hypothetical-strumpet

[hypothetical-strumpet]

spencer reid x fem!bsf!reader tw .' suggestive themes , nsfw , male masturbation , somnophilia-adjacent? ( mdi 18+ )

masterlist | series masterlist | dividers by @cafekitsune | join the taglist | previous part

imagine sharing a bed with bsf!spence ( part two )

he knows he should’ve moved. should’ve peeled you off of him, made a run for the bathroom, begged the hotel faucet to save him with a cold blast of clarity.

because it wasn’t just the grinding anymore.

it was the breathless little whimper you gave next, the way your knee nudged his cock—direct, intentional or not, he didn’t know—but it knocked the air right out of his lungs.

but instead, he stayed frozen beneath you, body tense, cock twitching, every cell in his body humming with electricity.

'spence,' you murmured again, and god help him, he swore you sounded wrecked. needy. sweet little gasps escaping you with each slow, subtle rock of your hips.

his fist clenched the sheet at his side.

don’t do it. don’t do it. don’t—

you whimpered again. your knee pressed harder into his cock, and spencer had to bit back a broken groan, teeth sinking into the meat of his bottom lip so hard he swore he tasted blood.

fuck it.

his free hand slid under the blanket, slow and shameful. he didn’t grab himself right away—he couldn’t. not yet. he hovered, palm flat on his lower stomach, fingers twitching, like even his own body was hesitant to cross the final line. what little strength he had left, he used to try and stop himself from masturbating right next to you.

but then you shifted again—grinding into his thigh, your breath hitching—and that was it.

he pushed his hand from where it rested on his stomach and pushed it under the elastic band of his flannel pajama pants. he wrapped his hand around himself.

his breath stuttered out, sharp and strangled, lips parted as he squeezed the aching length of his cock. he stroked slow. shamefully slow and loose. because anything faster or harder and he was going to lose it immediately.

you moaned again—his fucking name. barely audible, muffled into his collarbone, but it shook him to his core. the rhythm of your grinding had deepened, hips pressing with more certainty, like your dream-self was chasing something. and he could feel the heat of you through the thin fabric of his pants, your slick soaking through your thin silk sleep shorts. onto him.

he stifled a groan in his throat, pressing the heel of his palm against his cock before resuming his strokes. still slow. still careful. still light.

every inch of movement made him tremble. every drag of skin, every pulse in his palm, pushed him closer to the edge.

this was so wrong. you were asleep, he thought.

but fuck, you felt so good. your body soft and pliant against his, voice a symphony of breathy, half-spoken desires. you were on him. and if your moans could attest to anything, you were dreaming about him.

god! he hoped you were.

he could feel it happening. his balls tightening. his grip faltering. his thighs trembling. he was getting close. you moaned again—a broken, blissed-out sound—and just as your hips gave one final desperate rut into his leg, spencer came.

hard.

and embarrassingly fast. he prayed to what ever high power there was that you could not witness how fast he had come in his pajama pants.

white-hot pleasure tore through him as he spilled into his fist, jaw clenched around a grunt, chest rising fast with the effort of holding back any sound louder than a breath. his whole body tensed beneath you, and he had to hold his breath to keep from collapsing into the moment.

you sighed contentedly against him.

and then stilled.

and that’s when it hit him—he had just come in his pants. thinking about you. next to you. while you were unconscious.

his heart was racing. his face was burning. his hand was sticky. his pajamas were ruined. and he—

'oh my god,' he whispered.

without waking you, he slid out from under your limbs—carefully, gently, like defusing a bomb. you gave a small sigh, shifting just enough to let him go, and spencer held his breath the whole time, heart threatening to leap straight out of his throat.

thank the science gods, he made it with out startling you from your scandalous dream.

he grabbed his go bag with trembling hands and bolted to the bathroom like the walls themselves might start whispering his sins aloud.

the bathroom light flicked on.

the door shut.

lock engaged.

and that’s when your eyes fluttered open.

blinking into the dark, you reached out, hand brushing cold sheets. Your brows furrowed. it took a moment for your mind to catch up, body still warm, slick, thrumming faintly from whatever dream had held you captive.

you sat up slowly, blinking at the dim red glow of the bedside clock.

3:49 am

your mouth tasted like sleep. your thoughts like static. you rubbed your face and glanced at the empty space beside you, brows pinching in confusion.

'spence?' you whispered, voice raspy.

no answer.

but then, from the other side of the door—water running. the bathroom fan humming faintly.

you blinked again, then shrugged, already flopping back into bed, tugging the covers up to your chin. your legs still felt strange. heavy. tingling.

you fell asleep again within seconds, none the wiser.

and spencer? spencer gripped the bathroom sink so hard his knuckles whitened, trying to remember how to breathe.

trying not to imagine how sweet your moan had sounded when you said his name.

the shower was already running. cold water, pneumonia be damned. frankly, he knew thats what he deserved it.

okay. okay. okay. just—breathe. don’t think. don’t panic.

which, of course, meant he was thinking and panicking.

his pajama pants were still wet. the patch on his thigh, the place you had focused all your attention, wet and sticky. he could feel the smear of precum sticking to the fabric, the twitch of his cock against it, angry and aching and desperate for more relief. still half-hard and pulsing from the way you had rutted into him one last time before he had the self control to pull away— and like a goddamn dream come true no less.

a nuclear-level sex crime all at once.

you didn’t do anything, spencer. she didn’t know. she was asleep. it’s not like you—

his eyes flicked up to the mirror. he looked like sin.

sweaty curls. pink cheeks. pupils blown wide with arousal and guilt.

jesus christ. she’s your best friend, you fucking idiot. she trusts you, he thought.

but that wasn’t the worst part.

the worst part was the way you’d said his name.

spence. over and over, you had said it. he had though the first time that it was a mistake, that you were saying some other persons name that had just sounded similar to his own. but alas the second time you'd let it slip past your lips in a whispery moan, spencer had heard it loud and clear.

it hadn’t been casual. it hadn’t been platonic. it had been needy. wrecked. like a prayer said through a moan. a sound he didn’t even know he’d been dying to hear until it came rolling off your tongue in a dream you didn’t even remember.

he hadn’t made you say it. hadn’t asked. hadn’t even touched you for fucks sakes.

so why does it feel so fucking wrong?

his heart stuttered in his chest. then beat faster. and faster. his cock twitched again, this time more insistent. throbbing as if he didn't just come to the sound of your voice ( and probably harder than he ever had before ).

no. no, don’t. you’re not going to—

but then the memory flickered again.

your hips rocking against him. your slick heat soaking into his leg. your lips on his neck. your voice, helpless and wrecked and whispering his name like it meant something.

spence.

it was like a fucking drug and there was nothing he could do once you entered his system.

and that was it.

he dropped his head with a hiss and gritted his teeth as his hand slid down for the second time in twenty minutes, fingers curling around the length of himself through the damp fabric.

'just once more, i promise. just get it out.'

he would hate himself in the morning.

but for now?

now, all he could think about was the weight of you tangled around him, the soft curve of your lips against his throat, and the sinful, sacred sound of your moan in the dark.

THE END

🏷️. @maxiismp | @theburgundyonmytshirt1989 | @cel070321 | join the taglist

[hypothetical-strumpet]

spencer reid x fem!bsf!reader tw .' suggestive themes , nsfw ( mdi 18+ )

masterlist | series masterlist | dividers by @cafekitsune | join the taglist | part two

imagine having to share a bed with bsf!spence

it had been exactly four days, six hours and twenty-seven minutes since you had caused spencer yet another hard as a fucking rock boner in the most inopportune moment ( curse is damn eidetic memory ).

and you hadn’t said a word about it. hadn’t so much as even hinted that you had felt wrecked in the same way he’d felt ever since. you were as calm and collected and coolly unaware how much you riled him up with your mere presence ( spoiler alert—you knew exactly what you were doing ). it was all part of your plan to break dr. spencer reid’s resolve one earth shattering boner at a time.

you were still stewing comfortably in phase one of plan un—friend zone. you hadn’t expected to have so much fun teasing the absolute life out of spencer.

you had weaponized your innocence, verbally edged him until the point you thought he might combust into his pants, cumming in his pants like teenager.

‘did you think about me when you touched yourself on the jet?’ — that’s what you had asked, the question that almost did bring him to the point where he was about to ruin another pair of slacks.

then you had gone back to your paperwork as if you hadn’t spent the last hour torturing him with your body and your words. as if you hadn’t asked him if he’d thought about you while he pathetically stroked his cock in the fbi sanctioned private jet bathroom with every single one of his coworkers on the other side of the door.

and worst of all you you’d had spent the last four days ( granted the team had been called away on a case the next day after your little tease ) pretending for four nights, six hours and now thirty two minutes, that if your toes had gone any further up his thigh, you’d of felt the pre-cum he couldn’t stop from leaking out of his twitching cock.

like you hadn’t leaned over his desk just so he could get a glance at your bralette that was suspiciously in his favorite color. because of course you knew his favorite color, you were his best friend. his best friend that he routinely thought about choking with his—

‘alright, that’s it for tonight,’ hotch said, closing his file with a tired glance at the team. spencer visibly shook himself from his daydream only to be hit with it all over again when you smiled at him across from the table.

‘jj has the room assignments, get some sleep guys.’

everyone began gathering their things, the weight of the case thick in the air, the kind of tired that sits in your bones after hours of interviews and dead ends. jj, ever the coordinator, called out over the shuffle, ‘okay! I’ve got keys. reid, you’re with—‘

you already knew. you always roomed with spencer. but his heat nearly stopped as he listened to jj spill your name into the air. he should have known better though.

it was habit by now. you worked well together, slept on the same schedule, didn’t complain about each other’s snoring. it was practical, efficient. no one ever questioned it. until now.

spencer questioned everything now when it came to you. your feelings, your motives, whether or not you were purposefully edging and verbally overstimulating him.

jj tossed you your keycard with a smile. ‘room 214.’

you caught it easily and turned to spencer, who was already wide-eyed like she’d just said room 666. ‘come on,’ you said lightly, ‘don’t tell me you’re suddenly shy now.’

‘i’m not,” he lied immediately ( he was shy, overstimulated and already starting to feel a stirring in his pants — courtesy of his daydreams and the bright smile you had given him less than two minutes ago ).

the walk to the room was quiet. you were humming under your breath, more focused on how the carpet pattern didn’t match the wallpaper than the man next to you and spencer wondered how you stayed so calm—surely you felt flustered like him or was he just the odd one out as usual.

he, meanwhile, was spiraling.

two beds. two beds. two beds, he chanted internally like a prayer ( if only he could be so lucky ).

but when you swiped the key and pushed open the door, the room stared back with one glaring problem.

one. queen. bed.

spencer froze in the doorway. ‘that — there has to be a mistake.’

you laughed ( and if he hadn’t been absolutely fighting for his sanity and praying his cock to finally start to soften, he might have reveled in the sound ) you were already wheeling your suitcase in. ‘it’s fine. one night.”

it was definitely not fine. one hundred percent not fine.

he didn’t move. you raised your brows. ‘you gonna stand out there all night?’

spencer cleared his throat. ‘i could go talk to jj. maybe she can fix it.’ you plopped onto the bed, bouncing slightly. ‘it’s late. you think she’s gonna find a spare room at midnight?’

he knew he wasn’t being logical, but even the logical part of his brain was telling him to run for the hills. that it was a monumentally bad idea. that so many things could go wrong.

he hesitated. ‘well, i just—‘

you leaned back on your elbows, letting your shirt ride up ever so slightly. he wanted to scream fuck you because there was no way you had done that on accident and his cock was already paying the price. swelling against his zipper that was both unbelievable unbearable and exactly what he needed.

‘spencey. we’re adults. it’s not a big deal. i promise i won’t bite. unless you beg me to.’ his brain crashed. you smiled sweetly.

fuck you and fuck your overtly sexual mouth, he thought.

you stood up—and gone was his perfect view of your navel and belly button. you crossed the room, back to the front door and placed a hand on his chest. with the guise of fixing his chest because you were nothing but helpful. ‘do you want me to build you a pillow wall or something?’ you teased.

he opened his mouth—then closed it. ‘no,’ he said quickly. ‘no, i just—it’s fine. you’re right.’

He stepped in cautiously, like the bed was going to lunge at him but only to get your hands off of him before he exploded into a sweater vest pile on the ground topped with his spend he was about to let loose.

you watched him drag his suitcase to the corner of the room, movements stiff, controlled. so painfully polite.

when you returned from the bathroom, you wearing pajamas, he noted helplessly. thank god for pajamas—not that your were particularly very . . . covering. but he repeated :

not lingerie. not a bralette. pajamas. this is fine. we’re fine. we’re so very fu—

he swallowed as you bent down to tuck your day clothes into your go bag, your ass it what caught his eyes.

your ass that was suspiciously now close to his face.

your ass that was barely hidden by the tiny silk sleep shorts you called pajamas.

your ass that was now more skin than silk as you bent down.

your ass that was now making his khakis twitch.

‘don’t overthink it, spence.’ you stood to your full height again, spinning to face him. his gaze that had been glued to your ass, still unfocused as you turned. now instead of your ass in his eyes it was your tits.

your perfectly sculpted tits that sat bra-less under your silk tank pajama top. if his cock wasn’t hard before it definitely was now. ‘really, don’t overthink, your safe with me.’

yeah, safe with your shorts that only covered enough of your ass to qualify as shorts and your top that was rubbing deliciously against your bra-less tits, hardening nipples on full display for him to ogle.

yeah, he was about as safe with you as he was with an unsub.

you were a cold blooded liar.

soon you both got into bed.

or rather, you slid under the covers like you’d done it a hundred times before. calm, nonchalant, completely unfazed by the very warm, very tense man lying five inches away from you.

spencer lay on his back like he was in a coffin.

staring at the ceiling as if could give him salvation— stiff as a board.

you’d fallen asleep in less than five minutes. five—he knows because he’d counted.

he tried everything—closing his eyes, deep breathing, listing the top one hundred chemical elements in order of reactivity—nothing helped.

not when your thigh brushed his under the covers. not when you shifted and your tank top slipped just low enough for his peripheral vision to catch the curve of your chest. and definitely not when your arm flopped across his stomach with innocent, sleepy weight.

he nearly ascended on the spot.

it’s not intentional, he told himself, she’s just a touchy sleeper. This is fine. We’re still fine.

but he wasn’t fine.

he was still hard. painfully fucking hard. pre-cum leaking from his slit, almost enough to lean a little wet spot on the leg of his sleep pants. he let out a quiet sigh of absolute, internal despair and shifted ever so slightly toward the edge of the bed, trying not to disturb you.

which, apparently, was impossible.

you rolled. onto your stomach. right up next to him.

one knee bent slightly over his leg, your hip brushing his side. Your tank top had ridden up, the hem exposing your bare lower back.

god, he was so fucking fucked.

eventually—mercifully—spencer slipped into a shallow sleep. his brain gave up. his body gave out. and his last conscious thought was something along the lines of :

if i die in my sleep, let hotch give the eulogy. let penelope delete my browser history.

when he woke, it was still dark. the hotel room barely illuminated by the blinking red numbers of the bedside clock: 3:42 a.m.

and she was still on him.

like… on him on him

somewhere between 1:00 am and now, you had latched on like a sleepy little koala.

your head was buried in the crook of his shoulder, lips brushing his neck, and one arm curled possessively around his bicep.

but that wasn’t the problem.

the problem was your leg—hiked high over his pajama-clad thigh, your knee pressing precariously into his hard cock and your hips pressed firmly to him, and your body grinding.

rhythmic. slow. instinctive.

your breath was warm against his neck and your lips parted around a sound so soft he nearly missed it.

‘mmhm, oh spence . . . ’

he froze.

his whole body stiffened beneath you—except, unfortunately, the part of him that had no interest in restraint.

nope, nope, nope.

this is not real. this is a coma hallucination. i’m at the hospital. they found a tumor.

This cannot be happening.

but it was happening. it was still happening.

you sighed again, moaned again—this time into his neck, and he felt your lips brush his skin.

spencer’s brain short-circuited. there was nothing left. no thoughts. no theories. no defense mechanisms.

you shifted again, your hips rolling into his thigh—and that’s when he felt it.

heat. you were wet. soaking through your shorts. against his leg.

grinding still, gradually getting faster and faster —

he let out a breathless sound—something between a gasp and a prayer.

his hand hovered awkwardly above your waist—he wanted to push you away, he really did. but he also wanted to pull you closer. to see your face. to ask if you were dreaming of him or if you knew exactly what you were doing.

was this sleep? was this sin? was this the beginning of his actual mental breakdown? he didn’t know.

but he did know one thing :

if he didn’t move, if he didn’t stop this… he was going to have to change his pajamas. again.

THE END

[hypothetical-strumpet]

I have some news for members of the united states armed forces who feel like they are pawns in a political game and their assignments being unnecessary.

[hypothetical-strumpet]

baby fever

in which reader and spencer discuss having a baby while at work

fluff warnings/tags: fem/AFAB!reader, bau!reader, BOYFRIEND!SPENCER or husband if u so desire, discussions of pregnancy/having a baby (obviously), reader wants a baby, so does spencer a/n: god i need him so badly. should i write follow up smut?? mwahaha evil emoji......

The coffee finished brewing minutes ago, but you’re still standing by the pot, watching Anderson’s daughter toddling around the bullpen on chubby legs. She’s not very adept at walking, but her spirit is indomitable—every time she tips a little too far forward, she catches herself and gets right back up. It’s not like she’s doing anything particularly impressive or even interesting, but you can’t take your eyes off her. Every movement makes your heart twinge, every giggle or curious quirk of her head is so adorable it physically hurts in your chest. 

From your peripheral vision you see Spencer approaching, bearing his own empty mug, but not even he can draw your attention away from the adorable little pixie and her tutu and her pigtails. 

“That is the cutest kid I have ever seen in my life,” you whisper to Spencer, hoping the quiet tone of your voice will help hide how much you feel like cooing and squealing. 

He smiles to himself as he pours his coffee. 

“That’s Rosie. Have you said hi yet?” 

“I’m afraid if I talk to her I’ll try to keep her.” 

“She is pretty adorable.” 

You turn to him as he leans next to you on the counter, sipping his coffee casually. 

“Adorable? Spencer. Puppies are adorable. You’re not understanding the magnitude of what I mean right now. I can’t explain to you how much adorable doesn’t cut it. I’m not kidding about the child abduction thing.” 

HIs eyes slide around the room as he chuckles into his mug. 

“Let’s maybe not joke about kidnapping a child in FBI headquarters.” 

“I’m not joking,” you hiss. “I feel like I’m going insane. I just—” 

At the last second you stop yourself, pulling your bottom lip between your teeth. 

“You just what?” Spencer asks, adjusting the hem of your shirt with his free hand. You glance down, watching the care he takes in the tiniest detail that you wouldn’t have given a second thought to. 

“Is something wrong with my shirt?” 

His eyes flick up to yours, hazel tinted with mild surprise. 

“No. It just was sliding up your waist a little bit.” As he says it, his knuckles brush the bare skin of your torso. You suppress a shiver, studying his profile once he pulls his hand away and goes for another sip. 

“Can we have one?” 

Your inopportune timing results in coffee dribbling down Spencer’s chin as he quickly attempts to wipe it away, wide eyes torn between you and trying to assess the mess he’s made. 

“You--you mean like a baby?” 

“Yeah, like a baby,” you say, grabbing his shoulders and squaring them to you before dabbing the coffee from his face and jacket. He watches on as you clean him up, completely still except for his wandering eyes. 

“I thought we were waiting on that.” 

“Waiting for what? A better time? There’s never going to be a good time with this job. And it’s not like we’d have to quit. Look at JJ. She has two and still does it.” 

“First of all,” Spencer begins, quickly recovering from your surprise proposition, “I don’t love the idea of either of us being in the field with you pregnant. And secondly, JJ also has Will and her mother to take care of the boys. We don’t have that. We’re both here all the time.” 

“I don’t care,” you groan, trashing the paper towels once you’ve done the best you can with his clothing. “We’d figure it out somehow!” 

“Mhm. It sounds like you’ve really devoted some careful consideration to this.” 

You drop your head to your shoulder, giving him your best puppy dog eyes and pulling lightly on his shirtsleeve. 

“Oh, come on. You haven’t thought about it at all? My perfect brain and your pretty face fusing to create a future Nobel-prize winner? Imagine how cute she would be, Spencer, we could put her hair in little braids and pigtails and we could dress her up and she could be in soccer and ballet and—” 

“She?” he smiles, studying your face intently. You roll your eyes. 

“Yes, she. Obviously we would have a girl. You—” 

The idea of Spencer as the father of your daughter hits you like a tidal wave, stopping you dead in your tracks. The images materialize in your mind’s eye so clearly, it’s like they’re already memories, so real and tangible you have no doubt it must come to fruition someday. But if before, your ranting was mostly a silly fantasy—now it’s become a bit more intense. 

He seems to sense your shift in mood. The big smile thaws slightly as he subtly grabs your hand on the counter. 

“What? What’s wrong?” 

There he goes again. Being kind. Being perfect. 

Tears sting your eyes, but you don’t let them fall.  

“Nothing. Nothing is wrong. I just... didn’t realize how badly I actually wanted that until I said it out loud.” 

The concern in his eyes softens to pure affection as he runs his thumb over the back of your hand. 

“I want it too. And whenever you decide you’re ready I’ll drop everything for you.” 

His words are like compounding pressure to the deep heat within you—forming something so solid and perfect you don’t have to wonder if it’s real. A ten on the Mohs scale, a concept that gets closer to actualizing by the minute.  

Your voice is quiet, revelatory as you admire the amber facets in his eyes. 

“You’re ready?”  

“I’ve been ready for quite some time,” he admits. And at once you feel the certainty of him paint your past and your future with one broad brushstroke. One day you will look back on your life and remember the time before Spencer, and that will be it. There is before Spencer, and with Spencer, but never an after Spencer. He wants to create something utterly permanent with you. “Come here.” 

He sets his mug down, carefully pulling you forward so you’re toe to toe with your back to the rest of the BAU; so that only he can see you. Despite how good the two of you are at avoiding PDA, occasionally an exception is made. He tenderly wipes away the few tears that have sprung from your waterline and accepts your arms around his waist, mirroring your embrace and completely enveloping you.  

“I love you,” he murmurs against the top of your hair, quiet enough that nobody in the office has a chance of hearing it. You sniffle. 

“I love you too. Also you smell really good.” 

He chuckles, hand roaming up and down your back for a moment. 

“And that is why we are holding off on this at least for a while.” 

“What do you mean?” you whisper indignantly as he gently peels you off him. His hands remain a steadying force on your waist as he smiles down at you beatifically. 

“I mean let’s give it two weeks and see if you still want a baby when you’re not ovulating.” 

