butterflygh0sts

[butterflygh0sts]

long shot bc this is such a new acc w like zero reach but i need help for a fic im writing!!!

what do u think teen/young adult penelope garcia would call her grandparents? bc i just KNOW that girl has some cute little name, she’s not just calling them grandma/grandpa

[butterflygh0sts]

Spencer at CalTech (AU - WIP)

Spencer heads off to CalTech at 13 (started as a one-shot prequel to my fic "Psych 101" but is most defintely becoming much bigger)

Year One Bakersfield, California August

─── ∘°❉°∘ ───

Spencer’s arms were shaking with the weight of his duffle bag as he shuffled off of the bus. The frayed strap had finally broken at his last bus transfer so he was stuck struggling to hold the heavy bag in front of him with both hands. 

He nearly tipped over as he stepped off onto the sidewalk when momentum swung his bag forward, but he managed to redirect the movement just in time. Once his feet were firmly on the white pavement of the sidewalk he let the bag drop to the ground with a heavy thump to give his arms a break.

He squinted his eyes against the glare of the sun and searched for a map. He’d looked at a few different maps of California before leaving Las Vegas and memorised them but he hadn’t been able to find one with the current bus systems and routes. Their computer had broken (his mother drowned it in the neighbors pool) last year and he needed parental permission to use the computers at the library (unless Mrs. Martin was working, but her daughter just had a baby and she had taken some time off), so his only reference was 10 years old at best.

“Hey kid!” Spencer whipped around, almost tripping over his bag, to look back at the bus driver. “You got someone coming to pick you up right?” He didn’t, but he had learned at a young age that adults didn’t like it when kids didn’t have adults around (or they liked it a bit too much, he’d learned that too and learned how to avoid those people).

“Yeah!” He called back. “My dad’s in the long term lot, I just have to call him.” He gestured to a payphone down the street. His dad was not waiting. In fact, Spencer hadn’t seen his dad in nearly three years.

“You need me to stick around?”

“No, it’s okay. He always picks me up here.” Spencer’s dad had never even picked him up from school, sometimes from t-ball practise, but that was to make sure he actually went to t-ball practise.

“Alright, kid. You take care.” The man waved as he pulled the doors closed and drove off. Spencer had liked the bus driver. He was an older man, maybe mid 50s or so. He was balding on the top of his head but the rest of his hair was so long it fell past his shoulders. He always had a big smile on, unless a passenger was causing problems, or if someone was trying to get on without a ticket. In those cases he would get out of his seat and stand up to his full height. He was a large man, both in height and around the middle. 

He was the kind of man who could be called jolly or could be called intimidating. Spencer just liked that he didn’t talk on the phone the whole time or smell like cigarettes like the driver of his last bus.

Once the bus made its way out of Spencer’s sight he grabbed his bag and walked towards the large awning he had seen with what looked like a map of bus routes. He studied it for a moment, his finger hovering over -- but not touching, this was a bus station and who knows what was on this map -- where he knew CalTech was and then circling around until he found a marked bus station.

He followed the lines from one bus station to another until his finger reached the large red “You Are Here” mark, memorising the route quickly. He didn’t have a way to find out the arrival schedule, but he wasn’t in too big of a hurry. 

It was 6 in the morning now and, according to the paper that was now stuffed deep in his duffle bag, orientation registration began at 8am and went until 6pm. His best guess was it would be about three hours — accounting for bus delays — to get from Bakersfield to Pasadena.

He wondered if there would be food at the orientation. He hoped so. His last meal -- if you could call it a meal -- had been the day before around 10am when he used some of the spare change he’d found around to buy two hashbrowns from McDonalds. He still had a few quarters left, but he wanted to save those in case he needed to make a call. 

His stomach rumbled, but he ignored it. Spencer was quite used to the feeling of an empty stomach. Most of his meals growing up were supplied by the free lunch program at his school. Any student was able to apply, regardless of financial situation, so Spencer had signed up.

 There were other programs that supplied breakfast and even meals to take home for dinner, but those required parents or guardians to submit forms to qualify. Even if he tried to forge his way through the documents, there was no way Spencer would be able to get away with it without a wellness check -- or worse, Child Protective Services -- getting involved.

He knew logically that it wasn’t normal for a parent to be unable to feed their child two meals a day. He also knew that mental illness defied logic, and that it wasn’t entirely his mothers fault. She never meant to forget to buy groceries, or to burn dinner, or to unplug the fridge when the gentle hum began to sound like screaming. It wasn’t his mom who did those things. He couldn’t believe that if he wanted to keep loving her.

His mom had been so excited when Spencer began receiving admissions offers from universities. Some of which he had never heard of, let alone communicated with. Yale and Harvard had been ahead of the game, but Spencer had wanted to stay closer to home. He also wasn’t interested in universities that wanted his attendance simply for the sake of having a “kid genius” in their student body. He didn’t want to be a prize or a press opportunity, he just wanted to learn.

He picked CalTech for two reasons: it was close enough that he could still visit his mom easily and the professor who tried to recruit him -- a world renowned mathematician -- sent him a rubik's cube and a handwritten letter that simply said, “We’d love to have you here” with the professors personal email address. No frills, no bells and whistles, no promises of greatness or name dropping of celebrity alumni.

He’d written to the professor almost immediately after receiving the offer and they corresponded for a few weeks, working out the details of his enrollment and a plan to meet his academic needs. He’d received the official acceptance packet from CalTech soon after.

