. 

It’s all through the fog of his poor vision but the awareness that you’re cumming because of him, in his arms, wearing his glasses and fogging it up with your heady breaths pushes him over the edge just as your hand brushes against the bulge of his trousers. 

“Oh, ngh! I’m s-sorry! Gosh! I'm so sorry.”

The bliss runs deep, filling his head with the scent of you, and for a second, through the haze, he swears his vision clears and you're magnificent face comes to him like a message from something divine. He might just cease being a man of science at this rate.

Panting, you slump against each other. The stars are still dancing above but neither of you pay attention. You’re simply taking deep breaths, trying to reorient yourself, and enjoy the warmth the other is radiating. 

“For your first time fingering a girl, you were pretty good. Which I’m not surprised by — you’ve always been a quick learner, isn’t that right, Kento?”

“P-please don’t tease me.”

With his glasses sliding off your nose bridge, you kiss his lips in apology before you slot the frame back onto his face. He thanks you with an awkward pat of your pussy before he brings his fingers to his face. 

“Isn’t it incredible how our body produces natural lubrication?”

Rolling your eyes you whisper against his stubbly jaw, “Don’t get all sciencey on me now, baby. We still have to talk about the fact that you came in your pants and I hadn’t even touched you.”

Nanami blushes. Hard. He’s humiliated himself in front of you once again. For a second there, he had genuinely believed his inexperience wouldn’t make a difference, that he’s not a teenager and he’ll pull through as a man by instinct alone if need be. How wrong he was. 

“Hey, now. Don’t start thinking too hard. I wasn’t complaining. I actually thought it was really hot.”

Still eyeing the shiny string that forms between his fingers from your essence, he clears his throat and concedes, “If you say so.”

Silence passes by for a beat or two, and all Nanami can think about is how uncomfortable he feels with his cum drying in his boxers and he realises you must feel the same way. Just as he’s about to voice these concerns out, you meet his eye with a strange kind of twinkle. 

“Wanna taste it?”

Before he can even ask what you could possibly mean, you’re already guiding his fingers back to your core and spreading your wetness all over his hand once more. Then, that wetness is being spread along his lips and he doesn’t disobey when he sucks them into his mouth. 

The taste is strange. Not bad, but new and odd. It’s mostly tasteless but it is a little tangy, and sweet. And he is obsessed. 

“How do I taste, Kenny?”

Nanami Kento is a man of science. 

He isn’t a poet. He doesn’t mince his words, doesn’t use flowery language or muses about nature and the fragility of humanity. No, he says it like it is. The world exists in black and white, there are no greys, no rose tinted glasses hiding the truth from him. He is a man of fact and truth. No more, no less.

But with the exhilarating, inebriating, and electrifying taste of you flooding his tongue, he realises, every man is born a poet, and the world silences that visionary within. However, there comes a moment in every man's life where that poet is awakened and they see the world not as it is, but rather as it should be. They simply need a muse. 

“Like a star,” Nanami rasps, completely and utterly weakened, defeated, and vanquished. “More. I w-want more.”

You chortle. “No, Ken. Not here. Some other time, okay? ‘Cause I’m actually really hungry now. But you’ve got a bit of a situation in your pants and you can’t easily hide it so maybe we should go over to your place and you can cook me up something instead?”

Liking the idea very much, he kisses you and lifts you up so you can both stand on your own two feet. The drying cum is proving to be a pain but it doesn’t bother him. Nothing does in this moment. Not the fact that he’ll have to sneak into the security office and get the CCTV footage deleted, or preferably sent to his phone and then deleted from the main system, not the thought of all the work he has yet to do in preparation for all his classes next week, and not even the knowledge that he’ll have to kick Haibara out for the night. 

“Does this mean you and I are… well…” He trails off, unsure how to phrase it. 

Giggling, you go on your tiptoes and peck his lips. “Yes, Ken. We’re dating. We’re exclusive. I’m your girlfriend and you’re my boyfriend. So that means I get to flirt with you all the time and you can’t pretend you don’t like it anymore.”

“That sounds like a fair deal. Will you come back to class? Let me tutor you again?”

“Wasn’t me coming here to begin with not answer enough, Ken? Of course, I’m coming back. Especially now that it means we can have secret sex during our tutoring sessions. Oh! Can we fuck in the library? I’ve always wanted to do that. And then you can tell me off for being too loud. Can we? I also really want to have sex in your car. Mine is a little too small but yours will work just fine. Oh! And maybe you can let me touch you in the lectures? We can sit at the back where no one can see us! You have to meet my sister. And my friends. And the rest of my family. Then I'll meet yours. Eek! I'm so excited. We'll go on dates every day, won't we? Oh, wouldn't that be so fun, Ken?”

Nanami gulps. 

Stepping away from the world of science and into a world of you seems much more daunting now than ever. Maybe he’s bitten off more than he can chew. Maybe he’s not cut out for a life outside of academia. Maybe he won’t be able to keep up with your appetite. Maybe you'll drain him dry and leave him a husk of himself, which doesn't sound so bad if he's being completely honest.

Everything you said leaves him a little lightheaded at the thought and he can't fathom how he could possibly meet every one of your expectations.

But... he’s always been a fan of the trial-and-error method. 

So, he supposes he’s just going to have to work it out like he always does. Because as you grin up at him, sweat making your skin slightly shiny, he can’t think of anything worse than disappointing you. 

Smiling, he brushes a stray strand away from your cheek and lays a lithe kiss on your nose.

“Whatever you say, my little star.”