[hypothetical-strumpet]

pillow talk

in which spencer reid chooses a very odd time to reveal an anecdote from his past to fem!reader

18+ (fluff, extremely suggestive) warnings/tags: fingering but nothing graphic whatsoever, it's basically fade to black sex, discussions of spencer's gsw from season 5, medical talk (and inaccuracies), spencer is a sarcastic little shit a/n: found this super random little thing in my drafts and it was done and i think it's silly and cute so i'm posting it! 600 words, short n sweet!

“You got shot in the knee?”

It’s perhaps said too loudly for the setting—tucked into Spencer’s bed in the late hours of the night when up until this point the conversation had been nothing but murmured stories and quiet giggles. And before that, well—before that there hadn’t been much conversation at all. 

Still you can’t find it within yourself to apologize as you sit up, holding the top sheet to your chest and looking down at Spencer incredulously. His eyebrows raise like he’s surprised by your reaction. 

“Thigh, technically. And it was years ago. Come back.”

You huff but allow yourself to be pulled back down, head on his shoulder as his hand finds its place stroking your hip once more. 

“How have you never told me that?”

“You never noticed the multiple incision scars on my leg?”

“What? No! Can I look now?”

“You won’t be able to see them. It’s too dark.”

You angle your head toward him, and he does the same, tilting his down until your noses almost brush. 

“So turn the light on.”

“If I turn the light on I’ll get distracted.”

“Distracted by what?” You ask, realizing what he means and voice quickly fading even as you finish the sentence. He chuckles and kisses your head. 

“I’ll show it to you in the morning. Come here.”

“I am here,” you grumble. He hums, leaning down further to try and kiss you. 

“Closer.”

So you scoot up the mattress and roll onto your side, pressed right against him, to meet him halfway in a sweet kiss. 

“You’re kind of spoiled,” you laugh against his lips as he begins pushing the sheet from your body. 

“You have to be nice to me. I got shot, remember?”

“Right. And how long ago was this, approximately?”

“It was 19 days before my 28th birthday.”

So much for approximations. 

“Aw. You got shot for your 28th birthday?”

It’s his turn to laugh into the kiss as he carefully rolls over you but recovers quickly, assuming a deadpan delivery. 

“Yeah. And it was really bad.”

“Sexy,” you murmur as he kisses down your jaw. “Tell me more.”

“Shots to the leg can be life-threatening if the femoral artery is nicked. Thankfully the bullet missed mine. You’re welcome.”

Your heart skips with a split second of true anxiety, but you snort at his cavalier attitude. 

“Yeah? This is really working for me.”

He lowers his voice to the one he uses in more intimate contexts and you giggle as he explains his gunshot wound to you like it’s dirty talk. 

“The bullet went in through my rectus femoris…” now uninhibited by the sheet, he finds the spot on your thigh and pinches lightly, “and came out clean through my semitendinosis muscle.”

“Clean? No bone fragments?”

“Nope. The doctors said I was extremely lucky it didn’t splinter my femur but it completely destroyed my muscles. I had to do physical therapy for a year and a half and I had a cane for months.”

“That’s kind of hot,” you breathe, losing commitment to the bit as his kisses get lower and his hand creeps higher. 

“Wait until you hear about the mid-surgery aortic clamping and ligature complications. You’ll love this—I was awake the whole time.”

A soft moan slips from between your parted lips and your brows pinch. 

“Spencer—”

“What?” He murmurs. “Me getting shot in the leg isn’t sexy anymore?”

You manage something between a breathy laugh and a mewl as your back arches. 

“I’m gonna kill you.”

He hums against your throat. 

“Good luck. You’d be far from the first to try.”

[hypothetical-strumpet]

light of the morning

in which spencer sneaks into bau!reader's hotel room and they share a little more than just the bed

18+ (smut) warnings/tags: softdom!spence x sub reader, munch!spence, unprotected piv sex (dont do that), creampie (hate that word btw) praise, mentions of having to be quiet because morgan is right next door LOL, fluffy, established co-workers/friends with benefits, soooo idiots in love a/n: here is the promised smut. i am literally kicking my feet and twirling my hair and giggling and blushing at my own writing. I'm gonna have a freak out. requests are open like my legs

It’s late when the knock finally comes. Late enough that you’re dozing on the bed above the covers. 

It takes you a moment to reorient yourself—you’re rubbing your heavy eyes when you finally get the door. 

"Hi."

"Hey," says Spencer, hands awkwardly shoved into his pajama pants pockets. It’s funny, really. He never gets any better at this. 

You step aside and he enters the room, looking around as you close and relock the door. 

"Did I wake you?"

"How could you tell?"

"You’re in pajamas. And you look tired. I mean—you don’t look bad. You never look bad, I just meant… you don’t look tired but you’re not—I didn’t mean to—"

"Relax," you yawn, putting him out of his misery. "I was joking. I know I look tired." You glance at the digital clock on the nightstand. "It’s late. We have to be up early tomorrow."

"Yeah, I got, uh, sidetracked. Sorry."

He was reading. If it was anyone else, you'd be offended--but a sinkhole could open up under Spencer's feet and he probably wouldn't notice if he was absorbed in a book.

You shrug, a knowing smile lifting the corner of your mouth. 

"It’s fine. But I don’t know if tonight is a good night. I really am exhausted."

His eyebrows dart up. 

"That’s fine. That’s totally fine. I’ll just, uh—"

When you don’t move from in front of the door, he pauses, unsure. You bite the inside of your cheek, studying his rangy frame and choice of clothing. Blue pajama pants, slippers, grey CalTech zip up hoodie. It feels wrong to describe a 6'1 man as adorable, but that’s how he looks in his sleep clothes. There’s a very real chance, you find yourself thinking, that you are the only member of the BAU to ever see him in something other than slacks and a button-down. He looks so cozy that you kind of really want him in your bed even if he’s not doing anything but sleeping. The invitation slips out before you can think too hard about it. 

"You could… stay, anyway, if you want?"

His mouth parts slightly, and those eyebrows raise again. There’s a moment of awkward silence and you are very much beginning to regret your offer, wondering if you somehow violated the sanctity of your co-workers/friends with benefits situtationship. Clumsily you try to backtrack. 

"Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, you can—"

"No, no! You didn’t, I just don’t want you to feel obligated to invite me to stay in your room. I’m right across the hall, I can go back if you want me to."

You smile awkwardly, silent relief replacing the brief anxiety. 

"It’s fine. It’s not like we haven’t shared a bed before." And not like you wouldn’t have ended up doing it tonight anyway, if things had gone as originally intended.

He chuckles, looking to the floor and nodding. The blush on his face does not go unnoticed by you. "Fair enough."

It’s incredibly endearing how nervous he still gets after six months of this little arrangement. 

"Do you wanna get your stuff, or…"

"No, that’s okay. I’ll just go back early tomorrow. The chances of someone seeing me leave your room are significantly higher if I do it so soon after entering."

You squint, unable to tell if he’s fucking with you or if that’s an actual statistically sound probability. And then you realize, blissfully, that you don’t really care. 

"Okay, well. Make yourself comfortable. I’m just going to brush my teeth."

Once you’re enclosed in the bathroom, hotel vanity lights blinding you as you brush, you find that there is a jittery sort of apprehension buzzing in your chest. But that’s silly. As you yourself pointed out, the two of you have shared a bed many times over the past few months. But the sleeping together is always a byproduct of the sleeping together. Never have you shared a bed in a completely decent, virtuous, strictly non-sexual manner. It’s always been a matter of convenience—less bother if he doesn’t have to worry about sneaking back into his room in the middle of the night when you’re both exhausted. Or maybe that’s just what you’ve been telling yourselves. 

You rinse your mouth out and exit the bathroom, flicking off the light and finding that Spencer has indeed made himself comfortable. The hotel room is dark and he’s already under the covers, fiddling with his phone. 

"What time should I set the alarm for?" He asks, looking over at you as you crawl into bed, drawing the covers over yourself. "I was thinking 6:23. That should give me enough time to—"

"Sounds perfect," you affirm, wiggling under the blanket as you get comfortable. He schedules the alarm and sets his phone on the bedside table, dousing the room in complete darkness. Your eyes stay open despite, waiting for them to adjust. A few moments of utter silence and stillness pass, and you can tell Spencer is completely stiff next to you. 

"Spencer."

“Yeah,” he answers immediately. Like he’s even more wired about this whole situation than you are. 

"You know you don’t have to avoid touching me at all costs, right? I’m not a leper."

He looses a nervous laugh. 

"I know. We’ve just never really done this."

You frown at the darkness.

"We’ve definitely slept in the same bed before."

"Yeah, but… this feels different."

That, you can’t argue with. Can friends with benefits share a bed just to be near each other? Does that blur some line? And why does it feel more intimate than the sex? 

Screw it. If there is one thing you don’t want your relationship with Spencer to be, it is uncomfortable. Uncertain, you can work with. But not uncomfortable. You reach for him, hand sliding under the duvet—and find his hand already waiting for yours. 

"I don’t think it’s that different," you lie, interlacing your fingers together slowly. 

"Prolonged physical non-sexual contact does have measurable health benefits…" the words are murmured, like the moment is fragile and he doesn’t want to shatter it. 

"Can’t argue with the facts," you breathe, trying to modulate the shakiness of your voice. But you have a feeling you’re doing about as good of a job at concealing your nerves as he is. He shifts.

"Can I…"

"Yeah."

Your heart is pounding as he slips one arm under your neck and the other around your waist, pulling you close. Instinctually you curl into him, slinging your top leg over him as you’ve done before, but always dismissed as post-sex brain chemicals making you feel all warm and fuzzy. A neurological reaction that is so solidly scientific, neither of you ever questioned it. But it feels bigger now. 

He exhales as you settle against each other—a sound of relief that mirrors your own. He’s so warm, so safe as he envelops you, physically and sensorially. In such close proximity, so clear-headed, you notice each layer of his scent. Toothpaste, lavender, vetiver, detergent. You sort of feel like a creep, but you can’t deny how comforting it is. Nor can you deny the pirouette your heart does when he begins minutely rubbing your back, like he’s not even thinking about it. 

"Goodnight," you whisper into his shirt. 

"Goodnight," he whispers back. 

You fall asleep pretty quickly after that. 

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

It’s unclear what wakes you up—maybe it’s the blue-grey dawn light filtering in through the filthy window (doubtful, it’s still mostly dark) or maybe it’s the blinking green digital clock on the nightstand. 5:02 AM. Your alarm will go off in an hour and 21 minutes.

Sometime in the night you shifted, turning over in your sleep, but Spencer is still holding you close. The arm slung so casually over your waist is slightly domineering, but you manage to rotate again and face him once more. Mere inches away from his face you can see every detail. His expression is so peaceful, it makes your heart ache. 

But you’re just friends. 

Perhaps he felt you moving, because his eyes flutter open and you watch as they flood with consciousness. He takes you in, takes in his arm over your waist. For a split second you’re nervous he’ll pull away. 

"What time is it?" His voice is scratchy with sleep. 

"Five."

"Why are you awake? We have over an hour til the alarm goes off."

"Sometimes waking up early is okay."

His eyes flicker between your own, and momentarily you’re paralyzed as you realize this is a limbo state for the two of you in which you’ve never operated. You don’t know what’s acceptable. You don’t know what to do. Being close to him feels so good, that the idea of separating hurts. But you don’t want to make him uncomfortable, or—

He leans forward and kisses you softly. In the blue light of dawn, rather than frenzied and hidden in the dark, a desperate tear of clothes and teeth and hands—it’s almost freeing. All the anxiety you were feeling just seconds ago begins to melt. 

Friends. 

"You looked anxious," is his whispered answer after he pulls away a moment later, like a kiss is the simplest remedy in the world. He brushes a lock of hair behind your ear. "We should go back to sleep."

"I don’t want to go back to sleep."

The corner of his mouth twitches as he studies you.  

"No? What do you want?"

Emboldened by your mutual indiscretion, it’s your turn to kiss him. You feel him smile against your lips, hand finding the back of your neck and raking up through your hair to pull you closer. 

The delirium of sleep seems to have softened you, filed down the rough edges of your boundaries and kicked away the lines in the sand. What’s a kiss or two when you’ve just woken up? A small, innocuous display of affection while you’re still barely conscious. Nobody could fault either of you for that. People don’t think clearly when they’ve just been asleep.

So what if your lips part against his, and his other hand finds its way under your shirt to stroke the bare skin of your waist and hips? So what if you hitch that leg over him again and press closer?

Spencer breaks the kiss, still ghosting over your lips. 

"I thought it wasn’t a good night?"

"It’s not night time anymore, is it, genius?"

You sneak another kiss, nipping his bottom lip gently as you pull away. 

Instead of whatever array of responses you were expecting, Spencer smiles slightly, eyes almost sparkling in the faint light. The hand on your hip moves to your face, gently thumbing across your cheek. He begins to say something, and stops himself—biting his lip to hold back the words. 

"What?" you ask, heart dropping. Illusion fracturing. 

"I was just—" he begins, pausing for a moment before the words all come out in a rush. "I was just going to tell you how beautiful you are, but I don’t know if that’s something I should say, or if it would feel too… I don’t know…"

He trails off. A rare instance in which he doesn’t have the words. 

You do. Intimate. Real. Romantic. And he’s right, it does feel too much like all of those things. But that doesn’t mean you don’t like it, perhaps more than is strictly good for you. 

"It’s fine. Thank you."

He continues chewing on his lip for a moment. 

"Did I just ruin the mood?"

"No," you laugh, "not at all."

"Thank god," he sighs, surging forward again. 

"Since when do you thank god?" You manage between kisses. 

He moves to press his lips to your jaw and down your neck. 

"Do you want me to talk about the historical and cultural transition of religious expressions into ubiquitous secular colloquialisms right now?"

"Kind of," you breathe.

"No you don’t," he murmurs against your neck as his hands find the hem of your shirt. "You want me to take your clothes off."

Well, he’s not wrong there. 

You help him tug the shirt over your head before leaning back into the pillows as he situates himself over you and lavishes more kisses down your neck and collarbones, pausing to suck a mark only when he knows it’s low enough to be covered by your clothing later. 

You gasp when his lips brush over your nipple, before running his tongue over the sensitive skin. He glances up at you, and though his mouth is occupied, you can see the humor in his eyes. He loves how sensitive you are—how easy it is to get a reaction out of you. 

Of course, you continue to prove him right when he takes the other into his mouth, trying to hold back your little whimpers as he darts his tongue over the peak. Maybe somebody else wouldn’t hear them, but Spencer does. He’s hyper attuned to the sounds you make. Something of a catalogue has begun to form in the back of his mind; he knows exactly what each noise means and how to get them out of you. 

Once satisfied, he moves to press a kiss to your sternum. 

"You’re gonna be quiet for me, right?" Another kiss above your bellybutton. "Because Morgan is sleeping right on the other side of that wall, and we don’t want to wake him up."

"I’ll be quiet," you promise, somewhat breathlessly. Spencer’s mouth trails lower until he’s pulling your shorts down your legs, leaving you completely naked. He tosses them somewhere on the floor and hooks your legs over his shoulders. 

"Good." He plants one last kiss to your thigh and the next one lands right between your legs. 

You regret the need to be silent almost as soon as he drags his tongue over your clit. It’s not like the two of you have ever had the privilege of making a lot of noise, as the hotel rooms are always so close to each other, but it doesn’t make it any easier. 

Instead you opt to rake your hands through his hair and try to take deep breaths. But he knows exactly what you like—he knows starting light and slow, teasing around your most sensitive spot will work you up to the brink of insanity, just like he knows gentle circles make your back arch and elicit the prettiest little moans. 

"More," you beg, and the hands wrapped around your thighs rub soothingly, reassuring you that if you can just be patient you’ll get what you want. 

He takes your aching clit into his mouth, sucking lightly and you’re forced to clap a hand over your mouth, muffling the sob of pleasure you can’t hold back. Spencer keeps it up until you’re practically riding his face, teasing your dripping entrance with the tip of his tongue when you get too close. 

"Fuck, please, Spence," you whisper through your fingers, hips rutting in your desperation. Somehow it always ends up like this—with him in charge and you begging. Not that you have a problem with it, of course. 

He hums into you, and if the way his tongue moves back to circling your clit with newfound fervor is any indication, is apparently satisfied with your entreaty. 

You gasp and try to control your breathy moans, but his mouth feels so good on you that your vision is going out and you’re losing touch with reality ever so slightly. You use the last of your brain power to bite down on the back of your wrist, hoping it adequately muffles the noises you make as you come on Spencer’s tongue and he greedily continues lapping at you. There’s really no way of knowing—your ears are ringing anyway. 

When you come to a moment later he’s peppering kisses on your thighs, rubbing your hips gently. 

"So pretty," he murmurs, climbing back up so your lips can meet again. "Everything about you is pretty."

You paw at his shirt, signaling that you want it off as you moan at the taste of yourself on his tongue, feel your slippery arousal staining the kiss. Spencer helps you, sitting up briefly to unzip his hoodie and pull off his shirt. 

You’re the one to drag him back down, and you notice that he pulls the covers back over the both of you in a sweet gesture he probably didn’t even think about. 

"Need you to fuck me," you beg, reaching down to try and undress him further. 

"So crude. What happened to my nice, sweet girl?" He mumbles against your neck, but helps you with his pants anyway. 

"You must have me confused with someone else."

"Doubtful."

You don’t have much time to consider what that could mean before he’s running the head of his cock over your clit and you’re gasping into his mouth, saying please like it’s the only word you know. 

"There she is," Spencer croons, slipping inside you slow enough for you to feel every inch but quick enough for it to expel all the air from your lungs. Once he’s opened you all the way up, impossibly deep and close, you’re seeing stars, barely breathing. His head has dropped to your shoulder but now he drags his lips up your neck and jaw. "We okay?"

It’s been a while, you realize, since that last case in Maine. He always takes some getting used to. Hardly able to think around the pressure of his cock you nod, trying to string together a few words. 

"Fuck, I need a second." The words come out choked, but you manage. Spencer rubs your hip, his lips brushing yours as he speaks. 

"Relax, sweetheart. I don’t want to hurt you."

He curses to himself, dropping his head momentarily. You’re so fucking soft, and warm, and perfect, he can’t think straight. But he has to try because he has to take care of you. 

"Spence," you gasp, failing to verbally communicate the intensity of the physical sensation. 

"I know, baby," comes his sympathetic coo. "You know you can take me. Deep breaths."

"Mhm," you squeak, trying to take follow his directions and soften your muscles. Spencer keeps rubbing soothingly over your hips, stomach, whatever he can get his hands on, really, pressing kisses all over your face and telling you how good you are, how perfect you feel for him. After a few moments he feels you fluttering around him and experimentally pulls out halfway, before pushing back in equally as slowly. Your jaw drops as he begins to leisurely fuck you, arms wrapping around his back. He gets deeper than you expect every time, rubbing you raw and stretching you out in the most delicious way. 

"Perfect, baby. Such a good listener, did exactly what I asked."

You cry out when he begins fucking you impossibly deeper, but still so slow and sweet.

"You feel so fucking good for me," he groans. "This is what you were made for, huh?" You agree enthusiastically, eyes fluttering shut. 

"Only for you."

Just three words—but he wasn’t expecting to like hearing you say that as much as he does. A strong desire to possess you overtakes him—one that he’ll probably have the decency to feel guilty about later, but for now feels fucking fantastic and intoxicating. 

"Only me?"

You moan an affirmation. 

"Good. I don’t want anyone else fucking you, do you understand me?"

"Yes!"

"I’m the only one who gets to touch you," he breathes, speeding up ever so slightly, "nobody else is going to feel you like this. Such a good girl, spreading her legs for me at five in the fucking morning. You’re not doing this for anybody else, baby."

"Uh-uh, please, pleasepleaseplease Spence—"

He knows what you need, reaching a hand down between your bodies to rub your clit. 

You gasp an airy, high pitched curse, hips twitching but unable to escape the near-punishing rhythm of his own. It’s obvious that your orgasm is close, but you can’t even warn him, too overwhelmed with pleasure. He kisses you, swallowing your moans that have probably become just a bit too loud given the whole hotel thing. 

No words are exchanged between the two of you as you near the finish line for a change, open mouths slipping against each others in what is too messy to be called a kiss. Your orgasm body-slams you, a choked silent scream as you tighten around Spencer and he seems to come at nearly the exact same moment—deep inside you, slowly rolling his hips in a few more strong thrusts as he finishes. 

You let out a delayed moan at the sensation of being filled up, still pulsing around him as he comes to a halt, buried inside of you. He drops his head to your neck, and you can feel each breath against your flushed skin. Other than the panting, you’re both silent for a while. Spencer seems to gather himself sooner than you do, finally breaking the quiet. 

"You okay?"

All you can manage is a little squeak, at which he looses a breathy chuckle. His hand slides to your hip, gently stroking the skin with a thumb. 

"Need your words, angel girl."

"I’m okay," you coo into his shoulder, but he has to strain to hear it above his own breathing. 

"Yeah? Why so quiet?"

But it seems that at least for the moment, he’s gotten all the words he can out of you. When he tries to move, you whimper indignantly, clutching onto him tighter. 

"I really did a number on you this time, huh?" He laughs when you nod into him. "Are you falling asleep?"

"Mhm," you hum dreamily, little puffs of warm air slowing against his neck. 

"You can have…" he cranes his head to check the digital clock, "48 minutes."

"An hour."

He settles his weight on you once more, pressing a chaste kiss to your throat. His voice is low and gentle as he admonishes you. 

"I said 48 minutes."

But it doesn’t matter—you’re already asleep, or close enough to it. Spencer takes the opportunity to shift you to your side, and the way you wrap around him like a vine even unconsciously makes his heart ache. He really should go now—the earlier he gets out of your room the less likely certain complications will arise—but how can he possibly leave you like this? A vulnerable, dreamy girl with tangled hair haloing around her on the pillow case, clinging to him with blind trust that he’ll watch over her as she sleeps? No—there’s no way he’s leaving yet. Instead, he brings you closer. 48 perfect minutes will go by far too quickly, he’s sure. 