A few months later he was packing his life up into an oversized duffle bag. He managed to stuff all of his clothes into the bag (a perk of being 13 was that his clothes were much smaller than they would have been if he had been 18), along with a queen size top sheet that he’d use as mattress cover (he didn’t want to waste money on a “twin XL” sheet set, who decided to make those anyway?), and a towel. He carefully packed notebooks, stationery, and miscellaneous school supplies into his old backpack. He used a tie that his father had left to tie his pillow to the backpack.

He’d been told he would be able to pick up the books he’d need for his classes at the bookstore, paid for by the mathematics department. He wished he could bring his personal books, but there was no way he’d be able to carry those along with his necessities. His mom said she’d send them to him once he settled but he wasn’t confident that she’d remember. 

He knew they’d be safe with her at least. As destructive as his mother got during her episodes, books were never harmed. Books were sacred in their household. The worst that ever happened to a book was coffee stains -- or sometimes wine stains — a couple torn pages from reading too fast or flipping frantically back through the text.

He brought his tattered copy of The Canterbury Tales with him at least. It had beautiful coloured illustrations throughout that almost reminded him of a children’s book. It was a strange comfort item, sure, but Spencer was a strange kid. He knew that.

After about thirty minutes the bus he needed to get on arrived. He waddled his way up the steps, his duffle weighing him down and affecting his gate, and down the aisle to a seat near the back door. He tucked the duffle under the seat, covering it with his legs, and placed his backpack on the seat next to him. 

The bus pulled out as he settled in. He watched the California landscape fly by, watched as the deserted industrialism became carefully manicured gardens and palm trees. 

[butterflygh0sts]

i’m gonna gush for a sec

for the first time since getting into fan fic writing (i feel like i started 2013/14 but idk bc i’ve orphaned everything rip) i have an active fic that i’m in love w and have active readers who comment on every update and i’m justtttt ugh my heart is so full and i’m just having so much fun and i’m so grateful for fandom communities in general

[butterflygh0sts]

Magic Man

Poker night at Emily’s. (My love letter to math and magic)

One-shot, 3.4k words

“Actually, mathematics enter the equation in almost every situation in poker: odds and equity are the most obvious - most people have at least a conceptual awareness of the statistical probability of how their hand will play, maybe not exact numbers but if you draw 3 low non sequential cards with mixed suits you’ll feel worse than if you draw two aces. A-a-and betting really is just all math -- the expected value. Really, any good player should be able to evaluate the EV of their betting moves.”

“Morgan, hold me back. I’m gonna kill a child.”

———

Spencer walked up the long driveway with his heart pounding in his chest. He had taken an uber because Penelope had been frustratingly working with the same technically incompetent 60 year old for the past four hours and he didn’t want to bother her and the driver had refused to drive him up to the door.

The driveway was paved with pristine white concrete, lush green bushes -- clearly well maintained -- lined the way, and tall trees obscured the view to the house but cast a lovely shade.

Eventually a beautiful house came into view. It was the type of house he’d only seen on television or film; white siding that stood out starkly against the green landscape, columns that were more decorative than supportive, windows layed out symmetrically. It was really rather pleasing to look at.

He couldn’t imagine being in a house like that, let alone growing up in it. His childhood was chipping stucco walls: his mom had tried to paint them blue once but she forgot after painting one side and eventually the one blue wall faded with the sun to a murky swamp-like green. If you walked a block or two out of his neighborhood the homes began resembling construction zones rather than homes. Abandoned dumpsters littered the streets, windows were boarded shut, eviction notices were strewn across yellowing lawns. His house should have been there, Spencer often thought. Then it wouldn’t stick out so much.

complete on Ao3 🤍

[butterflygh0sts]

Psych 101

Spencer (17) transfers to Georgetown to work on his Psych/Soc undergrad degrees after finishing his first PhD at CalTech. He moves with his friend Penelope Garcia (20) who he met at CalTech.

University AU Text-Fic with the BAU team.

WIP - 23k Words, T-rated

[butterflygh0sts]

Virginia Summers

Spencer thought he was prepared for the heat. He grew up in Nevada. He made it through summers where the sun scorched the grass, burned the naive tourists, and seemed to stay high in the sky far longer than it should. 110°F summers were his normal.

He knew intellectually that Virginia had a far different climate than Nevada. Instead of the flat plains of the desert, the Bermuda High seemed to draw the moisture straight from the Atlantic deep into the valleys of Virginia.

This knowledge did nothing to protect Spencer from the shock when he finally exited the lovely and cool climate controlled train station and walked straight into what felt like a thick wall of moisture. Humidity.

Humidity was not something Spencer was familiar with. Even the summers in the California valley were nothing compared to this.

He’d had a roommate at CalTech from Virginia at one point and recalled him rejoicing when the summer weather began to roll in. Spencer, on the other hand, was miserable. So unfamiliar with the damp that made his shirt stick awkwardly to his back and his hair curl in chaos no matter how often he brushed it.

His former roommate had told him ‘this is nothing’, and Spencer refused to believe it.

His former roommate laughed and told him he’d pay money to see Spencer survive a Virginia summer.

Spencer thought nothing of it. Why would he ever go to Virginia? His whole life had been spent on the west coast. His mom was still in Las Vegas, his memories were split between Vegas and Pasedena, his friends were here. He was going to finish up his thesis, maybe start another; Chemistry this time, or maybe Physics.

He had no reason to leave. Until he did.

———

^ a little one shot wip from my text fic “Psych 101” on Ao3 🤍