[hypothetical-strumpet]

in the dead of night

in which spencer wakes up in the middle of the night with an overwhelming desire to feel you

18+ (smut) warnings/tags: fem!reader, soft dom!spence (certified nereidprinc3ss classic), sub reader, fingering, piv sex, praise, overstimulation, cr**mp*e (god pls we need a new term) a/n: this is probably THEE most self-indulgent thing i've ever written. but.... lowkey favorite smut i've posted thus far..... i'm such a sucker for disgustingly sleepy needy sex. just.... read it and u will see.... and as usual i love you!!! PLEASE tell me what you think!! MWAH

When Spencer got home around one in the morning, he’d been too dead on his feet to do anything more than get undressed, fall into bed, pull you close, and pass out. Now he’s slightly disoriented as he stirs, pinned between sleep and wakefulness as he realizes how you’ve curled into his side—your face is buried in his shoulder to the point where he’s concerned about your access to air—but each warm puff against his neck assures him you’re breathing alright. One arm is slung haphazardly over his shoulder and your top leg is wound around his. Without thinking, his hand cups the back of your thigh, stroking the bare skin where it presses against his hip. You’re never so soft as you are in sleep; plush, easy, gentle. Spencer realizes with some degree of frustration that he has to fuck you. That’s why he’s awake, and he condemned himself to the fate of it as soon as he touched you. 

Sometimes the impracticality of sex becomes so apparent he resents his own mammalian, biological drive to reproduce. It was never like this before he met you. You reduce him to nothing more than a primate doomed to follow its basest instincts. You make him feel stupid. 

God, he loves you. 

It’s with this in mind he drops his head to kiss your shoulder—a gentle sort of wake up call, as his hand snakes further around to your inner thigh and he presses his lips to your ear. 

“Baby?” he murmurs, kneading the smooth warmth of your leg. It doesn’t take much to wake you up. He thought after you’d been staying at his apartment on a semi-regular basis you’d begin to sleep through him getting up and coming home at odd hours, but if anything, you became more sensitive to the floor creaking or the mattress dipping. 

“Hm?” 

His fingers brush the fabric of your underwear. Your hips twitch. 

“Is this okay?”

You inhale deeply, readjusting your arms around him and nodding into his chest. 

“I need yes or no, angel.”

“Yes, please.”

The words aren’t desperate. They’re sleepy, mumbled, maybe even a little annoyed that he’s making you jump through hoops. The corner of his mouth twists in amusement at your perfunctory politeness and the way it poorly disguises your habitual impatience. 

“Thank you,” he says, rewarding you with his fingers pushing between your folds through the fabric. You say nothing more as he unhurriedly rubs your clothed clit, but he feels the way your breath catches for a moment—before pouring out in one deep tide. He presses slightly harder, transitioning from passes to slow, tight circles that elicit the tiniest, sleepiest moans. This goes on for a while until your hips begin grinding in isolated circles, chasing his hand. 

“Touch it,” you beg quietly. He can feel how damp you are through the fabric and realizes he was probably torturing you for several minutes, but sometimes he just gets so lost in touching you it becomes almost meditative. He pulls his hand away and snakes it between your bodies, sliding beneath your underwear and dragging his fingers over your puffy clit. You whimper but he quickly gets distracted when he realizes just how wet you actually are. Spencer sinks his fingers into you and moans lowly at the sound, rubbing at a spot deep inside you and rutting his palm against your clit rather than pumping his fingers. 

“Breathe,” he reminds you when he realizes how still and silent you’ve gone. A small amount of air escapes in a tremulous little cry as your hips roll gently against his hand—whether to escape the sensation or get closer is unclear. “You’re all wet, baby. Were you touching yourself before I got home?”

“Mhm,” you hum weakly against him. “Couldn’t come.”

Spencer feels like he could finish at the thought alone—the nightly phone calls while he’s away occasionally devolve into desperate phone sex and he’s gotten off to the image of you playing with yourself in his bed on more than one occasion. 

“We’ll make you come,” he promises, dragging his fingers from your soaked heat with bated breath. 

He pushes your underwear down first, until you can kick it off your feet (you’ll have to search for it between tangled sheets tomorrow) and then his own, inhaling sharply through clenched teeth as his cock brushes your tummy. Spencer hoists your bent leg further up his body, exposing your cunt a little more and reaching underneath your thigh until he can guide himself between them. 

The head of his cock pushes between your folds momentarily before he’s teasing your swollen clit, slipping the underside of his tip over it in lazy, noisy circles until you whine. 

“Stop it,” you beg, voice still strained with sleep, “need it inside.”

“You’re right, baby, I’m sorry,” he croons, pressing his lips to your hair as he notches his cock at your dripping entrance and slowly begins to push in. “You’re being very patient—”

He cuts himself off as the two of you moan in filthy harmony. You’re so worked up for him, so defenseless in your half-unconscious state that he slips in with far less resistance than usual. 

“Fuck, me,” he groans under his breath, hissing and bucking his hips when you tighten around him and cry out. He shuts his eyes and thinks of the Goncharov conjecture in an attempt to control himself; the i-th cohomology of the complex is isomorphic to the motivic cohomology group—and then he’s fine. He’s at least learned to stop rattling off mathematical paradoxes out loud during sex. “You okay?”

The only answer you have for him is an indecipherable whine that makes his chest ache. He rubs your thigh in sweet, soothing passes. 

“I know, I’m sorry.” A thought occurs—he chuckles breathily, seeing stars as you throb around him. “You never let me in that easily.”

“Mm,” you squeak, gripping his shoulder hard enough that it aches and he truly couldn’t care less, “you feel good.”

He exhales shakily, pulling out slightly before grinding his hips even deeper into yours. 

“Yeah? So do you, sweet girl.”

“Fuck,” you whimper, and he takes it as a sign that you’re ready to be fucked. Spencer’s not thinking about a whole lot as he withdraws all the way and you clench around him desperately—but somewhere in the back of his mind he’s realizing how much he loves your dirty mouth. When he was younger and dumber, he thought he’d prefer a girl who was soft-spoken and rarely (if ever) cursed. Now that he’s had you, he realizes how compelling and endearing the contrast of your soft voice is when you’re swearing like a marine. 

“God, I missed you,” he breathes into your hair as he leisurely finds the right pace and you melt against him. “I missed how soft and wet you get for me,” Spencer admits gently, eyes screwed shut as he rambles from a place of profound affection and not at all thinking clearly, “and I missed how you cry when you need it so bad it hurts, and I missed how sweet you are when you let me fuck you right after I get home and you’re so tired, just like this. You’re always so good, honey, I don’t know what I did to deserve you—” You whine and clench so hard around him it becomes an effort to push back in, and he groans as he realizes you’re already coming. “Good girl, baby. Holy fuck.”

That last part is more so whispered to himself, but he can’t help it as he feels you painting his cock with your release. You’ve never come this quickly before, and he slips his arm beneath the crook of your knee, pulling up and granting himself more access to fuck you harder and faster. You moan brokenly, sinking your nails into his back. 

“‘m sorry. That was—I didn’t mean to.”

“No,” he quickly assures you, breathing hard, “that was so good, baby. It was perfect. Don’t apologize.”

It seems the brief window between climax and over-stimulation has passed, and a gasp falls from your dropped jaw, arching into him as your body unconsciously tries to find relief from the sensation. 

“Oh, god, Spencer, I—”

“You can take it, we’re getting close,” he promises. Not a demand, but meant as encouragement. “Do you think you can come for me one more time?”

“I don’t know,” you slur, the words rising to squeak. 

“I think you can. Come on, show me how you were touching yourself earlier.”

You whimper, but slide your hand from his shoulder and push it between your bodies. A gasp accompanies the jolt of your muscles as you make contact with your clit, probably demanding too much of it. Soon, however, the conflicted mewls melt into a rhythmic string of delicate, short moans, so pretty it’s like a practiced song. Spencer’s brain, usually overflowing with words, is nothing but a void of swirling fog—each of your perfect sounds, a little burst of light. Soon he’s making noises of his own, which you obviously adore if the way you tense around him is any clue. Usually he sublimates them into words, but he’s too tired, and you feel too good. Your combined moans, along with the sound of him fucking you and the sheets moving over skin make for a truly dirty soundscape. 

“Will you come inside me?” you beg breathlessly, and he can feel the movement of your hand speeding up as you get desperate. He sucks in a breath through his teeth at your plaintive request—the words bring him that much closer to finishing. 

“Yeah, baby. I’m—fuck, I’m not going to last.”

“Spencer—” and somehow, when you say his name like that, he knows exactly what you want. He bows his head and finds your lips, mostly blind in the dark, kissing you messily until that split second where his grip on reality becomes tenuous before the building pressure finally bursts. Multicolored fireworks explode behind his eyes as he moans against your lips and continues fucking you through his orgasm in strong thrusts for as long as he can. Thankfully you finish again just as he’s running out of steam. He rubs the spasming muscles of your thigh deeply as you writhe against him in your typical push-pull style—you don’t know what you want and it’s his job to hold you still and make you take it. After a moment you quiet down, stilling in his arms except for the continued expansion and contraction of your lungs. “Oh my god,” you breathe. “I can’t believe I did that. That’s so embarrassing.” Spencer chuckles breathily—kisses your forehead with his eyes still shut and slips a hand under your shirt to rub your back. 

“Why is it embarrassing? I liked it.”

“I have never—it’s never been so fast! It’s not supposed to be!”

“Why not?”

You huff.

“You’re the man. Men come too quickly. Not me.”

“I’m sorry you had to have two orgasms instead of one. Next time we’ll make sure you don’t come so we can even it out.”

You bury your face in his shoulder once more, immediately softening. 

“No! I take it back.”

“I thought you might.” His hand slides down your back, squeezing your ass affectionately. “Let's rally. We need to clean you up, angel.”

The pillow muffles your voice as you say, “I can’t. I’m asleep.”

“Can I record you saying that for playback in the morning when you ask me why I let you go to sleep with my come inside of you?”

“Spencer, I am seriously not moving. You woke me up. This is not a me problem.”

That makes him laugh, and he presses his lips to yours softly. After a long moment of his mouth moving slowly against yours, a needy little whine rushes from your nose, and it becomes evident he’s successfully kissed the attitude from you.

“You were so good, honey,” he murmurs against your lips. Another (shorter) kiss. “Did so well. I’m proud of you, baby.”

A second soft whimper from you as you chase his lips and he gives in once, briefly—knowing he can’t make you get up after this. How could he do that to such a sweet girl when she’s obviously completely exhausted? Jesus, you have him whipped. He recognizes that. And he made peace with it a long time ago. 

“Go back to sleep. I’ll clean you up.”

“Thank you,” you mumble, already slipping back into unconsciousness like you knew you’d get your way. Knowing your boyfriend, you probably did. “I love you.”

“I love you. Even though you’re a princess.”

You laugh. 

Ten-ish minutes later, once he’s done the best he can cleaning you up and is throwing the covers back over both of you, you startle him slightly by speaking. He thought you’d been asleep. 

“I don’t know what I did to deserve you,” you sigh dreamily, snaking your arms around him once more. Spencer’s cheeks heat up at the memory of the praise he’d shamelessly lavished upon you not long ago. He’s glad you’re barely awake, because he’s too flustered to think of a response. 

He loves it when you do that. 

[hypothetical-strumpet]

be my angel

in which BAU fem!reader was injured on the job, but is refusing painkillers at the hospital. spencer thinks he knows why.

fluff (+a little angst) warnings/tags: established relationship, hospital stuff, reader got beat up by an unsub, discussions of spencer's past addiction, mentions of period cramps, reader ends up being administered some sort of painkiller a/n: another draft i found in my literal hundreds of pages of abandoned wips and fixed up cause it's cute, I hope you like!!!

Spencer is tearing through the hospital. They all keep saying you’re going to be okay, but what does that even mean? Why is nobody telling him anything? He’s not even sure he heard what the orderly at the front desk said, but his feet are carrying him with a strident purpose through the winding white halls, so he has to assume he at least subconsciously knows where he’s going. 

Finally he spots Penelope, a beacon in her candy-colored clothing, speaking to a doctor in hushed tones. Penelope sees him approaching and turns away from the doctor, looking harried and exhausted. 

“Is she okay? What happened?” Spencer demands, before either of the others can say a word. 

“She’s okay,” the doctor assures. “She was beat up pretty bad—concussion, broken ribs, some bruising that looks worse than it is. There was a clean shot through her arm, but—” 

His blood runs cold. Nobody told him you were shot. Why had nobody told him you were shot? 

“I need to see her.” 

The doctor frowns, glancing between the two agents. 

“I’m sorry, are you her spouse?” 

“Yes. No, not yet, I just—I need to see her, please. Now.” 

“Sir, unless she—” 

“Just let him see her!” Penelope practically yells. “She wants him here, believe me.”  

The doctor clenches her jaw and scribbles something on her clipboard. 

“Okay. Maybe you can try to convince her to accept some painkillers.” 

Spencer’s frown deepens. 

“She’s refusing pain management?” 

“We gave her as much ibuprofen as we could, but she refused anything stronger than that. She has to be in a lot of pain right now, and there’s no background of addiction.” 

“I’ll talk to her,” Spencer says, already twisting the silver door handle. He has a sneaking suspicion as to why you denied pain treatment, and it makes him feel incredibly guilty. More than he already did, after this entire debacle. 

The sight of you, bloodied and bruised and obviously suffering has his heart splintering right down the middle. Whatever meager semblance of a smile he can scrounge up and offer is reflected back to him on you—which only makes him feel worse. As always, you’re putting on a brave face. 

“Hey,” Spencer says quietly as he closes the door behind him. 

“Hi,” you croak. “How do I look?” 

He approaches, sitting on the edge of the bed and pushing your hair away from your face. 

“How do you feel? The doctor told me you wouldn’t accept pain medication,” he murmurs. 

You sniff. 

“I feel okay. Did she tell you it’s not as bad as it looks?” 

But your voice is so small, so wavery and weak, that he knows you’re lying. 

“Sweetheart...” 

You’ve been holding it together since the unsub beat you nearly unconscious. You held it together as he ran away, even got a couple shots in before he turned around and returned fire. You held it together while you sat against the dirty truck, bleeding out, not sure if your team was coming, and you held it together in the ambulance, and for the past thirty minutes in this hospital bed. But all it takes is one gentle word from Spencer, with that concerned, solicitous look in his eye, and the floodgates are opening. Tears spring up in your eyes and begin silently falling down your dirtied cheeks. 

“It’s okay!” you attempt to reassure him, affecting cheeriness even through the tears. “It doesn’t hurt. I’m fine!” 

He says your name soft and low and he tries his best to keep his tone even though he is liable to burst into tears or start yelling at someone (not you) at any minute.  

“I know that’s not true. You have broken ribs and a gunshot wound. I know how badly it hurts to breathe and how it feels every time you move your arm. That is too much damage for over-the-counter anti-inflammatories. You need real analgesics.” 

“I don’t,” you whisper. Your teary eyes make his whole body ache. He squeezes your hand—the one that’s not connected to the wounded arm. 

“Because of me?” You stare at him blankly, as if you’re shocked he was able to put two and two together. “I promise you don’t need to worry about that.” 

You sniffle. 

“But what if—what if they give me the drugs and I get all weird and it’s, it’s like... triggering for you, or something?” 

“It’s been a really long time since I’ve worried about that. I’d rather see you a little tired and out of it than in extreme pain and trying to pretend you’re not. You getting the pain relief you need in a medical emergency is not going to make me relapse.” 

“But I really think I could go without,” you begin, voice already tightening around a cry. “I’ve—I’ve had period cramps that were worse than this.” 

Despite himself, he chuckles. Goes back to stroking your hair. 

The laughter fades quickly. All the pain you’re in is so evident in your eyes. The dissociative glassiness, the tension around them, the bloodshot quality—he's seen it many times before, and he hates it on you. 

“Will you please tell them you’re ready to take something? They won’t give you Dilaudid. It’s too strong. They’ll give you something that I’d have no interest in anyway.” 

“Not funny,” you whisper. 

He ignores this. 

“Will you let me call the doctor back in?” 

You take a deep, shuddering breath—or at least, you try to, before you’re loosing a sharp squeak that deteriorates into a little sob. The ribs. 

Spencer doesn’t bother asking again, just gets up and begins to walk away as efficiently as his legs will carry him. You need painkillers and he thinks it might be fastest to just fetch the doctor or a nurse from the hallway. 

“Wait,” you plead.  

He stops. Reminds himself that you need him right now—not his medical opinions. Spencer turns back around and approaches again, crouching by your bedside this time. 

“What, honey?” 

“I don’t...” 

You trail off, overcome by something like fear in the width and shine and nervous dart of your eyes. Spencer knows, everybody at the BAU knows, that showing fear to a serial killer will get you killed that much quicker. During your time alone with the unsub, which is a can of worms Spencer literally cannot psychologically open right now, you had to put on your bravest face. Even while you were being beaten within an inch of your life. Even when you thought you were going to die, alone, and that your team—that Spencer—wasn't coming back for you. Because that’s the kind of thing you have to do to cope when you’re at rock bottom. But you were terrified. Petrified. That doesn’t just go away—and Spencer knows it’ll be bumping against the surface until it finds a way out.  

He has to remember that just because you look unafraid and you act unafraid doesn’t mean you aren’t. 

“You were so brave,” he manages after he’s sure he can say it without incident, swiping moisture from your cheek. “You did everything exactly right.” 

“I know,” you whisper, chin trembling. Spencer knows you, and he knows this kind of trauma well enough to know that you’re thinking, I did everything exactly right, and it wasn’t enough. I did everything exactly right and this is what I have to show for it. 

“But nobody needs you to act like it wasn’t hard, okay? You don’t need to pretend like it doesn’t hurt. You were so, so brave, angel. You don’t have to be brave anymore.” 

Your eyes squeeze shut, sending a new wash of tears over your tacky cheeks. A few moments pass. You say nothing. He hopes you’re not going to hide away inside yourself like he did. 

“Will you please, please, let me get the doctor?” 

At least this time you don’t immediately say no. 

“Will you come right back?” 

“Of course.” 

Finally, you nod your hesitant assent, and Spencer presses a careful kiss to your forehead. 

A few minutes later, the doctor—who was shocked that Spencer was able to so quickly change your very made-up mind—is back, and so is Spencer. It only takes a moment for them to determine the best course of action for you and soon the fist around his heart is loosening its grip as he watches some of the agony melting from your eyes. 

“Better?” he murmurs as the nurse who’d administered the drugs leaves, fanning his thumb over the underside of your wrist. You nod, already appearing sleepy. 

“Can you lie down with me?” 

He smiles at the way your words slip against each other, simply relieved that you’re able to relax and no longer in extreme pain. 

“Hospital beds aren’t rated for two people.” 

“Spencer.” 

It’s enough for him to climb onto the bed—not that he was ever going to deny you what you wanted to begin with. The fit isn’t exactly perfect—he's a bit too long and combined the two of you are just slightly too wide—but with some finagling it’s comfortable enough. Spencer has slipped his arm underneath you and your head is on his shoulder and he’s so glad to have you in his arms and so grateful that you’re okay he does something almost like praying in his head as he kisses your hair. 

“Hey. Ask me about my bruises.” 

“Why? Do they still hurt?” 

“You should see the other guy.” 

It’s dumb and it doesn’t make sense because you didn’t bother waiting for him to actually set the joke up—but he smiles dryly nonetheless. 

“Can you please give me... I don’t know, 36 hours before you start making jokes about almost dying?” 

“Clock starts now.” 

“Thank you.” He feels your lips curve into a half-conscious smile against his neck. It’s a wonderful feeling. “How are your ribs? Breathing feels okay?” 

“Mhm. Love breathing.” 

“Mhm. And your arm?” 

“Like I got shot.” 

“Well, that’s pretty much unavoidable. But not as bad as before, right?” 

“Right. Spencer?” 

“What, my love?” 

A little pleased puff of air warms his shoulder. He carefully rubs your hip. 

“Will you tell me how brave I was again?” 

He takes a silent, very deep breath.  

“You were incredibly brave. And smart, too. I’m really proud of you for how you handled that situation. I’m so sorry you had to go through that, but I don’t think anyone could have handled it better. Especially when you chose to stay put by the truck, instead of chase him. I know that wasn’t what you wanted to do, but it was the right choice.” 

“I thought you guys maybe weren’t coming,” you murmur, no hint of sadness in your smushed, flat voice—like you’re barely awake. “I waited half an hour and I thought you weren’t gonna find me.” 

“Angel, I will always find you. We didn’t stop looking even once, as soon as we noticed you were gone. I’m just sorry I wasn’t with Emily and Rossi when they got to you.” 

“’Nelope told me... she told me you got really angry and scary.” 

He stares at the ceiling and considers this. 

“I could see... how what I was feeling would be interpreted that way. I was pretty angry. But not at Penelope or any of them. I was mostly just scared.” 

“I’m sorry I scared you,” you whisper. “And I’m sorry if I made you mad.” 

“You did not. I wasn’t mad at you. And it’s not your fault that I got scared. You were just trying to do your job. None of this is your fault.” 

“She also said that you said fuck like... three times.” 

“Mm... doesn’t sound like me,” he evades. You giggle, and the sound is more a relief than any drug he could take.

“No, seriously, I’m so mad I missed it. I love hearing you swear. Tell me what you said—and you have to cause I’m all messed up so I get whatever I want.” 

He sighs in mock annoyance. 

“Well, she’s wrong. I only said fuck once. I used fucking as an intensifier twice.” 

You hum. 

“Sexy.” 

“Alright,” Spencer laughs, flushing as he moves his hand to your shoulder. “Go to sleep before I tell them to up your dosage, weirdo.” 

[hypothetical-strumpet]

Love You More

As newlyweds, you and Spencer can’t hold back the urges of wanting each other at all times [ 6k ]

Includes female reader; husband Spencer, kinda unit chief Spencer if you’d like; smut (+18): phone sex; p in v unprotected sex; breeding kink; reader is loud and talkative; (and so is he); a bit rough but still sweet and domestic and fluffy bc am who I am; multiple orgasms; after care; discussing baby names; brief infertility talk; Diana and reader are besties. did I mention how domestic this is?

Totally self indulgent but also this is my appreciation post to the lovely @reidgif thank you Eva for always blessing us with the best Spence gifs to ever exist <33 we love you and appreciate you tons mwaahhh💋

A framed picture of you sat on his desk.

Your happiness radiated through and made him smile every time he looked at it, taking him back to that day so vividly—when he asked you to be his girlfriend, three years ago. You’d captured that moment on your phone without him noticing. (He rarely noticed anything around him when he was with you). It was the hug right after you said yes to his question—chin tucked over his shoulder and your smile slightly covered by a few pieces of his hair that flowed with the salty beach breeze. The beach has turned into one of his favorite places on earth since then. 

Now, as newlyweds, he thought of updating your picture, or finding a companion piece for it, and framing one of you from the day he asked you to marry him, to keep the tradition going. If he did that, though, he would also have to find one to put there from the day you got married, which could end up looking like an altar of you.

That wouldn’t be too bad considering he had his own office now. The shelves behind him were still pretty empty.

Spencer sighed as he glanced at your smile for another second, then went back to his paperwork. He flipped through endless pages, and his wedding band flashed under the lamplight every time.

“Still not used to it, huh?” Luke’s voice entered the office.

Spencer glanced up just to find Alvez leaning on the door frame, his eyes glancing down at Spencer’s hand. Only then he noticed he’d been rolling his ring with his thumb. 

“Yeah,” Spencer merely breathed out, rolling the ring once again.

“I meant the office,” Luke chuckled as he stepped in and looked around, one hand tucked in his pocket while with the other he adjusted his backpack’s strap over his shoulder. “Still a bit empty.”

“Garcia said she was gonna take care of it while I’m on my honeymoon, so it won’t be like this for too long.” Spencer gave him a tight-lipped smile as he nodded.

“Now that’s gonna be interesting,” Luke softly laughed. “Where are you guys going?”

“Uh, Spain,” Spencer said with amusement.

“Huh,” Luke smirked. “It was her decision, wasn’t it?”

“Like everything else, pretty much.” Spencer’s cheeks flushed. He was happy with anything as long as it made you happy.

“Well, let me know if you need some Spanish classes, te puedo enseñar algunas palabras.”

Spencer quirked his brows. His Rs were much slurred than Luke’s, but he still tried. “Gracias?”

Luke frowned his lips as in not bad, then added, “Alright, just wanted to stop by and say goodnight before heading out. You should go, too. You have a wife at home.”

Yes, he did, but unfortunately…

“I still have a few more things to do.” Spencer waved Luke goodbye.

A single ding coming from Spencer’s pocket got his attention. It was your signature message sound, so he squeezed his phone out without a second thought.

It was time for a short break, anyway.

Y/n (wife) sent a video

Spencer smiled before opening the message, bringing his mug with steaming coffee to his lips. He was waiting to see your beautiful face with one of your usual reports about how the remodeling of the house was going. He had to admit, he felt guilty that he couldn’t be there and work on it too, but Morgan offered to help (since the house was one of his few remodeling projects), so you weren’t entirely on your own on this.

The preview was blurry, and what started playing was not what he expected.

At all.

Your hand—the one with the wedding band—massaged your bare left breast and ended with you tweaking your nipple and stretching it out.

The video lasted just five seconds, yet it was enough for his body to react almost immediately. Blood rushed to his cheeks, neck, and groin in an instant.

All while he spilled some coffee over his lap, choked on his last sip, and coughed most of it all over his paperwork.

“Shit,” he barely managed to breathe out between more short hitched coughs.

Ding!

Y/n (wife): Are you coming home soon? I miss you :(

God, you were the death of him.

He glanced down at his pants, then at the open door, and rushed to close it—lock it—and drew down the blinds.

His phone rang. 

Y/n (Wife) is calling…

His thumb hovered over the green button until the third ring as he cleared out his throat to speak properly.

Still, his voice came out tight and slightly panicked. “You can’t just do that.” 

Your devilish and adorable laugh tickled his ear.

“Hi, handsome. Did you like it?”

“Y-yeah, of course I liked it.” He cleared his throat yet again. He was madly obsessed with you. ”You look, god, you’re so beautiful, but I’m at work, wha-what if someone else saw it?!”

“I’d say they’re very lucky because one of those can be very expensive.”

As soon as he heard your tone, his demeanor changed, and his choked-up breathing came back to normal. He glided his fingers through the blinds just enough to peek outside.

Everyone was gone, so there was no need to panic, yet he said, “Stop it.”

And you completely ignored him. “Where are you now?” 

“My office.” He matched your tone.

“Look at you, so official now. I should surprise you one of these days so we can fuck on your desk,” you said and the mere thought of doing that fueled something in him. ”Would you bend me over and fuck me from behind?”

He didn’t answer right away as the image of him doing exactly what you’d said popped into his head. He’d love that, actually, sweeping everything out of his desk, bending you over, spreading your legs open as he undid his belt, dragging your pants down to your ankles…

“You know I’d much rather see your face,” he said. “And kiss your pretty mouth while we fuck.”

Every time, he let you know how much he enjoyed seeing every single expression of yours as he plunged into you.

Let me see your face

God, you’re beautiful

Show me your smile

There she is

“Is that a yes, then?” You challenged him.

Spencer paced toward his desk and leaned on it, facing the door just in case. “I can’t promise you we’ll fuck because you’re so loud.” He smiled to himself. “You could get me in trouble, but we can definitely do something, yeah.” 

“Would it be okay if I showed up one of these days unannounced?”

“So many questions,” he said through a soft laugh, almost to himself, then continued, “I, uh, yeah. Yes, you can always visit me. Whenever you want, just… don’t forget the condoms. We don’t want to get messy here. And I don’t think it would be appropriate if I kept some in my drawer.”

“And if I forget them on purpose?”

“You’ll have to use your mouth to get rid of the evidence,” he responded without hesitation.

You’d polished this side of him. So openly unbrazen to say out loud all of his darkest thoughts. 

Your provocative yet shy laugh softened him everywhere. “I’d be happy to.”

“I know you would.”

This wasn’t the first time you’d teased him during working hours, but it usually was when he was away for a few days and when you knew he was alone in a hotel room where he could peacefully take care of himself. And since the first time you did it, he learned what you liked and why you did it. You were frustrated, and you missed him and needed him to help you get off in one way or another. 

“Was that a recent video?” He asked. 

“Yeah, you think I pre-record videos?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you should.” He teased you. “Are you still naked?”

“Mmm, almost. I’m wearing one of your shirts.”

Of course, you were, and you sounded so needy.

“Would you do something for me?” He reached for the picture at his desk and turned it so it’d face him. There was your smile. Your so beautiful smile that lit up every place you walked into. Even the most somber corners of his mind.

“Mhm.”

“Where are you now?” He asked, just to picture you better.

“Couch. Watching a movie.”

“Turn the volume down.”

The background sounds faded, and then it was just you, your breathing, and him.

“I wanna… talk to you about something.”

He didn’t, but his focus on finishing his paperwork was wholly gone, and since you became a part of his life, he promised himself you’d be at the top of his list, always. So he had to distract you to gain some time and get home as soon as possible because you needed him.

“Oh, okay?” 

“Remember the last time we fucked on our couch?” He asked.

He sandwiched his phone between his shoulder and ear and was quiet to gather his things—the reports he was now going to finish at home.

“You mean last night?”

“Last night, yeah,” he sweetly replied.

Last night was glorious. You’d decided to take the next step. Or at least, put a tentative date about when you could start trying to get pregnant. He still refused to finish inside you (despite you being on birth control), but he fucked you with the idea of beginning a family with you at that exact moment.

You had moaned his name until your mouth went dry and came around his cock four times. 

You just… Couldn’t. Stop. Coming.

He could still feel the ghost of your throbbing cunt around him.

“I don’t think I’ll ever forget last night.” You sighed.

Everything he needed was inside his messenger bag, so Spencer locked his office from the outside and hurriedly strolled to the elevator as he kept talking. “Me neither.”

“I… touched myself when I woke up this morning without you, you know, thinking about last night.”

“You did?” Spencer said before putting himself on mute for a moment just before the elevator dinged open. He entered it and pressed the button that would take him to the parking garage.

“I don’t know what it is, but every time you’re away I… I touch myself thinking about you…” Your voice was shy as you continued to tell him about your fantasy. He was two floors away from his stop. “Baby? You still there?”

Come on, come on, he muttered to himself, staring at the changing numbers.

2

1

-1

Yes!

“Even after we started dating,” he spoke immediately, sliding between the opening doors, then muted himself again. He took long, long steps toward his car, and after he swiftly got in, he turned the key. He hoped the purr inside wasn’t too loud as he put you on speaker.

“Oh, god, yes,” your voice filled the air of his car, and he already knew this was going to be a fun ride home.

“You’ve never told me that before.” He replied once he unmuted himself for good and started his journey back to you. He gripped the steering wheel tight. 

“I know. I… I would even touch myself thinking of you, come with you in my mind before our dates.”

So he didn’t imagine that scent when he kissed your knuckles on those first dates. It drove him crazy—your pheromones—and forced him to jerk off as soon as he got home. 

He hadn’t confessed that to you yet. But maybe it was time.

“That’s— wow, I didn’t know that.” He stopped at a red light and took the chance to untighten his pants by the crotch. Blood had been rushing through his erection since the video you sent him, and the more you talked… it just kept on growing. 

“I know, crap, I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I thought it could be hot, but now I’m mortified.” You muffled yourself against something. “Why do you sound weird? Distant. Am I on speaker?”

“No! No, just… bad signal.” He swept your thoughts away. He couldn’t let you feel this way when he’d done the exact same. “What if I told you I did the same thing?” Your reply was a sigh. “Not before our dates but definitely after. I- I would picture you there in my bed, or in the shower, and I just… had to.”

You said something out of breath, then, “And you looked so innocent.” 

Spencer smirked to himself. “I never was.”

“Yeah, I know, you proved it to me. Many times.” Your smile was so present through those words… “Would you tell me how you did it? What… you did?”

His mind went straight to the first time he did it, and he had no trouble telling you all about it.

“It was… after our second date,” he confessed, then went on, in no hurry, as he kept on driving. “The night of our first kiss. When we agreed to take things slowly yet you still sat on my lap to kiss me. And we kissed, all night, just to kiss each other. You tangled your fingers in my hair, and I hoped you couldn’t feel how hard your kisses made me. How all of you had me. It was a cold night, but it felt like summer inside. I- I still feel awful for not staying that night as you’d asked me to, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready to have you like that, but then, when I got home, I got in the shower and my mind went somewhere. A moment we hadn’t had yet but knew would happen eventually. I pictured you there with me, and I was already hard but wanting you there with me…” he trailed off as he heard you curse under your breath. 

“Keep going, baby,” you said, and he smirked. 

So he kept going. 

“I… hesitated at first. You were the one good thing happening to me at that time, and I didn’t want to… stain you by objectifying you, but before I knew it, I was stroking myself. And it felt good. So good,” he almost whispered. 

He was good at this. He knew he was so he kept going, telling you all about that first time he touched himself thinking about you. 

The usual fourteen-minute quiet drive turned into 9 minutes of not-so-usual dirty talking, and soon, he was walking through the door of his home with the phone call still ongoing.

It smelled brand new. Like paint and wood and incense. 

You were supposed to be here on the first floor, in the living room, but you must’ve moved to the bedroom at some point because he didn’t find you there.

“…my god, f-fuck.” Your heavy breathing echoed between his ear and phone.

You’d given him a clear sign that you’d finished one time already—sweet, sweet moans filled his car a few minutes ago, and he had to make a quick stop at the side of the road or else he would’ve crashed—and now you were going for a second one. And he was right there to help you through it. 

From the empty living room, he heard your blissful noises and he followed them upstairs, bewitched by your voice. 

The call remained ongoing, but his phone was long forgotten in his pocket. Your harsh breathing was closer and closer with each step, and once he reached the bedroom, he stayed by the door. Inside his home, he allowed himself to be like this: a pervert, sometimes, he admitted. But it’s what you liked and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy this, too.

The door was cracked open, and he peeked through to delight himself with the view. He had to muffle a long sigh, but his face flickered with immediate pleasure. Brows melting, bottom lip tucked between his teeth, nostrils flared ever so slightly.

There you were, lying on your stomach in the middle of the bed, naked from the waist down with his shirt riding up your back as if you’d stopped yourself from taking it off, legs spread open and a pillow between them. You were grinding it in perfect, short and controlled rocking motions. Back and forth. Side to side.

You whimpered against the mattress. “Fuck, baby, I’m gonna come again I—“

His cock throbbed. Jolted inside his pants, and his hand went there to calm the swelling.

“I need you so badly,” you breathed out. “So, so—“ your hips stuttered and began to roll and rub against the pillow until you released all the pleasure you’d been building.

Shit, he muttered to himself. 

He needed you, too. 

Reaching for his phone without tearing his eyes off you, he murmured, “You do?” quietly enough, pushing the door open with one finger and putting one foot inside, then another,  as he walked inside stealthily like the perfect intruder. 

He didn’t want to scare you, but also didn’t want to spoil the surprise, so he remained out of your possible eye range, by the end of the bed, and god, this point of view was so much better. You were something else like this. So immersed in your pleasure that you still hadn’t heard him coming inside.

“You’re so beautiful like this,” he said, now loud enough for you to hear. 

But you didn’t. You were drowning in bliss; your hips never lost rhythm, riding the pillow, and your eyes remained closed, a slight frown over your brows and an exquisite smile.

That sight. He needed to fuck you right there. 

Without a second thought he unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants with one hand while he stretched his other arm and reached for your ass, giving your right ass cheek a tight squeeze to finally let you know he was there. 

You gasped, and your eyes fluttered open, ready to stand up and fight whoever came here without a warning, but the moment you realized it was him—

“Baby,” you breathed out and let your body fall onto the bed with relief. “I thought– I– my heart almost gave out.” You then laughed a little.

Spencer walked to your side, leaned to kiss your temple and squeezed your ass one more time, murmuring in your ear, “Hi sweetheart, stay right there for me, yeah? Don’t move.”

All you did was nod. Willing to let him handle you however the fuck he wanted.

He took off all of his clothes right there and settled on the bed behind you, with his knees at either side of your hips, stroking his still growing erection to become fully hard when entering you.

You adjusted the pillow underneath you for support to keep your hips up and wiggled your ass onto him, using your hands to spread your cheeks open for him. 

So damn inviting.

“Jesus Christ.” He stared and gulped and kept staring, and his mouth watered. 

You were so ready for him. Wet and puffy. But he tortured himself for a moment, and instead of slipping his cock right in, he let it hover over your ass, smacking each cheek with it persistently, creating a sinful sound in the dimly lit up room. 

These bed lamps were new.

“Spencer, baby, please.” You lifted your ass towards him and blindly reached for his erection, but he pinned your hand close to your hip. You closed it into a defeated fist.

It was time to torture you now and let the tip of his cock simmer between your folds. Nestled there. Slippery and warm and soft. His hips stuttered instinctively and he almost slipped in, the gentle squeeze of the entrance of your cunt giving him a loving kiss. 

Always looking down, Spencer decided there was no point in holding back anymore and slowly–so very slowly–pushed his hips forward, delighting himself with the view of his cock being swallowed up. His gaze flickered up at your face then, that gorgeous needy face, and kept his eyes trained on you until he was fully inside. You angled your face toward your shoulder, shooting him a glance through fluttering lashes and a drunken smile. 

You bit your lip. “I think ‘m gonna come already, f–uck.” You tightened your walls around him and motioned your hips in a way that withdrew some of his erection and bent it slightly downward. Then you did it again, and your cunt began to pulse ardently. 

“Shit.” Spencer held onto you, hissed between clenched teeth, one hand tight on your hip while the other still held your hand in place by the wrist, now closer to your back.

It felt too good. You felt so damn good, and an early flutter grew in his balls and lower stomach, all while you turned into a whiny, moaning turmoil under him. Ever smiling. 

Right then, as you used his cock, all he could focus on was not coming just yet even though small drops started to drip out of the tip, but the pleasure snowballed too quickly for him to stop it. Spencer groaned, weakened, and let his body fall over yours, his hips just pressing and pressing against your ass desperately as you sucked everything out of him. Spurts of cum shot inside you with each jolt of his cock, and as his body naturally did that, the deliberate part of him searched for your hands and locked his fingers with yours, tight, pressing them on your sides and his lips and nose hovering along your jaw.

“That’s it, baby, come inside me, yes, yes, y-yes,” you encouraged him, and he grunted some more. “That’s so good, you feel so good, give it to me, please, please f-fuck!” Your voice went high-pitched, loud as you ever were, and he was sure you were coming again–pulsating and pulsating around his erection.

“Show me your face,” he whispered breathlessly at the back of your head and slammed into you. You cried out as an instant response. “Let me see your smile.” He slammed into you again, and harder. You turned your head, gluing your chin to your shoulder. He licked your earlobe, dragged his lips to the underside of your chin, then to your lips, capturing them into an open-mouthed kiss. You whined into it and glared at him from up close, nose to nose, and smiled sweetly. 

Every part of him softened with love. 

“There she is.” He smiled, too. “There’s my girl.”

“I love you so much, baby.” You breathed out.

Sweet nothings slipped through his lips to your skin about how much he loved you too, how good you felt, how good you were to him, and he stayed there, intentionally twitching his cock inside you as another way of showing you his love.

After a moment, he gave you one last messy kiss and straightened up with a grunt, allowing his cock to slip out. His cum dripped out of you like melting caramel, cascading down to the pillow that was so flattened out now, there was no purpose for it anymore. He yanked it out, tossed it to the floor, and snatched you close by your hips to lift them up, ready to go for a second round. A single spank there on your cheek to let you know that this was still going. 

You’ve trained him for this—coming multiple times in a row. It was torture the first few times (a good kind of torture, of course, one he much enjoyed), then it was the only way sex always went. Finishing once, then coming back inside you for a second one and third, giving his cock no chance to soften. 

No exceptions.

He used his own cum as lube, smearing it all over—up to your clit, between your swollen folds and back to your opening. Pushed the tip in, then drilled into you. Fuck, you were somehow tight now, sensitive by your many orgasms most likely, but you gave him no sign of discomfort. Instead, you took the lead and withdrew to slam back onto him, ready to keep going, too. 

Then he continued. The globes of your ass bounced and smacked against his lower stomach with each new thrust and this desperate rapped out cadence had his thighs stinging. But it was thrilling, so exquisite it went on for a long while, and you never ceased to let him know how much you were enjoying this. Moaning, whining, gripping the bed covers, and every once in a while reaching for the hand holding onto you.

Until you got tired from being with your face pressed down to the mattress.

There was no need to vocalize any of it, and agreed with a glance followed by a kiss that it was time to change positions. 

With even more kisses in between, Spencer lay down with his upper back pressed to the headboard and made himself more comfortable with a few pillows behind him, ready to have you riding him. You finally took off your shirt and settled on top of him. He couldn’t help but sit up right to take one of your breasts into his mouth, just to show you how much he loved them. Nuzzled his nose into your flesh while you sank into his erection. He hummed around your nipple and wrapped his arms around you into a hug to bring you with him as he settled back. 

“I’m gonna move fast, baby, I need to thrust so badly.”

“Go ahead,” he replied, peeling off your breast and looking up at you.

You were beautiful like this, in charge yet so cock-drunk.

You supported both hands under his ribs, not quite pressing but rather holding onto him, and did as you’d said—as you’d warned him. The prowess of your hips turned him into a groaning chaos. His feet tensed and his thighs clenched and unclenched trying to hold it together, but fuck, you were so good at this.

“You’re so h-hard, Spence, fuck.” Your eyes fluttered closed and bit your bottom lip through a smile and little laugh. 

So good, so fucking good, so hard, baby, you continued to praise him through clenched teeth.

He was, he so fucking was, it was a matter of a few more thrusts that he came again. 

His face twitched with the almost unbearable pleasure you were giving him, bouncing your ass up and down and giving him rolling motions in between that allowed your cunt to wrap around every curve of his cock. 

“’m gonna come again mm—!” Your cunt tightened and stayed tight while you kept moving, then those familiar pulses caressed his erection. “My god, you feel so fucking good, so b-big.”

Your hips lost rhythm, only spasmed persistently, but kept his cock curved in the way you so much liked and as you kept moving, you went silent. Focused. Eyes closed, brows low. Shaky breaths caged on your throat.

“That’s it, use my cock,” Spencer encouraged you. His mouth was dry.

Then you released it. All at once. A shaky yelp, relaxed and silky cunt. “Oh, sh-shit, baby, I’m coming, y-yess!” 

So was he. Fuck fuck fuck he was so close to coming too. He loved it when this magical synchronization happened. 

“Don’t stop,” he breathed out. He needed to come with you, so he built his pleasure some more by taking you in, all of you, and chased it and began to express it before it struck him fully. With short breathless groans and loving kisses on your arms, now that you were holding onto him by his sweaty shoulders. “Don’t stop, feels so good.”

Your voices blended together in the air and soon, your orgasms did, too.

“fucking god.” Spencer groaned, staring down at where your bodies met. 

His hands roamed across your sides, from your ribs to your hips and thighs then back to your ass and the arch of your back.

“One more, baby. You can come once more for me,” you told him, cupping his jaw. “Yeah? You just feel so good, I don’t want this to end.”

He knew he had it in him. A third one, it was right there even when he was barely out of the second one. 

Baby, please, you begged next to his ear.

Yeah, he definitely had a third one.

He harshly handled you so you’d be lying down instead, and he settled between your legs, entered you and ruthlessly pounded into you, mouths clasped together as you both moaned into each other, sharing a single, agitated breath. 

“Yes, yes, yes baby!” you cried out. “Come in me again.” 

Spencer tucked his face on your neck, blindly hooked his arms under your thighs to bend your legs and bring them up and with his eyes closed he still pictured you, as if he wasn’t right there on your arms. 

“Ah, sweetheart,” Spencer exhaled a groan. “You make me crazy.” He then hummed and nibbled your neck and spoke into your hot skin. “So fucking crazy.”

“Kiss me,” you breathed out. “Keep talking to me.” Spencer lifted his face from your neck and glued his lips to yours. “Like this, yeah.” 

You swept your tongue along his and as he kept plunging into you, in and out, creating a wet mess between your bodies, he said, “I want to get you pregnant so bad.”

“Yeah?” you replied, so damn whiny.

“Yeah, baby.” Spencer tugged your bottom lip between gentle teeth and morphed it into a kiss. His balls tightened; his cock spasmed. “Ah, fuck, there it is. I’m c-coming again.” 

“Yes, baby, do it, come inside me, please.”

Come in me, you repeated, and he clung into your embrace, thrusting and thrusting and groaning until he released inside you through a low and deep grunt that you gladly kissed and moaned into, too. Then the pleasure ripped through him so hard it almost jumped through his skin. 

There was nothing left inside him anymore. He felt drained in the most exhilarating way, so he stayed there in your arms for a moment. You gently tapped his arm so he’d let your legs go, and you relaxed them right away. Your muscles were trembling.  

“That was so good, baby.” You panted, and clammed your cunt around him as you adjusted your body under him. While still inside you, Spencer kissed your neck then brought his mouth to your lips. Your hands traveled to the back of his neck and pulled him closer to receive his lazy kisses with much more strength. “Thank you.” 

You then peppered kisses all over his sweaty face, which gave him enough fuel to move a little, falling on your side at last.

He took the longest, joyful breath.

“Tired?” You asked him.

You were quick to reach for wipes and began to clean yourself and him. An excess of cum pooled around his now softer cock and with so much care, you cleaned it all. 

“Sleepy,” he replied, and continued cleaning himself with another wipe as his eyes closed. His voice was barely there.

“Do you need something?” You pecked the corner of his mouth.

“I’m good.” He shook his head.

“‘Kay.” You kissed him again. “I’ll be right back.” 

You slipped from his side with a huff. An exhausted huff. He squinted one eye open to get a glimpse of you, and your legs wobbled as you bent to pick up something. He couldn’t hold back a mocking laugh.

You laughed along, shooting him a teasing smile. “You’re proud, aren’t you?”

“Mhm I am.” He raised his brows at you. 

His breathing was more regulated when you came back from the bathroom break. Still naked, you joined him in bed again, lying on your stomach.

Just to stare at him.

And play with his hair.

And steal some kisses.

“What did you do today?” He asked you, turning to face you. His hand mindlessly went to your back, and caressed you along your spine with his fingers with feather-light glides.

“I went tile shopping with Derek.” You brushed a piece of hair away from his forehead. “A cream tone for the kitchen and a light blue for the guest bathroom. Savannah and little Hank joined us for lunch, then I came back to paint the kitchen cabinets.” You then sweetly shrugged.

“Sage green?” His hand stopped briefly.

Your face lit up. “How do you know?” 

“I know things,” he said with a cocky grin and continued his motions along your back. He just saw the paint in the living room. “What else did you do?”

“I talked to Diana.”

“I called her today, too,” he raised his brows at the coincidence. 

“Well, she called me.” You countered with slight humor. “I thought she’d gotten the numbers mixed up, but she didn’t.” 

The proud look on your face was… endearing. 

“And what did she say?”

“She was wondering when I was going to visit her.”

“She didn’t ask about me?” He asked, mildly offended.

You shook your head and didn’t give him much time to think of it as you continued, “So, I was thinking, after Spain, we can make a stop in Vegas for a few days?”

“I like that, yeah.”

“And did you tell her, perhaps, about us and babies?”

“I don’t think so.” He quirked his brows. “Why?”

“She hinted at something, but maybe I’m thinking too much of it.”

“Tell me.”

You held the thought for a second, your eyes wandering around to explain, “She told me about how this woman from her home had a son and that he’d recently brought his newborn baby to meet her. She said how she could almost picture you doing the same someday.” You shrugged. “Then proceeded to say how the baby’s cry annoyed her.”

A heartily laugh rolled from his chest. 

This, knowing how his mom called you to just chat, was a dream come true. 

“Anyway, I don’t know why I asked her if she knew the baby’s name, but she didn’t, which made me think of baby names. For our future baby.” 

Spencer leaned and teased you by your ear. “You did?”

“Mhm.” You nodded. “I don’t know why, but I feel like… We’ll have a girl first.”

First. So you wanted more than one.

His chest fluttered. “And what’s her name?”

“You’re gonna laugh.” You covered your face with your palms.

“Tell me.” He reached for your fingers and gently peeled one hand away, bringing it to his lips. To kiss you. To nibble you.

“Sage.” You said, and your eyes glimmered. “I saw the name when I was searching for paint colors and something about it felt… right.”

“Sage,” he said in deep thought.

“Mhm. Sage Reid. Or Scout. I like that one too. Or Sadie. Definitely a name that starts with an S.” You drew lines over his chest. “I really like your initials.”

Spencer planted a kiss on your cheek and spoke right there with his lips brushing over your skin. “She could have my initials, but I’m sure she’ll have your eyes.”

You hummed, then something in you shifted.

“Spence, what if… we struggle to get pregnant?”

He frowned, pulling back to stare and try to read you. Something told him this uncertainty has been there for a while.

“Is this something you think about a lot?”

“No?” You frowned. “Not a lot, but it’s definitely a thought, I guess.”

“We’re not in a rush.” He lifted one hand to cup your face. His thumb brushed over your cheek. “So, I don’t think struggle is a word if it takes us a while.”

“Yeah.” You let out a long sigh and snuggled into his embrace, one leg propped over his. “Do you think it’s late?”

“It was late when I left the office, so probably.” A soft kiss on the top of your head. “Why?”

“I haven’t eaten.” You grumbled. “And I have to shower, again.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” he said, kissing your temple. “Let’s shower first, then we’ll make something to eat.” You groaned again in protest. “Just stand there. I’ll soap up your gorgeous body.”

“And wash my hair?” You lifted your head to look at him.

“Double shampooing if you want.”

Eva if you made it to the end, I know it’s not exactly what we once talked about, but this was the result 🥹 I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless 💋

Dear reader, please don't hesitate to let me know what you thinkkkk. I'd love to read all of your thoughts

SPENCER REID MASTERLIST | MAIN MASTRELIST

[hypothetical-strumpet]

ADJOINING ROOMS ⋆˚꩜｡ spencer reid x fem!BAU!reader

summary: you and reid are just colleagues. and hookup partners. and fake lovers for a case in a swinger’s club. but it’s fine. until it really, really isn’t.

genre: smut, angst

word count: 8.5k

tags/warnings: 18+ MDNI, situationship/fwb, coworkers to lovers, brief references to alcohol consumption, emotional avoidance/lack of communication, mentions of the swinger lifestyle (case related) (probably full of inaccuracies & stereotypes so apologies in advance for that lol), canon-typical case/violence, fingering, oral (f receiving), p in v, multiple orgasms + a lil overstimulation, soft dom!spencer if you squint, spencer calls reader good girl/baby/sweet girl, slight praise kink, aftercare, no use of y/n

a/n: never written a case-centric fic before (although idk if I’d call this case-centric — more like case-adjacent) and zooo weee mama the hours upon hours I put into this 😮‍💨 but I’m very pleased with how it turned out, so I hope someone enjoys it as much as I enjoyed writing it! I know it’s long but fingers crossed it’s worth it. (p.s. fourth pic is not indicative of reader’s appearance!! it just had the right dress + vibes)

The roundtable room always feels colder than it should. Maybe it’s the fluorescent lights, or maybe it’s the weight of what gets said in here — every case, every file, every name. Sometimes you think the walls remember too much.

Hotch is talking. His voice cuts through the stillness in that crisp, efficient way it always does. Words like “victimology” and “behavioral escalation” stack on top of each other, building the scaffolding of a case you’re supposed to be paying attention to. But your mind is already drifting — across the table, past the file folders and scattered pens, to where Spencer is sitting.

He’s chewing the inside of his cheek again. Not nervous, exactly — more like restless. His gaze flickers from the files to the floor to the case board, anywhere but you. He hasn’t looked at you once all morning.

You wonder if anyone else notices.

Last week, you kissed him. Again. Or rather, he kissed you.

It was late. You were both a little tipsy from post-case beers, tiptoeing down the hotel hallway like teenagers who missed curfew. You’d said something about how quiet it was — how strange it felt after so much chaos that day. He’d nodded. Then there was a long, loaded pause, and suddenly your back was against the wallpaper and his mouth was on yours, hot and searching and almost rough.

“We shouldn’t,” you’d whispered, even as your fingers curled into his shirt.

“I know,” he’d breathed back against your lips.

And still, neither of you stopped.

You think about that now — his hands framing your jaw, the way he touched you like he’d been dying to all day — and it makes your palms itch. You press your nails into your skin, leaving little crescent-shaped indents, and force your gaze back to the board.

On it: photos of the bodies of three women. All strangled. All posed ritualistically. All in their late twenties to mid-thirties, all married or in serious relationships. All affiliated with the swinger lifestyle in the greater Chicago area.

“Preliminary theory,” Hotch says, “is that the unsub attends these parties, separates the woman from her male partner, and kills her in private. He’s not targeting them at random — he’s studying their interactions with their partners first. Police pulled together a sketch of the unsub from witnesses, but the locals haven’t been able to identify him yet.”

Spencer finally speaks. “It’s possible he’s embedding himself in the community. Not just observing, but actively participating in swinging.”

You swallow hard. His voice sounds normal. Clinical. Almost bored. You wonder how he does that — compartmentalizes so easily when you’re in the room like nothing ever happened between you.

You, meanwhile, are still trying to forget the taste of his mouth.

“Wheels up in an hour,” Hotch says, flipping the file closed. “We’ll get briefed by local PD and the Chicago field office when we land.”

He pauses and glances around the table.

“We’re also going to need to send two of you in undercover at the next club night.”

As soon as he says it, you already know what’s coming. Hotch focuses his eyes on you before he continues speaking.

“You’ve got the most experience working undercover,” he says. “And you fit the victimology. Reid, you’ll go with her. You make a believable pairing.”

You feel it. Not just the sharp jolt in your own chest, but the way Spencer tenses. A small shift in posture, like someone bracing for impact. His eyes stay fixed on the table. You just nod.

“If the unsub is targeting women in stable relationships,” Spencer begins, voice measured, “we need to appear convincingly connected — not just physically, but emotionally. Studies show that up to 10 % of American married couples have experimented with swinging, and many report that emotional intimacy drives their participation more than the physical variety. If he’s looking for that connection when seeking out victims, we’ll need to sell both.”

You almost laugh. Not because it’s funny — but because this is how he protects himself. With facts. With rationality. Like if he says the right words in the right order, it won’t matter that your mouths have already memorized each other.

“Exactly. And you two will blend in best with the age group at these clubs. We’ll do more prep on the plane,” Hotch says.

You nod. Spencer nods.

And then, finally, he looks at you.

It’s barely for a second, but it’s long enough to see the thing he’s trying to hide:

Want. Fear. Something brittle and unspeakable pressed tight beneath his ribs.

You look away first. You have to.

—

The jet hums around you. You’ve always found something oddly comforting about the sound — the steady thrum of the engine, the muted clink of coffee mugs, the gentle rustle of case files and paper.

Spencer is sitting across from you, the way he always does on the jet. Close enough to keep an eye on you if he wants to, but far enough away for plausible deniability. He’s got a file open in his lap, one leg crossed over the other, pen tapping absently at the margin. But he hasn’t turned the page in eight minutes.

You’re pretending to read, too. Words blur. You underline things at random just to look busy. The profile you and the team have already built is solid — mid- to late-thirties, white male, organized, narcissistic injury around female sexuality, history of escalating violence against women starting from a young age, currently or formerly involved in the swinger community himself.

But all you can think about is the fact that Spencer isn't looking at you again, and it’s starting to eat at you.

“God,” Morgan mutters from behind you. “This case is wild. Sex parties, swinging, murder.”

“People have all kinds of lifestyles,” JJ says, gentle and unbothered, flipping through photos. “That doesn’t make them deserving of this.”

“Not saying that,” Morgan replies. “Just… can you imagine Hotch at one of those clubs?”

A collective groan-laugh moves through the jet. Rossi makes a deadpan comment about leather harnesses. Even Hotch cracks a grin.

But Spencer doesn’t. He’s still staring at his file, unmoving, jaw tight.

The last time you were alone with him, he was on his knees.

You remember the way he looked up at you, hair falling into his eyes. His mouth was reverent. Careful. Like you were a puzzle he desperately needed to solve with his tongue.

“Please,” you’d whispered. “Don’t be so gentle.”

But he was. He always is. Even when he’s needy, even when you’re shaking — he’s still soft. Still murmuring little praises like, “You’re doing so well for me,” and “Good girl.”

And when it was over, you got dressed, said a quiet goodnight, and tiptoed back down the hall to your room alone, same as you always did. Even after countless nights together, you never slept beside him. One of you always left. It was the one boundary you hadn’t crossed. There was a seemingly impenetrable wall between the two of you, and you weren’t even sure which one of you had built it. Maybe it was him, maybe it was you, or maybe it was a joint effort.

Back in the present, the jet hits a small patch of turbulence. You jolt, fingers tightening around your pen. Spencer looks up instinctively, and your eyes meet.

He blinks once, then looks back down.

You wonder if he’s thinking about the same things you are. If the silence between you is just his version of restraint, or if he’s decided it’s easier to forget.

“Here’s some background on the club,” Hotch says, sliding a printout across the table. “Invitation-only, but you two,” he nods at you and Spencer, “are already on the guest list.”

Spencer shifts slightly. “Did they send a floorplan?”

JJ passes him a sheet with the building layout. You watch the way his fingers curl around the edge of the paper.

You want to say something. You want to joke, to ease the tension, to break the silence before it breaks you. All you can manage is:

“So. You ready to pretend to be my boyfriend, Reid?”

It comes out lighter than you feel.

Spencer’s mouth twitches. Not quite a smile, though.

“I’ve pretended to be worse,” he says softly. And for a moment, it almost feels like the past six months didn’t happen.

Then Rossi clears his throat, and Spencer looks away again.

You stare at the grain in the tabletop and trace it like a fault line, wondering how you’re supposed to fake wanting all of him when that’s already too close to reality.

—

The hotel room you’ve just checked into is a bit dated, with a king bed, fake art, heavy curtains, and neutral tones. Standard, by every definition of the word. But your eyes keep flicking to the left — where a second door sits flush with the wall you share with the adjacent room. It feels like the universe is laughing at you when you realize who’s staying in the suite next door — Spencer, naturally. And maybe it’s not a big deal. Maybe two FBI agents sharing a door between rooms isn’t a scandal. Maybe it’s even practical, since you’ll be working so closely on this case.

Still.

It feels too absurdly romantic for a murder investigation. Like the setup to a bad workplace rom-com that ends in a wedding montage and a corny piano medley. The thought makes you snort. You’ve got a deadpan sense of humor, especially when you’re tired or scared or two seconds away from thinking about the taste of his mouth again.

You groan and drop your go-bag at the foot of the bed. Your boots are already off. You’re about to get up and shower when you hear a rattle of movement on the other side of the wall.

Then: a knock.

Not at the main door, but the other one. The one that’s supposed to stay shut.

Of course.

You pad over and unlatch it.

Spencer’s standing there in mismatched socks, tie loosened, hair slightly mussed like he’s been running his hands through it for the last twenty minutes.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.”

You both hover for a second. There’s something soft in his eyes — like guilt, or maybe just caution.

“I, uh, thought we should talk through tomorrow. Get our story straight before we go in.”

You arch a brow. “Our story?”

He swallows. “Cover story. Our… relationship history. As a couple. So we’re believable.”

You blink. Then you laugh — short, surprised. “Right. Gotta make sure our fake relationship is fully fleshed out.”

His expression doesn’t change, but you see the muscle in his jaw jump. Like he’s trying very hard not to say something he’ll regret.

You step back. “Come on in, then. Let’s build a backstory.”

He enters cautiously, and the adjoining door swings closed behind him with a click.

You’re the kind of person who flirts when you’re uncomfortable. Who masks tension with sarcasm. Who doesn’t let people in until it’s already too late. And deep down, you hate that you’ve been soft with him. He’s seen the version of you who doesn’t deflect — the quiet version. The real one. You spent years learning how not to feel things too deeply, but now one look from Spencer and it’s like a dam breaking.

“So,” you say, cocking your head, “how long have we been together?”

He glances up to the ceiling. “A year?”

“Bold of you to assume I’d put up with you that long.”

His mouth twitches. “Six months?”

“Try four and a half. Tops.”

“Fine,” he murmurs. “Four and a half months.”

You bite your lip, a smirk teasing the corner. “And how did we meet? Office romance?”

He gives you a look of exasperation and says your name with a groan. Clearly, that hit a nerve.

You chuckle. “Fine. Come up with something better.”

There’s a beat. Then: “You spilled coffee on me in a bookstore. I insisted it was fine, you apologized profusely and offered to buy me a new shirt. Turned into a whole scene,” he decides.

You laugh. “That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s believable.”

“Because I’m clumsy, or because you’re uptight?”

“Both,” he says, almost smiling.

The air shifts.

There it is again — that familiar tilt of the atmosphere. The way everything around him bends just slightly, like gravity favors his orbit.

He crosses the room and perches on the edge of the desk chair, spinning it half toward you.

You watch him from the bed, legs folded underneath you, pretending this is the most intimate moment you’ve ever shared. Which is, frankly, ridiculous. You’ve had your mouth on every inch of him. He’s said things in your ear that still make your toes curl when you think about them late at night.

“Tomorrow,” he says slowly, “we’ll need to act familiar. Emotionally and… physically.”

You nod. “We’re supposed to be in love, after all.”

That gets him. His eyes flick to yours, sharp and unreadable.

You tilt your head. “Or maybe just horny. That’s easier to fake, right?”

Silence.

Then, softly: “You’re not helping.”

“No,” you admit. “I’m not.”

You’ve always been like this — deflective to the point of recklessness when you’re backed into an emotional corner. It’s easier to make a joke than to say what you really mean. Easier to prod him than to admit you want something to give.

There’s a beat of quiet. You shift, pulling the blanket up over your legs, suddenly chilly despite the warmth of the room. The joke has worn off.

He clears his throat. “I should go, let you get some sleep.”

You nod, even though you know you’ll be restless for hours. The moment he’s gone, you’ll feel his absence echo like ringing in your ears after a fire alarm.

He stands. You stand, too. You walk together to the adjoining door like a real couple might, and that alone feels like cruelty.

For a second, neither of you moves. Then, you speak, voice quieter than it had been a few moments ago:

“Spence?”

He stops, glances back. His nickname in your mouth always does that — stalls him mid-step, like he’s never truly ready for it.

“If we’re going to be convincing,” you say, trying to sound casual, “you’re gonna have to at least look at me tomorrow.”

His gaze drops to the floor before finally lifting and meeting yours again, albeit briefly. “I’ll look at you,” he promises quietly, after a long beat.

And then he’s gone.

You lock the door, press your forehead to the wood frame, and exhale. You debate a shower again.

And that’s when it hits you — the memory, sudden and sharp, sparking bright in your mind like a match catching:

Three months ago. It was late. You’d just gotten back to the hotel one night in the middle of a case that left you feeling hollow, and you’d turned the shower on to heat up while you undid your ponytail with tired fingers.

The knock at your door came soft, almost guilty. You spotted Spencer through the peephole and let him in. You didn’t need to ask why he was there — you could see it in the way his shoulders slumped from the weight he was carrying, in the way his hand kneaded at the tension in the back of his neck, in the way he looked at you with those honey brown eyes like you were the only thing in this universe that could make him feel human again.

His mouth crashed into yours before you could even register it. Urgent. Consuming. The kind of kiss that didn’t care what came after, only what needed to happen right now.

You pulled him into the bathroom by his collar, lips parted and hungry. Clothes came off swiftly into a messy heap by the base of the sink. He lifted you into the shower then, water cascading around your tangled limbs, and braced you against the wall, tiles cool against your back.

You let him take everything he needed that night. Every thrust a release, every gasp a plea. He murmured little things against the warm skin of your neck — you don’t remember what they were, but you do remember the sound of his voice: low and wrecked and achingly tender. You came with your head tipped back, body trembling under the hot spray, thighs tightening around his waist, and he came harder. Like he couldn’t stop it — like your body had pulled it out of him, with a stifled groan and a shudder that rolled through his entire frame.

You stayed like that for a moment — both of you breathing hard, the sound of the water the only thing steady.

Eventually, your thighs loosened around him and he set you gently back down to the ground. You half-expected him to lean down and kiss you, to keep the moment going, but instead, he just studied your face and softly brushed your wet hair away from your cheek. Something quiet passed between you, fragile and echoing.

Then, without a word, he stepped out.

You watched through the fogged glass as he toweled off. Pulled his shirt back on over damp skin. Buttoned it unevenly, stepped into his slacks. His hands shook a little.

You were still standing under the water when he paused at the door.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said, barely audible over the rush of the shower. You nodded in reply.

Just as quickly as he’d showed up, he was gone again.

You blink back into the present, your skin prickling with goosebumps.

You hate that your body remembers him like that. You hate even more that your heart does, too.

—

The club doesn’t look like a potential murder spot.

It looks like money. Like velvet and champagne and curated decadence. Everything about it is just a little too sleek — brushed brass door handles, scented candles tucked into corners, red-tinted lights that paint everything in crimson and shadows.

Spencer’s arm is around your waist.

It’s not the first time he’s touched you like this, but it is the first time he’s pretending you belong to him.

And you’re pretending not to like it.

“You’re sure you’re okay in that?” he asks, voice low.

You glance down at the dress you’d picked out with Garcia’s help via video call — sleek, black, open back. It felt like a good idea when you tried it on at her suggestion — something sexy that would blend in with the rest of the club’s clientele. But now, with Spencer’s hand resting on the exposed curve of your spine, you think Garcia might’ve known exactly what she was doing when she encouraged it.

“I’m fine,” you murmur. “You’re the one who looks like he’s seen a ghost.”

He exhales through his nose. “I just… I can’t help it. It’s you. You look—”

“Spence,” you interrupt gently. You mouth the words: “We’re wired.”

The reminder shuts him up. Somewhere in an unmarked surveillance van, your colleagues are sipping stale coffee and listening to every breath you take. Every fake laugh. Every flirtation. Watching your every move via the security cameras Garcia hacked into.

You lean in close, brushing your lips just near the shell of his ear.

“Smile, sweetheart. You’re in love, remember?”

He does smile then, a crooked thing, tight around the edges. His hand dips a little lower, warm against your exposed skin. You wonder if it’s for show or if it’s just for him.

In front of you, the club scene unfolds. Couples swirl around the open space like slow-moving constellations, orbiting each other in wine-dark booths and shadowed alcoves. The music is low enough to be sexy but loud enough to muffle secrets. There’s a large bar near the back, a velvet rope section with private rooms upstairs, and at least two couples openly making out on chaise lounges.

You pass a bowl of condoms by the entrance and stifle a snort.

You try not to think about how this place is meant to seduce. That it’s built for sex and permission and skin. And tonight, you’re supposed to be playing the part.

Spencer’s fingers brush your hip. You glance up at him, and he leans in like a man in love.

“Back wall,” he says softly. “Let me handle the couple, figure out if they’ve seen anything. You work the man in the charcoal jacket.”

You split apart in practiced sync. He heads to the couple and you drift left, letting your eyes catch on the man Spencer mentioned. He’s older than you expected, but clean-shaven, wearing an expensive watch. His gaze skims over you, then lingers. You tilt your head, sip your drink.

He bites. Of course he does. Within minutes, he’s walking you to the bar for a refill.

You lean against the edge of the bar, feign laughter, touch his wrist when he says something passably clever.

It’s an act. You’ve done this before. You know how to fake a smile like you mean it.

But you also know Spencer is watching.

You don’t look for him, but you feel it. The way you always feel it — his attention, boring deep into your skin. You imagine his jaw twitching. His hand curling into a fist inside his pocket.

He’s not an outwardly jealous person — not usually. But you’ve learned that jealousy doesn’t always wear teeth. Sometimes, it just lives quietly in the way someone stops breathing when they look at you.

You think back to the first time you saw that look after finishing up a case in Boston six months ago and letting a handsome stranger buy all of your drinks. Spencer had peeled you away from the man and the bar and back to the hotel under the guise of exhaustion and an early flight home, but you’d noticed the way he’d been discreetly watching you all night. So you’d kissed him in the hotel elevator — just to see how he’d react. Just to test how it’d feel. He’d melted into you after a few moments of your lips against his, and all of the sudden, the rest of your world faded into nothing. He tasted like whiskey and peppermint and something warmer that made your entire body ache.

You didn’t go your separate ways when the elevator dinged on your floor. And you didn’t talk about it the next day. Or the time after that. Or the one after that.

You’re still not talking about it now.

You shift your body, laughing at something the man says, and trail your fingers lightly up his forearm — flirtation, just enough to maintain your cover. It’s nothing.

But the second you do it, Spencer’s voice crackles in your ear.

“You there?”

You don’t react. Just cross your legs slowly, let your gaze slide over the crowd like you’re looking for a third. The man you’ve been flirting with is distracted by the bartender, ordering another round.

“Mhmm,” you murmur.

There’s a pause. A rustle of breath. Then:

“Eyes right. Column near the leather bench. White shirt, sleeves rolled. That’s gotta be him.”

You let your gaze drift lazily to the right, like you’re just admiring the architecture.

And then you spot the man Spencer’s referring to.

You catalog the similarities between this man and the police sketch hanging on the case board back at the precinct. His face is symmetrical, forgettable in a way that makes your skin crawl. Like someone who’s practiced looking normal. His eyes skim the room like a hunter watching a watering hole. He’s still — too still.

You can feel it, the same way Spencer can. It’s more than a hunch or a guess— it’s an instinct, a read, a real-time application of the profile living inside your brain. That man is the unsub.

“Copy,” you say lightly, but your smile is gone now.

You dip your head towards the man beside you, murmur something about needing a bathroom break, and move towards the back of the room. Once you’re out of view from the bar, you catch up with Spencer.

His fingers close over yours.

“Everything okay?”

“Peachy,” you lie.

But the word tastes like sand in your mouth. You can feel how close danger is.

Spencer’s hand releases yours and moves to rest firmly on the small of your back. His thumb rubs slow circles against your skin, barely there. It could be part of your cover, or it could be genuine affection. Regardless, it’s a silent message: I’ve got you.

You’re standing near the fringe of the crowd now, a cluster of couples trading flirty glances and low-toned jokes about partner swapping. Someone’s making conversation about a weekend retreat. A woman in a sequined dress laughs too loud. You nod along, sipping your drink, body tilting naturally toward Spencer.

And then he walks up — the unsub.

White shirt, sleeves rolled. Watchful but charming. Forgettable face, memorable eyes.

You feel the breath catch in Spencer’s chest beside you.

“Evening,” the man says easily. “You new here?”

You smile like your skin isn’t crawling, like you don’t know he’s already killed at least three women with his bare hands and left their bodies displayed like offerings.

“We are,” you say, glancing up at Spencer. “Still figuring out the vibe.”

The unsub chuckles. “Well, you’re blending in just fine.”

He’s talking to you, but he’s looking at both of you, measuring. It’s not interest — it’s a test. A subtle prod to see what kind of relationship you and Spencer have. To see how easy it might be to wedge his way in.

Spencer answers before you can. “We’re curious,” he says. “Just observing for now.”

His voice is calm, but you feel the steel in it. His hand is still at your back. He pulls you in a little closer.

“Nothing wrong with watching,” the unsub says, his mouth twitching. “Sometimes that’s the best part.”

He takes a slow sip of his drink, and his gaze settles fully on you.

You don’t flinch.

“I’m Marcus,” he says. “You two have names?”

You give a soft laugh and glance at Spencer. “We’re trying to stay mysterious tonight.”

“Suit yourself.” Another sip. “Just thought I’d say hello. Let you know there are a few playrooms open upstairs if you’re feeling adventurous.”

Playrooms. Right. You’d seen them in the floorplan — semi-private spaces for couples or groups, monitored lightly by staff but otherwise left alone.

“Thanks,” you say, casual, “we’ll keep it in mind.”

“Maybe I’ll see you up there,” he says before walking away with a wink.

Your pulse spikes, and you try to suppress it. Try to breathe around it. Spencer shifts slightly, steps closer, like he’s reading your vitals through his fingertips.

“Did you see his hand?” he murmurs, only for you. “There was blood under his nails.”

You nod once. “And a crescent-shaped scratch on his hand.”

“He’s escalating. He wants to be noticed.”

You don’t say it, but you both know what that means:

The unsub is spiraling. He’s deviating from his own profile. He’s been organized and methodical this whole time, but now, he hasn’t even washed days-old evidence off his hands. He’s losing control. And that makes him even more dangerous.

“Hotch, did you catch that?” you murmur under your breath.

“Affirmative,” comes the reply in your ear. “Garcia picked him up with facial recognition. Name’s Marcus Blackwood. His wife left him and moved in with another man three months ago. Surveillance confirms he was at the same clubs as all three victims. Do not engage until backup is in place — we’re on the way. Just keep an eye on him if you can.”

“Copy,” you and Spencer say together.

You glance toward the far end of the club and realize Blackwood is heading up the stairs that lead up to the playrooms.

“Shit,” Spencer mutters.

Blackwood is baiting you.

He wants you to follow him.

You scan the crowd — an endless pool of potential victims. The rest of the team is en route. Five minutes, tops. But that’s too long.

“Hotch said we should keep an eye on him. I can stall,” you say softly.

Spencer looks at you, and for a split second, his composure falters. It’s not fear for himself. It’s fear for you.

You touch his hand.

“I’ll be fine.”

You step away before he can stop you and move toward the stairs slowly, wine glass still in hand. You feel the heat of Spencer’s gaze the whole time.

You don’t look back.

Blackwood greets you at the top of the stairs with that same bland smile. The hallway beyond is dim, quiet, lined with half-cracked doors. You glance at one and see the vague blur of movement — flashes of skin, moans, laughter.

“I figured you might be curious,” he says.

You plaster on a sultry smile. “Curious is one way to put it.”

He leans casually against a doorframe.

“You strike me as someone who likes attention,” he says. “Like you enjoy being wanted by people who don’t belong to you.”

You tilt your head. “What makes you say that?”

His eyes flick over your body. “Just a hunch. And you dress like it.”

You laugh.

He doesn’t laugh back.

Instead, he steps in.

You step back. He steps forward. The wall is against your spine now.

“You know what I hate?” he says, voice tightening. “When women pretend it’s all for fun. Like none of this means anything. Like they’re not breaking something sacred.”

There it is: the projection. The motive. The pathology.

You keep your voice even, your smile fixed. “Or maybe they just don’t owe you anything,” you say, hand drifting toward the distress button hidden in your bracelet. Click.

And then he grabs you.

It’s fast. One hand to your throat — not squeezing, just holding, controlling. His other hand catches your wrist, hard. Pain blooms instantly. You gasp, squirm—

And that’s when the hallway explodes.

“Marcus Blackwood, FBI!” Hotch’s voice, sharp and authoritative, cuts through the air.

Blackwood spins toward the sound just as Morgan slams into him like a freight train, pinning him to the ground. You hear the clatter of handcuffs and Emily’s voice confirming: “Unsub is secured.”

It’s over.

But you’re still frozen.

You hadn’t realized how fast your heart was pounding, or that Spencer had run in and pulled you to safety before Morgan could even reach the unsub. He doesn’t ask permission — just gathers you into him.

His arms are tight, all instinct and adrenaline. You let your forehead press to his shoulder. Let yourself breathe.

“You okay?” he asks, voice wrecked.

You nod against him, but you can’t hide the fact you’re shaking.

“You came,” you whisper. “You got here.”

He pulls back just enough to look at you.

“I always will.”

You don’t let go.

—

The hotel lobby is too bright.

Artificial light washes over upholstered chairs and glass-topped tables, and the scent of something overly citrusy hangs in the air. You hate it. You hate how it feels to sit still after something like that. You hate how normal it all looks.

The team has regrouped, huddled around a seating area tucked away from the elevators. Garcia is patched in through a tablet set up on the table, video call flickering just slightly.

“DNA under Blackwood’s nails matches the last victim,” she confirms. “And there’s timestamped security footage of him leaving the same club as the second victim the night of her murder. We’re solid.”

Everyone exhales. JJ leans back against the sofa. Emily’s got a paper cup of coffee she’s holding like it might anchor her to the planet. Derek’s pacing. Rossi’s talking softly to Hotch a few feet away.

You’re curled in an armchair, wearing an FBI windbreaker jacket over your slinky dress, legs tucked under you, fingers still brushing where he grabbed your wrist. The pressure’s gone, but the shape of it lingers.

Spencer’s across from you. Elbows on his knees, hands folded together. He hasn’t looked at you once since you separated from him to give your statement back at the scene.

You’re not surprised.

That’s always the case with him: once safe, he pulls away. Retreats into himself, into the comfort of something he can control. You’ve seen him do it before, but tonight it feels personal. Tonight, you’re mad about it.

“Thanks for the assist in there,” you say softly, desperate to pull him back to you.

He nods, still not meeting your eyes. “Of course.”

You fold your arms across your chest and pretend you don’t feel cold blooming again behind your ribs.

You don’t expect a grand gesture. You’re not someone who needs to be rescued. But you wish — god, you wish — that he’d stop trying to shrink the thing between you into something that doesn’t matter.

Because it does matter. You know that now. He looked at you in that club like it does. He held you like it does. And it sure as hell feels like it does, especially now.

No one else notices the tension between you. They’re all distracted, all coming down off the adrenaline high in their own ways. You wish you had something to do with your hands.

“Alright,” Hotch says, checking his watch. “Everyone get some rest. We’ll regroup in the morning before we fly home.”

The team heads to the elevators in quiet pairs, and you hang back a moment so you can ride up alone.

You’re barely through the door to your room when there’s a knock at the adjoining one. You unlock it before your brain can convince you otherwise, and once you’ve got it open, Spencer’s standing there with one hand raised like he was about to knock again. You don’t let him speak.

“You here to debrief, or to ignore me some more?”

He freezes.

“Because if it’s the first,” you continue, “we already did that in the lobby. If it’s the second, I’ve had enough of that for one night.”

His hand drops.

“I’m not here to debrief. Or to ignore you.”

There’s a beat of silence, then he steps into your room like it hurts to cross the threshold.

“I just wanted to talk,” he says. “To explain why I got weird after—”

“You don’t need to explain anything.”

You say it too fast. Too sharp. And you know he hears the lie in it.

Spencer closes the door behind him gently. Then he turns.

“I hated it,” he says quietly.

You blink. “What?”

“I hated watching you flirt with those men tonight.”

You stare at him for a long beat. Something inside you twists.

“You were fifteen feet away, Spencer.”

“I know.”

“I was undercover.”

“I know.”

“The unsub didn’t touch me until the very end, and even then—”

“I know,” he says again. “But I still hated it.”

You fold your arms across your chest, like that will keep everything caged inside. “Why?”

He looks at you like he can’t even believe you’re asking.

You press him anyway. “Why did you hate it, Spencer?”

His brow furrows. “Because you were in danger.”

“No,” you say, shaking your head. “That’s not it.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No,” you repeat. “That’s why you were afraid. I’m asking why you hated it. I’m asking about jealousy. I’m asking about the part where you couldn’t even look at me.”

His mouth opens, then closes.

You cross the room and stop in front of him, close enough to see the flicker in his eyes. “Do you have any idea how hard that was for me? Being there, with you? Pretending? Letting you touch me like any of this means something? And then you just… abandoned me after it was over and avoided making eye contact as if I’m fucking Medusa or something.”

“I didn’t know how to act,” he admits. “Or what to say.”

“I’m not asking for poetry,” you say, exasperated. “I’m asking for something. Anything. Because I felt like I was going to die in that club, but the worst part wasn’t even his hand on my throat. It was wondering if you’d still pretend none of this matters.”

The words hit. Spencer flinches like you’ve slapped him.

“I’m not pretending,” he says, voice hoarse. “I was scared. I’ve been scared for months.”

“Of what?” Your voice rises. “Of me?”

“No,” he says. “Of losing you.”

You laugh once, short and sharp. “You’ve never had me.”

He steps back like the words burned him. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s true.”

“It’s not.”

You stare at him. Your heart is racing. You’re exhausted. You can still feel the pressure of the unsub’s hands on your skin, and Spencer’s arms around you, and the fact that neither of you seem capable of telling the truth until it’s too late.

“I’m not some fantasy, Spencer,” you say, quieter now. “I’m not just always going to be here when you want attention or sex or someone to lean on after a bad case. And I can’t keep being whatever you need if you’re going to keep pretending we’re just… coworkers who fuck sometimes.”

“I don’t think that,” he says, stepping closer. “You know I don’t.”

“Do I?” you whisper.

He looks at you - really looks, and takes another step to close the distance.

“I don’t want to keep acting like this is meaningless,” he finally says. “Or like I don’t think about you constantly when you’re not around.”

He pauses, gulps, steadies himself before he adds:

“Or like I haven’t been falling in love with you since you kissed me in that elevator in Boston.”

That knocks the wind out of you.

You say nothing. You can’t. You’re too busy holding your breath like if you let it out, your heart will tumble out with it. He looks so sincere, so raw, so threadbare.

“I don’t want temporary. Not with you. With you, I want everything,” he says softly.

And that’s when you fall into him.

It’s not graceful. It’s not soft. It’s a collision of everything you’ve both been holding back — anger and relief and love and ache, all packed into the same breath, into the greediness of your lips against his.

His hands find your waist like they’re finally accepting it’s where they belong. Yours curl into the fabric of his shirt and tug.

You move together without thinking, stumbling toward the bed.

“You should’ve said something sooner,” you murmur between kisses.

“I didn’t know how.”

You push him back onto the mattress and crawl over him, breath heaving. “You do now.”

And then your mouth is on his again.

It’s messy. Not rushed, but a little frantic — like the both of you are trying to find your way back to something you never really had to begin with.

His hands are on your hips, then your ass, pulling you down against him as your thighs straddle his waist. Your dress comes off. His belt is unbuckled. Everything about the moment feels slightly unmade yet still overwhelmingly perfect.

“I’ve thought about you every night since Boston,” he murmurs against your throat. “Every single time I’m around you, it’s all I can think about. Even when I’m not around you, you’re all I think about.”

You grind down against the shape of him through his pants and he groans, hips flexing. His mouth grazes your collarbone, then your shoulder, as if he’s tracing the map of you in reverse — starting from memory, finishing with fact.

And then — he looks at you. Really looks.

It doesn’t happen often. But when it does, it’s always like this:

Like he’s watching a sunrise unfold from the inside. Like it’s almost too much for him to bear.

“I love the way you look at me,” you whisper.

“I’ve never looked at anyone else like this,” he replies. His voice is low, and it makes your knees go weak.

You reach for the button on his pants and he stills you with a hand on your wrist.

“Let me,” he murmurs.

He shifts the weight, flipping the two of you and guiding you gently to lie back against the pillows. His hands trail over your chest, your stomach, your hipbones — not teasing, but anchoring. He tugs at the waistband of your lacy black underwear, and you lift your hips to aid him in taking them off.

When his mouth dips between your thighs, you nearly sob.

Because it’s not just about getting you off — not right away. It’s about presence. About reverence. He kisses the inside of your knee. Your inner thigh. Trails his nose up the side of your leg like he’s cataloging your scent. When his tongue finally makes contact with your center, it’s slow. Devout, almost. Like your entire existence is something holy he’s come to worship.

You bury your hands in his hair and exhale something like a prayer.

His tongue flicks. Sucks. Circled. Presses flat. You moan his name, and his groan vibrates through you.

Then, two fingers, slow and certain, slide in deep.

You gasp. Arch. He murmurs something soft against your thigh, but you barely catch it over the sound of your own breathing.

“That’s it,” he says, lifting his head just enough to look at you. His voice is low, frayed. “You’re so beautiful like this. All open and needy for me.”

You whimper. “Spence—fuck—”

His jaw clenches. You can almost see it before you hear him say it:

“Good girl.”

God, those words ruin you.

Your whole body pulses.

Your orgasm hits low and hot — a deep, dragging pull in your gut that spreads outward in waves. Your thighs clamp around his shoulders. Your head tips back. You make a sound you didn’t know you were capable of — something between a sob and a moan — as it crests and crests and crests again.

But he doesn’t stop.

You whine. “Spencer. Too much—”

“I know baby,” he murmurs, voice molten. “But you can give me one more. Just one more for me. Please?”

How could you ever deny him?

Your body bows without permission — back arching, thighs twitching, another cry tearing from your throat. It rolls through you like heat lightning, wild and blinding, buzzing like static electricity.

By the time he finally pulls back, you’re gasping, wrecked, flushed all over.

He presses a kiss to the inside of your thigh. Then another. Then your hipbone, your stomach, your breasts, your sternum.

You pull him up into a slow, grateful kiss and roll him beneath you, fingers curling around the buttons of his shirt.

“Off,” you murmur.

He lets you undress him, never breaking eye contact. When he’s bare under you, you settle against him, chest to chest.

You reach down and stroke him slowly, watching the way his lips part and his brows knit together.

He catches your wrist before you can do more.

“I’m gonna lose it if you keep that up.”

You smile and shift against him, lining up your hips.

“Maybe I want you to lose it a little.”

But he doesn’t. Not yet.

He flips you gently onto your back again and slides between your thighs, one hand cradling the back of your head, the other guiding himself into you.

The stretch makes you gasp, but the moment is slow. Steady.

He sinks in deep — inch by inch, until you’re full, until your nails are digging into his shoulders.

“Jesus,” he mutters. “You feel…”

“Like you’ve been falling in love with me since Boston?” you whisper, almost teasingly.

His eyes flick to yours, dark and unguarded.

“Something like that,” he murmurs with a soft smile.

He pulls out almost all the way, then thrusts back in, long and slow. You hook your thigh around his waist, giving him deeper access to every part of you. The rhythm builds — deliberate, relentless — hips grinding just right, his forehead dropping to yours.

“Open your eyes, baby.”

You do, just barely.

“Look at me.”

You do, and he holds your gaze like it’s the only thing anchoring him to the earth.

“You’re mine,” he says roughly. “Say it.”

You breathe out the words, partially for the sake of obedience but mostly because you mean them wholeheartedly. “I’m yours.”

Something cracks behind his eyes. “That’s right. That’s right, sweet girl. You’re mine.”

The praise and possessiveness tears through you. You clench around him and he stutters, breath breaking.

Your body starts to spiral again, tension building almost too fast. “I can’t—Spence, I’m gonna—it’s so much, I—”

His hand cups your jaw, grounding you.

“Yes, you can,” he says, tone dripping in sweetness. “You can. Let go. I want to feel all of it.”

He slips a hand between you and presses soft circles where you’re already pulsing. The overload is immediate — your back arches, your legs lock around his waist, and you sob his name as you fall apart for the third time, body shaking, salty tears leaking from the corners of your eyes. Spencer kisses them away, one by one.

When you finally come back to yourself, he’s still moving. Faster now, messier. His rhythm stutters as your body clenches around him, drawing him in deeper.

He curses into your neck, his voice low and a little helpless.

You press your lips to his ear. “Don’t stop, Spence. Need you to come for me.”

The tension in him coils tighter, his thrusts shallower now, more erratic, like he’s negotiating with his own body for just a few more seconds. You watch it happen — his mouth parting, lashes fluttering, that soft gasp he always makes right before—

His hips stutter. He drives in deep, one final time.

And then he shatters.

He comes hard, gasping your name into the side of your neck, arms trembling as he tries not to collapse. You hold him to you, breath shaking as you feel the aftershocks ripple through him.

It’s not clean or composed. It’s full-body and bone-deep, the kind of release that empties something unnamed. His whole weight sinks into you, like his body finally gave up pretending it could survive without yours.

Neither of you say anything at first. It’s all just shared breath and the heat of skin on skin, a heart beating against your ribs that might be his or yours — at this point, you’re no longer able to tell the difference.

Eventually, he shifts, barely, enough to press a kiss to your collarbone.

You turn your head and kiss his temple, fingers in his hair.

His voice is soft when it comes:

“I’m yours, you know.”

And that’s the moment it hits you — quiet and certain. Like your body already knew, and your mind is finally catching up:

You love him. Of course you love him. You’ve been falling for him since Boston, just like he’s been falling for you.

You close your eyes and smile into his skin. “I know,” you murmur back. “And I was always yours.”

—

You don’t know how long you lay like that — tangled together, skin damp, hearts still syncing. The room is dark, save for the thin bar of light spilling in under the hotel curtains. The bedsheets are bunched around your thighs. One of his hands is resting on your hip, the other curled into your hair like he never plans to let go.

You stroke his back slowly, the way you’ve always wanted to — not as a way to coax or distract or ground him, but simply because you can.

“Are you okay?” he asks softly.

You nod against his shoulder. “Yeah. Are you?”

He huffs a breath — not quite a laugh. “Getting there.”

After a few more moments of comfortable silence, you speak again:

“Stay.”

He lifts his head, eyes glassy and soft.

“You sure?”

You nod again, slower this time. “I want you to.”

There’s a long pause, but then he kisses you — not rushed like before, not like something he’s afraid of losing. Just a kiss, plain and true.

He shifts off you carefully, murmuring a soft “hang on,” and grabs a tissue from the nightstand to clean you up. It’s quiet, almost instinctive. He doesn’t make a show of it — just does it gently, like it’s wired into him to want to take care of you like this.

Then he reaches down and pulls the comforter over your bodies, nudging you to lie on your side so he can curl himself around you. His chest to your back, one arm snug around your waist. You settle against him like you were designed for it — and maybe you really were.

After a while, you feel him press his lips to your shoulder.

“I wasn’t going to leave anyways,” he whispers.

—

You wake to the sound of a watch alarm beeping on the side table. For a second, you forget where you are.

Then you feel it — the warmth pressed along your back, the steady rise and fall of Spencer’s chest against you. His arm still draped around your waist. Sleepy kisses at the top of your spine, like he’s been waiting for you to stir.

“Morning,” Spencer mumbles against your skin.

You smile without opening your eyes. “Hi,” you whisper. He kisses the back of your neck again, and you giggle. “Is this the part where you tell me it was all just a heat-of-the-moment thing and go back to calling me ‘agent’?”

He huffs a sleepy laugh and tightens his grip. “Not unless you want me to.”

You wait a beat. Let the silence stretch.

“I don’t want you to,” you finally murmur.

His voice softens. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He presses another kiss to your skin, and you feel him smile into it.

—

The flight back to Quantico appears normal from the outside, but inside, you’re buzzing.

Morgan is asleep with his arms crossed. Emily has her headphones in. JJ is half-reading, half-daydreaming. Rossi and Hotch are reviewing something on a tablet in the back.

No one notices the way Spencer chooses the seat next to you instead of across. Or how his knee keeps brushing yours — casual, insistent, like an inside joke only the two of you are in on.

Your phone buzzes in your lap and you glance down, already smiling.

Spencer’s phone is in his hand and he’s looking at you, cheeks pink.

Spencer Reid: Would you maybe want to come over tonight after we land, if you’re not too tired?

You bite your lip and smile as you type back.

You: You asking me out, Dr. Reid?

There’s a pause. Then:

Spencer Reid: I’m asking you in, actually.

But next time I’ll take you out. Promise.

You glance sideways at him, trying not to grin too hard. He’s wearing that smile you love — the boyish, slightly shy one he only ever breaks out when he’s attempting to play it cool. You give him a wink and a nod in lieu of a written response, and his smile grows.

It’s in that moment — in the glow of his grin and the comfort of his knee pressed softly against yours — when you realize that maybe there was never a wall between the two of you at all.

Just a door, waiting for one of you to knock and leave it open.

ᝰ.ᐟ

masterlist

[hypothetical-strumpet]

🍏 I mean camaraderie!🍏

REQUEST summary: When Spencer suddenly gets scared he's too vanilla in bed and he (quite clumsily) tries his hand at being more dominant, you quickly assure him that you love his sweet and gentle ways. Cue cutesy sex <3

wordcount: 4k (I got carried away)

content warnings: smut! MDNI! dirty talk, fingering, oral (f receiving), unprotected piv, talking about feelings/sex, fem!reader gets called names containing 'girl', it's a build-up but the smut is worth it guys, promise, (((Also a little extra warning: doing the things or reading the books reader says she doesn't like is completely fine!! :) this is just lovey-dovey smut hihi)))

A/N: This is the first request I've ever gotten and I am STOKED. I had a lot of fun writing this because at times I genuinely felt like Spencer here, completely out of my depth hahahaha, i literally had to google "bad spicy booktok quotes" for this lolll :') great request, I hope you enjoy, my dear anon!! :) (everyone else, feel free to request!!)

🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏

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Spencer had just been… curious, okay? He had just seen one too many girls on the subway, on the train, in the park, in a café, everywhere, it seemed, reading that book. That stupid book. "Dark Fantasy" the back had read. Spencer hadn't known what to imagine. The Middle Ages? Anyway, the cover had stuck in his brain. Stupid eidetic memory. 

So, the next time he found himself in a bookstore, it wasn't his fault he gravitated towards the familiar dark purple cover art. He had picked it up idly, innocently, just flipped through it absentmindedly. He swore. It's not his fault he reads faster than the average reader. It's not his fault he read the whole thing in ten minutes standing in that stupid Y/A section of that stupid store. 

He hadn't know what to think of it. The thing these men (men? fairies? fae? whatever.) did to these women… did people actually like that? Did you like that? 

Spencer had spent his entire life feeling as if there was an unwritten code the whole world just naturally knew by heart, except for him, so it suddenly seemed scarily plausible that this was the same thing all over again. That everyone knew these kinds of things were the things normal people did, said, thought, and he just didn't know it. So he turned to the only source that had never let him down: academia. And sure enough, 8.235 hits of articles, research, interviews, and other evidence detailing how women liked to be handled, talked to, treated like they did in those books. 

The next few days, Spencer just couldn't shake the feeling. The feeling that he had been doing it all wrong, that he had been making a fool of himself. And that wouldn't have bothered him so much in the past, the few girls here and there that he built up his measly amount of experience with, but you, oh, there was nothing in the world that he wanted to do right more than making you feel good. The thought that you had been feeling unsatisfied after your lovemaking made him nauseous on the spot, especially because he enjoyed it so thoroughly. And you were so nice to him, so understanding of his inexperience and taking it slow, just for him. He knew you would never want to hurt him, so he assumed what was the most logical conclusion: you had been disappointed with him, but too shy to say what you wanted. Yup. That was it. (To Spencer's overthinking brain, at least.)

And so, the next time you were over at his apartment, he vowed to make it right. Only there you were, sitting on his couch, smiling at him sweetly as he brought over your matching cups of tea. He didn't know whether he could ever be a man like those ones he read about. He was made for crossword puzzles and mismatched socks, old black and white movies and cozy evenings under a blanket, not brute force or coarse language. But he was going to try tonight. It killed him to think that he was selling you short of something you deserved just because he was too inexperienced to know about it.

And he knew, vaguely, that he should just ask you what you would like, but the insecurity of the last oh-so-many years of his life gnawed at him, propelling him into rash decisions. He should just ask you what you wanted, but those guys never did, and he could be smooth. Right? He could "smirk smugly," whatever that might mean. He could just go with the flow, be chill, relax. Right?? He would just, do the things, say the words, and you would like it. You would be pleasantly surprised. Right??? He was going insane.

And of course, you noticed. "Everything okay, Spence?" 

"Y- yeah!" (Could he sound any less convincing?) "Yeah, just, um, tired?" He smiled apologetically.

"Aw," your smile in comparison was broad and lovely, the picture of fondness, "you should get a good night's sleep tonight then."

Yeah, great. Very sexy, Spencer. He didn't know how he would ever stop being so damn soft and just man up. For you. 

"You should tell me if I should get out of your hair, okay?" You set your teacup down on the coffee table, "you probably have to get up early tomorrow, so…"

"No!" he blurted out before he even caught himself. Your eyebrows shot up in response, an amused albeit confused quirk playing on your lips. "I, um, I thought we could…" god, what was wrong with him? He should just, ummm, kiss you? He didn't even know. 

He breathed out, hands flexing against the soft fabric of his couch, looking you in the eyes. Your expression was warm and kind, which only made him more nervous. 

You let your head fall to the side, looking at him inquisitively. Spencer's heart soared at the little genture, his eyes no doubt betraying his nerves, or his impending insanity. To his utter surprise, you shuffled closer to him on the couch, lacing your fingers through his, which were (to his own surprise) still flexing and relaxing in a steady rhythm. You didn't say anything, just looked at him with your round, shiny eyes, but it was enough to turn Spencer into a puddle.

He decided to test the water, still never entirely sure of whether he understood your context clues, even after having been intimate with you multiple times by now. Still, he ventured into a slow kiss, his lips brushing yours while you stroked the top of his hand with your thumb. You kissed him back immediately, to his relief.

Spencer was fighting off the butterflies, but no amount of willpower could withstand the plush softness of your lips. His instinct was to go pliable under your touch, let you kiss him stupid here on his couch, but he had an agenda tonight. So he willed his hands to take a careful hold of your face, gaining control of the kiss. You betrayed no surprise, no particular reaction, you just went along with him. So Spencer upped his antics. His kisses became deeper, his brows furrowing in concentration.

Your response was just as lovely as always. You moothed his hair out of his face and went along with the deep lull of his kisses, moving in tandem with his body. Spencer had to fight not to just give in to the sweetness of your kisses, of your careful touches to his neck and chest. Still he tried to be more dominant, in his own clumsy ways. He wanted to push you into a horizontal position and crawl over you, but what happened was that he gave a light nudge to your shoulder and you fell backwards voluntarily, smiling up at him and softly weaving your fingers through his hair. 

You made it very difficult to give you what you wanted, Spencer thought vaguely. So he continued on with his quest. He traded your lips in for your neck, trailing kisses from your collarbone up to your neck. You made a small, sweet noise when he placed his lips over your pulse point, and Spencer scrambled for words to reply to you. "You like that, huh?" was what came out. The words tasted foreign on his tongue. 

You giggled in response, twirling the hair at the nape of Spencer's neck around your fingers. Not what he expected. He continued his kisses, reaching the opening of your blouse. He looked up at you as a form of asking for permission to unbutton it further, and you nodded with a shy smile. A surge of affection bloomed in his chest at the way you blushed when he started undoing the buttons, still bashful each time, he smiled to himself. He pushed the wave under, though, hiding his own reddening cheeks behind his hair while he worked to get the fabric off of you. 

Once your blouse was discarded somewhere on the floor of his apartment, he took in the sight before him. Your skin looked smooth and soft in the dim evening light that flickered through the curtains, your glittering eyes tracking Spencer's every move. Sickeningly sweet compliments threatened to spill over his lips, but he was unsure they would fit his performance tonight. So he gathered his courage and instead commanded you to "open your legs for me." You obeyed swiftly, albeit with that confused glint back in your eyes. Spencer positioned himself between your legs, leaning his hands next to your head. Everything in him wanted to oppose his brain when it made him say "good girl," but he pushed through. The words leaving his lips and settling into the air felt odd. He immediately went in for a kiss, as part of the plan, or to hide from you, he wasn't sure, cutting off your confused stare.

Your hands didn't quite know what to do, he registered, but eventually they found their place on his neck. Your kisses didn't betray any more enthusiasm than usual, he noted disappointedly. He must have been doing it wrong. What did those guys in the books do? Snarl? He could not, in good faith, bring himself to do that. He mentally flipped through the pages, unsure of where to go next. 

He let his hand drop down to the button on your jeans, opening it swiftly (at least one thing that went right) and zipped the zipper down. You lifted your hips up while not breaking the kisses, so that Spencer could shimmy you out of them and throw them with your blouse. The kisses had grown passionate and deep, your pupils blown wide when Spencer eventually pulled back. You looked angelic. Your hair splayed out on the couch cushions, your lips kissed red and puffy, and your lidded eyes intently focussed on him. All he wanted to do was kiss you for ages, until the sun set and you would fall asleep in his arms, but alas, he swallowed his lovesick daydreams down. Instead he took a hold of your hips, squeezing the soft flesh before pulling you forward by them so that you came to lie flat on your back. You let out a startled gasp, blinking your eyes cartoonishly up at him. Spencer took this as a good sign, giving your plush thigh another experimental squeeze, but your hand resting on his wrist halted his movements. 

"Okay Spence, what's going on?" your voice was not angry, rather, slightly bewildered, emphasised by the way your one brow was raised higher than the other. Spencer immediately felt the heat rush to his face, feeling like he just got caught red-handed. His big baby deer eyes wide like he was frozen in front of nearing headlights.

"Nothing…" was his - very convincing - response.

"Spence," you were smiling now, the corners of your mouth quirking up as you shuffled yourself to sit upright opposite Spencer. 

"You didn't… like it?" Spencer cringed at the insecure tone in his voice but didn't know where to hide it. 

You blinked at him for a second. "I didn't, um, expect it?" you offered, your smile seeping into your tone.

"But you… want… that? Stuff like that, right?" he fidgeted with his hands in his lap, looking unsure of his very own claims now that he said it out loud. "R- rougher?"

You let out a confused little laugh, "what would make you think that, Spence?" Your tone was affectionate, the crinkles next to your eyes betraying your fondness for your clueless boyfriend. 

His cheeks must have been quite literally on fire by this point, as he scrambled for answers he suddenly couldn't seem to find.

You reached out, caressing his cheek with your hand, "It's okay, we can talk about this," you tried to reassure him.

Spencer was wiggling in his seat, annoyed with himself on all fronts, and unable to stop himself from blurting everything out all at once: "I just, okay, um I stumbled upon this book and," he raked his fingers through his hair, realising how stupid his explanation was about to sound, "and all girls around were suddenly reading it, so i thought it must be, good, then, so I found it in the book store and read it and it was, um, spicy? Is that what they call it?" If the floor had decided to swallow him whole at that point, Spencer would have been thankful. "So I thought, since everyone seemed to like that sort of thing I would research it, and I found all these papers on dirty talk and rough sex and dominance, so I thought, I assumed…" he trailed off when seeing the look of equal parts confusion and amusement on your face.

You couldn't hold back your laughter anymore, breaking into a fit of giggles at the huge dismay of Spencer's burning cheeks. He felt his eyes grow impossibly wider, afraid he had messed up forever.

"You?? Reading smut?? Spencer, oh my god, that is both adorable and so so so stupid, babe," you said through all the giggles. Spencer joined in with a hesitant giggle of his own, starting to see his ridiculous thought process in perspective. "Why didn't you just ask me about it?" 

To his relief, you didn't sound accusatory, just soft and sincere, supported by your bright smile. "Yeah, huh," he chuckled, "hindsight sure is 20/20, huh?" he felt his nervous energy slowly flow out of him at your gentle stare. "I know I should have, I just wanted to 'fix' everything on my own, without," he looked away, "without disappointing you further…"

"Disappointing me?" you exclaimed, genuine worry in your expression, "Spencer, you haven't disappointed me once. I'm perfectly satisfied, baby, did I not show that enough? I never, ever, wanted to make you feel like you were lacking, in any regard."

"No! No," he was quick to defend, "you did nothing wrong, at all. I think I'm just, I don't know, you're more experienced than me and I thought I was just missing the mark? I thought maybe you just didn't dare to ask for what you really wanted." He smoothed his palm over his face, spilling all of his inner thoughts taking a toll on him.

"Spencer," his name on your lips sounded sweet, like it had gotten drenched in syrup, it was Spencer's favourite sound. "Please believe me when I say that you give me everything I want and more." your hand came up to cup his cheek and Spencer immediately leaned into your touch, embarrassingly aware of his own neediness. "I wish you would have just asked me about it, because then I could have told you that I love your sweet and gentle ways. I love the way you make me feel cherished." 

You were looking up at him with big, honest eyes, and Spencer started to wonder how or why his brain would ever lead him away from this soft, quiet intimacy between the two of you. "I'm sorry," he offered, a weak rebuttal, as he kissed the inside of your wrist.

"Don't apologise, silly," you leaned in, brushing your lips against his. He kissed back immediately, soft, slow, as tenderly as his need for you would allow him.

You crawled over him, still only in your underwear, and positioned yourself in his lap. Spencer's hands immediately fell to your waist, addicted to the feeling of your soft skin. Your kisses grew deeper, impossibly more intimate, as you pushed your chest into his, craving closeness. 

When Spencer pulled away, eyelids heavy with want, he groaned softly at the sight of your red, puffy lips, shiny with his spit. "You mean it? everything? " He had to ask, he had to. 

"I mean it. Everything." Your response was easy and immediate. Spencer detected no doubt in your voice, and he would know. So he kissed you again, with an almost shaking feeling, pouring himself into you. The way you gasped into his mouth sent shivers down his spine. 

When you pulled back, both breathing heavily, your lips immediately found his neck, kissing a stripe up to his ear, where you started whispering sweet nothings that sent heat straight through his body. "I like your hands, so strong and big, but so gentle," "and I love the sounds you make," "and how you touch me like i'm delicate, makes me feel so special, Spence," each one of your compliments was punctuated with more kisses to his neck. 

Spencer didn't know what to do with himself, lost in your voice and your praise. He wondered what he must have done in a previous life to deserve the most gorgeous girl ever, in his lap, almost naked, telling him how good he made her feel. His hands squeezed your hips, softly this time, and the small moan that left your lips afterwards made him dizzy.

"And I love the way you talk to me," your compliments just kept coming, "all sweet and loving, makes me feel really pretty."

"You are," he answered immediately, his voice hoarse to his own ears, "you are very pretty, gorgeous even, I- just look at you," his hands smoothed up and down your back. "Look at you…" he was almost whispering now, completely lost in you. 

You giggled into his neck, "so are you, my pretty boy."

Spencer didn't know whether he would survive. His head fell back, giving you even more access to his neck, while he felt your hips softly grind on his erection through his dress pants. He thought faintly that he might have died and gone to heaven. 

His fingers trailed up your back to the clasp of your bra, though he waited for your nod against his skin to undo it. He threw it with the rest of your clothes, into oblivion, and snaked a hand between your bodies to palm your breasts. The moan he got after grazing your nipple had him salivating, wanting to hear you fall apart entirely. 

"Baby," his voice sounded breathy, "can I take care of you, please?" 

"Of course," you withdrew from his neck, cheeks hot and eyes dark.

"Need to taste you," he mused while carefully laying you down on his couch, making sure you were comfortable. Kissing down your body until he reached the hem of your panties.

"Fuck," he groaned when he saw the small wet patch that had formed.

You smiled bashfully, giving permission for Spencer to pull the fabric down your legs and throw it god knows where. 

Spencer was, once again, completely enamoured by you. He let his fingers slide through your folds, collecting the slick and bringing it up to your clit to circle it slowly. He watched your face intently, pride blooming in his chest with every moan and eyeroll he got out of you. He positioned himself between your thighs, fully intent on worshipping you for as long as he could hold out.

He started by kissing your plush thighs, the soft skin feeling heavenly under his lips. As he started to get closer and closer to where you needed him most, you grew more desperate, whining his name and making Spencer almost delirious with your voice. "I know, baby, I know," he shushed you, finally planting a kiss in your needy clit.

You involuntarily bucked your hips up, finally getting some release, and Spencer watched in awe as your eyes screwed shut when he licked a broad stripe over your pussy. "Feels so good, Spence," you whined, just as Spencer thought it would be impossible to turn him on even more.

He continued licking and sucking just as you liked, your hands eventually finding a home in his curly hair, softly running your fingers through it. Spencer thought he could spend eternity there, between your thighs.

He carefully introduced a finger, revelling in the reaction he got, and started pumping in and out of your slick opening. It didn't take long before you could take two, as Spencer's gaze remained transfixed on the way you were swallowing his digits. "You're doing so well, baby."

"I'm- I'm getting close," you gasped, and Spencer could feel it. He could feel you squeezing his fingers. The thought alone made him crazy, making him go faster, chasing your sweet release.

You fell apart on his fingers with a last, high-pitched moan, arching your back beautifully for him. He worked you through your hugh, being careful not to overstimulate you. 

"Was that good?" the words had left his mouth before he could register them, betraying his insistent insecurity. 

You were looking satisfied and dazed from your spot between his throw pillows, smiling up at him through your lashes. "Good? Spence, that is the understatement of the year. I think I saw stars."

Your bright giggle calmed his nerves as he joined in, leaning down to capture your lips in a sweet kiss.

"But now," you started as you pushed yourself upright, "it's time to take care of you, pretty boy." 

Spencer revelled in your attention, willingly going along with your motions to undress him. He watched as you struggled with the buttons on his shirt, helping you with a broad smile, and once again mentally thanked whatever deity and deemed him worthy of you when you skillfully undid his belt and trousers. Freeing his aching dick out of his underwear, you couldn't help but stroke him a few times. Spencer hissed at the contact, already sensitive.

"Such a pretty boy," you mused. Spencer's dick twitched at your words, but he didn't have it in him anymore to feel embarrassed. Instead he eagerly helped you into his lap, your pussy hovering over his needy dick.

He positioned himself at your opening, dragging his tip though your folds a few times to gather your wetness, enjoying the little hitch in your breath when he brushed against your sensitive clit. You started to sink down on him, exhaling harshly once you felt the stretch of his tip at your opening, "take it easy, baby, no rush," Spencer reassured you, marvelling at how good you looked on top of him. You sank down on him slowly, taking all of him and letting out a content sound that matched Spencer's low moan. 

You started riding him slowly, guided by his large hands on your hips, and Spencer could hardly hold it together. He drew you in for a passionate kiss, but he soo had to halt those efforts because he could do little else but moan and sigh against your lips. You were in equal levels of disarray, loving the way he felt buried deep inside you just as much as he loved it.

"Fuck, baby, oh, god I'm- I'm so close already," Spencer managed between breathy gasps.

"That's alright, Spence, ah- me too."

Spencer saw this as his perfect chance, taking a stronger hold of your hips and driving his dick into you at the exact angle that made you a whining hot mess on top of him. Thank god for his eidetic memory, and the way you felt clenching around him. He made sure your orgasm came first, feeling your pussy squeeze his dick deliciously as your nails dug into his skin with a raw, drawn-out moan. Spencer followed seconds behind you, completely overwhelmed by how good you felt pulsing around him, spilling his load into you while holding your body impossibly close to his, babbling your name and sweet nothings as he reached his high.

You rode out your pleasure together, eventually stilling in each other's arms and catching your breaths. 

"Spencer, oh my god…" that was all you could muster to say to your boyfriend in your current state, but Spencer understood. He gleamed with pride, planting a kiss on your shoulder and slowly taking your face in his hands to kiss the tip of your nose.

"Let me get you cleaned up, pretty girl," he said after a while of basking in your collective post orgasm glow. 

You were pouting as you languidly willed yourself to get off of him, but with another kiss and a promise of cuddling later, you agreed for Spencer to fetch you a towel. As he walked into his bathroom, he couldn't help but notice all the small marks you had left on his neck and chest, smiling to himself in the dim evening light, completely satisfied. 

🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏🍏

I am but a humble fanfic writer and i beg for your feedback guys :))))))) xxxxxxxx

[hypothetical-strumpet]

𝗗𝗶𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗗𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀, 𝗦𝘁𝘂𝗰𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗭𝗼𝗻𝗲- 𝗦.𝗥.

Pairing- PostPrison!Spencer x Gideon!Reader

WC- 5k

Summary- Jason Gideon's daughter reluctantly accepts a new position at the BAU. The night before her first day, she has a one night stand in order to quell her nerves. When that one night stand turns out to be her coworker and her father's old protégé, she'll have more to fight than just killers.

Contains- canon typical violence, reader coming head-to-head with an unsub, reader is a lil reckless and very stubborn, non-explicit sex scene (18+ MDNI regardless), Spencer has emotional issues from prison, actually proofread this time holla

A/N- divider from @thecutestgrotto !! I honestly don't love this fic so bon appetite I hope u guys do

Glasses clink together, celebratory whoops ringing through the crowded bar. Your crisp, refreshing vodka cran tickles your throat as a large gulp slides down. You’re desperate to quell the anxiety bubbling up in you, though you’re supposed to be celebrating. 

You’re smiling, but it doesn’t quite meet your eyes. Your fingers squeeze around your glass, your heart pounding. You’re desperate to appear happy and grateful, and your friends truly are great to you, celebrating you in such a way. 

It’s hard though, knowing the clock just keeps ticking. The seconds fleeting, one by one, until your arrival at the Behavioral Analysis Unit. Your father founded it. You swore you’d never follow in his footsteps, scorned from the way it tore your family apart.

Yet, when you received a call from unit chief Emily Prentiss, you’d been hard pressed to say no. Something screamed deep inside you, all the parts given to you by your father, at the case details Agent Prentiss provided. 

A serial killer targeting women, within 5 mile radii of historical landmarks all throughout D.C. She said she’d seen your work at the D.C. History Center, your ability to analyze and curate historical artifacts standing out. If you like it, then you have a permanent spot on the team. It’s more money, you told yourself. Yet, you couldn’t help but feel there’s a part of you, deep down, that needed to say yes. 

The loud shrieks of laughter emanating from your table snap you back to reality. You scan the bar, patrons packed in like sardines. The low light mixes with the smoke filtering the air. Your eyes narrow into slits as they land on something quite breathtaking. 

It’s a man. He seems older, a professional, with the tailored way his suit coat fits. That doesn’t stop his brown curls from flopping in front of his big eyes. His long fingers graze the rim of a whiskey glass, taking a long sip. Your friend follows your gaze, her eyebrows shooting into her hairline at what she finds. 

“Oh!” she gasps, impressed by what she sees. “Good find! You gonna go talk to him?” 

You shift your head from side to side, rattling the question around in your brain. You’re typically not bold enough to approach a man in a setting like this, let alone the Adonis sitting across the bar from you now. Tonight, though, you might be just tipsy enough, just desperate enough to escape the anxiety of tomorrow, that you may just go for it. What’s the worst that could happen?

You slide out of the booth, fingers delicately gripping the rim your glass as you make your way across the bar. You slink onto the bar stool next to him, refusing to make eye contact, though you feel his gaze on you. You adjust your mini dress, pulling the sparkly gold fabric down as far as it’d go, your upper thigh tantalizingly on display. His head drops down to where your hand lay, and he licks his lips. Check and mate.

“Long night?” You ask, crossing your leg over your knee. You sip your drink, still refusing to look at him. 

“You could say that,” he murmurs, his eyes never leaving your frame. 

Your eyes meet his, unable to hold off any longer. God. He’s even more gorgeous than you thought. You study him up close now, your brow furrowing. There’s something about him- his round eyes, the slant of his nose- that feels hauntingly familiar. Like a friend from a past life, returning to you once more. You can’t place your finger on it, though, and the alcohol disorienting you just enough to brush it off. For now. 

“How could you tell?” He asks, and it dawns on you that you’d never responded. You poise yourself, sitting up straighter to shake off the mishap. 

“Had a hunch,” you reply over the rim of your glass. You let your lips close around it and take a sip. His eyes follow the movement. A shiver runs down your spine. 

“You seem like a very smart woman,” he says, his voice soft yet firm. You want to bathe in it. 

“You don’t even know the half of it,” you reply, your eyes narrowing as you size him up further. You introduce yourself, reveling in the way his eyes light up at your name.

“Spencer,” he responds, that pesky deja vu creeping back in at the name. 

It falls silent between you then, but it’s not uncomfortable. On the contrary, actually. Your eyes never leave each other, having a silent conversation all on their own. His are dark with desire and want, they hang low slightly, due to the alcohol, most likely. They’re otherworldly gorgeous, big and brown like melted pools of chocolate. You could swim in him all night. 

There’s something else there entirely, though. Hesitation, confusion maybe. The smallest tint of discomfort lasers through the heat, like he’s out of his comfort zone. A smirk crawls on your lips. What are the odds that tonight, of all nights, was the one in which you both decided to take a chance?

It only takes one more drink and some small talk until you’re up against your own front door. He’s kissing you within an inch of your life, his large hands completely captivating your face. His lips slot over yours, making your brain fuzzy. He kisses like a madman, all encompassing, borderline feral. 

There’s a hunger in his tongue that you haven’t tasted in far too long. It’s addictive, his smoky scent, his soft pants against your mouth. Your eyes roll to the back of your head at the sensations. Your nails grip the root of his curls as his lips move to your neck, softly sucking and nibbling. A whimper escapes your lips, your eyes squeezing shut as you scramble for the doorknob. You rattle against the lock before fumbling for your keys. 

You stumble in shortly after, tripping over your gold shoes. Spencer catches you, a large hand splaying over the small of your back. He tugs you closer with it, your chest pressing against his. You walk him down the hall before he scoops you up, taking you the rest of the way to your bedroom. 

“Spencer,” you muffle against his neck, overwhelmed by your desire for him. 

“I know, sweetheart. I know. Give me just one minute and I’m going to make you feel so good,” he whispers against your temple. You nod feverishly, like if you’d stopped he’d disappear. 

He lays you down, propping your feet to rest flat on the bed, spreading your knees apart with those large hands. He freezes, his breath hitching at the sight of you under your dress. You smirk, the lace thong you’d worn doing its exact job. His Adam’s apple bobs as you trace a fingernail up his forearm. 

“What is it, Spencer?” You question his hesitance, the way he’s stuck in front of you now, dazed. His eyes are wide, his lips slightly parted. It makes you feel divine, the goddess of the universe on display for him. 

“You gonna leave me hanging?” you pout, reveling in the way his eyes darken. He kisses you with the fervor to prove he could never do such a thing. You let go. The feeling of his hands are intoxicating, like a rich wine. 

They creep up your sides, your dress hitching higher and higher with the movement. You shift under his touch, your body writhing as heat pools in your lower belly. 

The second he grazes your bare skin, he freezes. Your eyes shoot open to find his, wide and desperate and so, so gorgeous. It shifts something inside of you, your heart clutching so severely that it scares you. 

“Spencer,” you whisper against his lips. He shudders. 

“I’m going to make you feel so good.” He kisses you again. 

You blink slowly, the soft light of the sunrise filtering through your parted curtains. There’s a slight thump in your head, but thankfully nothing too bad. You massage your temples as you turn. Your eyes shoot open as you hit a body next to you, still sound asleep. 

Memories of last night come rushing back- meeting Spencer, taking him home, the phenomenal night you had, and now this. This, the first day of your new job. Your heart drops. You scramble on the bed in a panicked attempt to find your phone. You whip around to see it sitting on your nightstand, thanking any and every higher power that might be. 

You let out a sigh of relief when you see you still have some time to get yourself ready. You ignore the 47 text messages from your group chat last night. You’ll tell them you’re alive later. 

You only have an hour, not what you’d ideally wanted for your first day of a brand new job, but it’s better than nothing. It still doesn’t solve your problem of the man in your bed, however. 

Your hands push the dead weight, rustling him awake. He rubs his eyes, a raspy, “what?” escaping his lips. For a brief moment, you’re sad that you don’t have enough time to appreciate the sight, the sound of his morning voice. You shake it off quickly, though. You push him again, urging him out of your bed.

“Babe, it’s 5:30 a.m.,” you murmur, rubbing your eyes. You’re both too tired to address the pet name. At least that’s what you’re telling yourselves. 

“Oh, shit. I’m gonna be late for work,” he scrambles off the bed. You take a moment to admire his naked frame in the sunlight as he gathers his clothing. 

“Me too,” you say, lunging off the bed yourself. “It’s my first day on a new job, I’m running more behind than I’d like to be right now.” You’re running around your room like a chicken with her head cut off, grabbing your towels and rushing to the ensuite bathroom. 

You can’t help but give him one last peck on the lips. This, incidentally, led to two, three, four more. Lastly, one that lingers longer than it should. One long enough for him to graze his hand along your bare arm. You shiver. Your thin bedsheet is the only fabric separating your bare body to his fully clothed one. 

You pull away, taking a step back. You release a deep breath as you take him in once more before you leave. 

“Feel free to make some coffee on your way out! Cups are in the cupboard above the coffee pot! Thanks for last night!” You call, before slamming the bathroom door on him, running the shower. 

Miraculously, you managed to make it at an appropriate time. You park in the FBI car park at 6:45 on the dot. You lean back in your seat, taking a deep breath and a sip of coffee. Finally, you reapply your lip gloss before you turn off your car. 

Your heels echo through the hallway leading towards the Behavioral Analysis Unit. Your heart is pounding in your ears. You’d always told yourself you would never follow in the steps of your father. And yet, here you are. Each step you take feels as if you’re walking in a giant’s footsteps. You pray you’ll make him proud.  

The FBI seal on the door looms over you, unable to keep its claws out of the Gideon lineage. You’re frozen there, stuck staring at it, unable to enter. That is, until you hear your name from behind you. The voice is familiar, too familiar. Your stomach drops. 

You whip your head around, coming face to face with-

“Spencer,” you breathe, the air stolen from your lungs at the sight of him. 

His hair is slightly damp, falling in front of his eye. There’s static in your ears, a faint ringing torturing you. Panic swells in your stomach, bubbling, boiling. And then it hits you. 

Spencer. Spencer Reid. Dr. Spencer Reid. 

“You worked with my dad,” you whispered. It’s all you can manage. Your voice still cracks. 

“Your dad?” His brow furrows. He studies your face. His eyes scan up and down, desperation taking over. You can basically hear them asking, begging, “Who are you?”You’re still frozen, unable to speak.

Then, it hits him. You know, because he’s found the exact parts of you that resemble your father, his mentor. Your dark eyes, the slant in your nose, the curve of your mouth. The very mouth that was on his just hours ago. 

“Oh, God,” he gasps. You turn, walking into the office. All you hear is static as you move, your heart pounding in your ears as you fake a smile through your introductions. 

You move throughout your day as easily as you can. The rest of the team is incredibly kind, welcoming. The work starts almost immediately, which you’re thankful for. Like father, like daughter, you suppose. Yet, you can’t escape Spencer, looming over you like an inescapable shadow. 

He hasn’t spoken to you since your interaction outside the door, but you feel his eyes on you the whole day. When you speak to the team, when you analyze a document, he’s there. Watching. You feel his eyes creep up your spine, their penetrative gaze lodging deep in your chest. Your heart squeezes each time he walks past you without recognition. The cold shoulder lasts through the rest of the day. 

You’re conflicted, your heart at war with your mind. The Spencer you met in the bar last night is nothing like the image you’d created of him in your head years prior. He’s kind, funny, interesting, not because of, but in spite of his accolades and achievements. He’s someone you could fall for. At least, you thought so before seeing him today. 

You were young when your dad took Spencer under his wing. You’d never met him, then, just seen a few pictures and heard endless stories. You always felt in his shadow, though. The way your father’s eyes lit up when he spoke about him, the excitement lacing his tone, it was all reserved solely for Spencer Reid. 

You’d cry yourself to sleep some nights, desperate to do something, anything as worthwhile in the eyes of your father. You never did. He loved you, of course, and he was proud of you. Yet, nothing ever measured up to his pride and love for the Behavioral Analysis Unit, for Spencer. 

As the weeks went by, Spencer couldn’t help but find himself pulling further and further away from her. It’s an anchor on his heart, weighing it down more and more each day. Everything inside him, his soul, his heart, screams to be near her, to hold her, to have her every night the way he did that first one. His mind, though, is an entirely different story. 

His mind pumps the brakes, waging a civil war inside him that he won’t be able to win. He’s terrified. Terrified of being left the same way her father did, though he knows in his heart he can’t blame her for his faults. His mind once again holds him back, though. It’s funny that what’s supposed to be his greatest strength can also be his biggest enemy. He reconciled with that a lot when he was behind bars, yet another reason he’s apprehensive of opening up to her. So, he stays away. 

Now, Spencer buzzes through the bullpen, coffee in hand as the team rushes to the conference room. He’s stuck behind her, of course. The floral scent of her perfume infiltrates him, threatening a shutdown of his central nervous system. His heart constricts as he watches her, her snug blouse cinching her waist, the tight pencil skirt it’s tucked into rendering him nearly brainless. He sips his coffee, eyes diverting. 

He hasn’t spoken to her much in the month she’s been here, though not from a lack of desire. Quite the opposite, actually. His heart is fighting something. Something deep inside him from before he went to prison, before Gideon even left the bureau. Her relation to his former mentor has shifted his world on a different axis, like life is moving in reverse. 

With his luck, the only seat left is the one directly across from her, the shine of her lip gloss inescapable. He tries his best to focus as Penelope debriefs them on a triple homicide in Texas, though something peculiar piques his interest. He sees it through the window, someone delivering an envelope on her desk. It’s a black envelope, not anything that would be used for official government business. The hairs on the back of his neck rise. He stands. The entire team looks at him. 

“I need to go check on something,” he murmurs, but before he leaves, he taps her lightly on the shoulder. “You need to come with me,” he says lowly, so only she can hear. 

She stands, hesitantly, offering the team a sheepish, apologetic smile. He suppresses a soft chuckle at that. She’s a Gideon, for Christ’s sake. She could show up late for a year straight and they’d thank her just for showing up. He pushes that thought away as he leads her to her desk. 

“There was something that was dropped off on your desk just now,” he murmurs into her ear. “It was weird, I have a hunch. I just think you need to look at it before it’s too late.”

“Too late? Spencer-” she stops, her eyes going wide once she sees the envelope. “Oh, God,” she gasps, her fingers covering her mouth. 

“What? What is it?” Spencer asks, his pulse speeding up. 

“My father received letters in these exact same envelopes in the months before he died,” she looks at him, eyes wild and glossy, laced with deep seated fear. 

Meet me at the park at 2:30 p.m. You know which one. Don’t be late. 

Spencer races back to the conference room, the letter gripped tightly in his fingers. He lays it out on the table for the team, their brows quirking. 

“This was left on her desk. She said her dad received ones just like it in the months before his murder.” It’s all he needs to say before the team scrambles out of the conference room. Penelope’s already on the phone with the case director, forwarding them a new unit for their case. Rossi, Emily, and J.J. are scanning for a return address,  

Spencer exits the conference room to see her holstering her gun, fitting her badge in her back pocket. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” He asks her, a tentative hand out in front of him. 

“What do you think I’m doing?” she snaps, and he flinches at her tone. 

Regret flashes in her eyes, only for a brief moment. 

“There’s no way in hell you’re going to that park,” he insists with a shake of his head. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was someone you were interested in at all. What’s it to you that I’m fighting for myself when I couldn’t for my father?” Her voice shakes on the last word, his heart cracking at the sound. 

“I know I’ve been…distant,” he mutters, his voice low, “but you need to think about the implications of what you’re doing.”

“Distant? That’s what you want to call it?” She scoffs, moving to follow the rest of the team. “I’ve thought about the implications of these letters since the day my father was killed. You may have been his golden boy, but I’m his blood.” She sneers in his face, before leaving with the team.

His heart plummets, dropping into his stomach like a brick in the ocean. He plows ten fingers through his hair before bringing the letter to Penelope’s office. They have some analyzing to do. 

The car ride is silent as you drive. You knew what park they were referring to immediately. It’s the one your father took you to when you were a baby. You stare out the window, mind and body numb to the reality of what’s happening. 

“Hey Emily,” your voice is low, tentative. “Did my dad ever talk about me?” You inhale shakily, not sure if you want the answer. You couldn’t help asking, regardless. 

“Oh, yeah he did,” she has a soft smile on her face, and it melts something frozen inside you. 

You let out an exhale of relief. “Really?” You ask, disbelieving. 

“Really. He wasn’t a typical parent, not one to show off accolades or achievements, though we know you had tons of those,” she states, and you smile softly. “What he did show us were glimpses into his life with you.”

You furrow your brow at this, unsure of her point. She looks at you, then smiles, turning her attention back to the road. 

“He’d bring you up in random conversation, when we’d work on paperwork, when he was interviewing families…‘Oh, my daughter loves that show,’ or, ‘my daughter loves the color pink.’ Any chance he had, he’d mention it. At a certain point, I don’t think he even realized he was doing it. It just happened.”

You didn’t even realize your eyes were glossing over until a lone tear rolls down your cheek. You swipe it away with your fingers, clearing your throat and looking down at your lap. 

“Thank you,” you croak. Emily nods. 

It doesn’t take long until you reach the park, each member of the team splitting up in various directions. You’re with Emily, on strict orders to stay near any member of the team. You feel something, though. Something deep down that’s not right, that the team is headed in the wrong direction. 

You entered the park at the south entrance, the opposite side from where your father would take you. You scan the premises, your breath catching. It’s mainly families, some couples enjoying a walk or a picnic. It’s peaceful. Guilt boils in the pit of your stomach at the thought of disturbing these people. The job is the job, as your father would always say.

It takes a split second for you to make a decision the entire team will have your head for. You break off from the group, sneaking off to a backwoods trail you would hike with your father. It’ll get you to the other side of the park, the side you need to be. You know you should include the team in this decision, that you’re putting yourself directly in harm’s way. This feels so personal, so vulnerable, though, that your feet are moving before your mind can catch up to your body. 

It doesn’t take long for Emily to notice you’ve gone, as you can hear her muffled “shit!” come from behind. Your heart pounds against your ribcage as you pause, waiting for her to pass by to continue your route. 

The trail leads you to the other side, just as it always did, and it doesn’t take long for you to see him. Growing up in the shadow of your father means you know everything there is to know about psychoanalysis. This includes how to spot an unsub. It’s almost too easy at this point, like chess to their checkers. 

You exit the trail, the unsub clocking you almost immediately. He cocks his gun, pointing it right at you. You holster yours, holding your hands up in surrender. 

“I’m not here to fight. I just want to talk,” you say, voice calm and collected. 

“I refuse to talk to a Gideon,” he spits your name. It’s venomous, vengeful. So it is personal. 

“Okay, then pretend I’m not a Gideon. Pretend I’m someone who just wants to have a conversation,” you say. You move closer, despite your better judgement. 

“Do you think I’m stupid?!” He grits out, aggravation evident in his tone. People around are starting to notice, to flee. You put yourself between him and any other pedestrians still at the park. 

“God, you look just like him!” He sounds pained as he says it, like it almost hurts. 

He lunges at you, then. Before your body can react, his forearm is held tight against your throat, the gun pressed to your temple. Adrenaline pumps through your veins, as your eyes frantically search for anything they can find. 

 Then, you spot it. It’s tiny, you could’ve easily missed it. D.M. Small, stark letters tattooed on the inside of his wrist. Your breath catches in your throat when it sinks in. 

“Your dad killed my father,” you say. It’s strained as you fight for breath.

“What?” The man says, gripping you tighter. 

“D.M. On your wrist. Donnie Mallick. He killed my father,” you breathe, a bead of sweat forming on your forehead. The man pauses, lowering the gun from your head. He’s distracted. Now’s your chance.

You make quick work of gripping the gun, stomping on his foot with your heel to get him to let go of the weapon. His arms collide with your middle, knocking you to the ground. Your knee strikes his gut, and he keels into you. You watch as his arm winds back, gearing up to deliver a severe punch. You wiggle around, bracing yourself for impact. 

“I have to finish what he started.”

It’s the last thing you hear before  his weight is taken off you completely. You turn to see Spencer on top of him, cuffing his hands behind his back. Your heart pounds against your ribcage, the adrenaline mixing with the utter shock of seeing Spencer take down an unsub like that, of seeing Spencer at all. He hands him off to Rossi and makes quick work moving to you. 

You dust yourself off, standing on shaky ground. You look at Spencer, only a few feet away, but it feels like oceans. You’re both breathing deep, his chest mirroring your own heaving. You watch as he takes long strides, his hands gripping your face before pulling your lips to his. 

He kisses you like you’re Penelope and he’s Odysseus, reunited after 10 years apart. In a way, you feel like you have been. You wrap your arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer to you. He deepens the kiss, his lips covering yours almost entirely. His hands find the small of your back, hoisting you closer. He pulls back for air. You can’t help but chase his lips. He gives you one more peck before pulling you back into his chest. 

“You really shouldn’t sneak off alone like that,” he breathes. You laugh against him, squeezing him tighter. 

The ride back to the bureau with Spencer is quiet. Not tense, but a comfortable silence that falls over you two like a soft blanket. Your brow quirks when Spencer veers to the right, 2 blocks from the office. 

“Spencer, you’re going the wrong way,” you breathe out, knowing deep down there’s no possible way he made this mistake unintentionally. 

“No, I’m not. You’ll see,” there’s a small smile on his face. You settle back into your seat. 

A swarm of butterflies is unleashed in your stomach as he pulls into an all-too-familiar parking lot. The red and white neon sign frames the car in the late sunset. ‘Buddy’s 24H Diner. Best Milkshakes In Town!’ A tear sneaks its way down your cheek before you can stop it. 

“My dad used to take me here all the time,” you whisper, voice thick with emotion. “It’s the only place he liked that he could take me to after cases.”

“I know,” he smiles. “Let’s go.”

You’re seated in the corner booth, the one your dad insisted on every time. Your lips curl around your milkshake straw, fighting for your life to suck out the thick liquid. It’s not lost on you when Spencer’s eyes follow the movement, bringing his own cup to his lips. 

“I’ve been having a hard time, having you on the team,” Spencer mutters. Your heart sinks. 

“Oh?” You attempt to remain as calm as possible. “Why’s that?”

He shrugs, avoiding eye contact. Your heart picks up in speed, thrumming in your ears. 

“I was such a different person when Gideon was in my life. I don’t think I was prepared for another one to enter,” he takes a bite of his burger, chewing before continuing. “Since I got out of prison, I’ve been so desperate to put my old life behind me. You joining the team has forced me to admit that life doesn’t work that way.” 

You pop a fry into your mouth, chewing on that and what he said. 

“Why were you in prison?” You ask, feeling a slight tinge of regret at the way he flinches. 

“I was framed by an unsub. She had someone on the outside,” his voice is clipped. You count yourself lucky for getting even this much information. 

“I’m sorry,” you mutter. He shrugs. 

“It’s just…thinking about the me I was when I worked with your father…” he trails off, eyes darting out the window. “I was so different. So naive. I had no idea what this job would do to me. So, when I saw you on your first day, it was like all these pieces of my life were colliding. I wasn’t ready for it. I froze. It’s no excuse for how I’ve treated you these past few weeks, and I’ll do everything and anything to make it up to you. I’m sorry,” he finishes with a deep exhale. 

“I had a hard time, too,” you mutter, his eyes shooting up to you. 

“With what?” He breathes. 

“Reconciling my feelings for the great Dr. Spencer Reid.” His brow quirks in confusion. “You’re not the only one with a past life, y’know?” Your voice is sarcastic, but kind all the same. 

“You may have only heard about me in passing, but my dad…God, he worshipped you. You were all he talked about most days. I was young. I felt inadequate. When I found out that was the man I ended up sleeping with, I…retreated. I couldn’t make peace with it either,” you utter, a shaky exhale following. 

“I’m sorry,” Spencer mumbles, his eyes going soft. 

You reach across the table, holding his hand in yours.

“Thank you for the apology, Spencer. It’s okay. How could you have known?” your eyes gleam, the emotion palpable between you two. “Expect to be put through the ringer, though. You said everything and anything, I’m holding you to that.” You point a fry at him in a threatening manner. He smiles. 

“Good. I’m looking forward to it.” God, his smile is pretty. 

“So…” you trail off, flirtation lacing your tone. “What was that kiss back there? You weren’t even supposed to be in the field.”

He avoids eye contact again, fighting back a smile. 

“When someone I care about that much risks her life for a case, I’ll find a way to get there. No matter what.” His voice is low, warm. A shiver unzips your spine. 

“I’m glad you did,” you smile. 

Hours tick by, you and Spencer only moving to use the restroom. It’s like you’re catching up on all the dates you could have had in one night. You’re not complaining. 

Each new fact you learn about Spencer makes your heart swell. His pain, his joy, his work. You want to swim in his memories until you’re laced in all of them. 

You talked about your dad, about your work at the History Center, and how it led you to the bureau. 

“Emily sweet talked me into it. I don’t know how anyone can say no to her,” you chuckle, sipping what must be your fourth cup of coffee. 

It’s pitch black out now, the diner nearly empty. Your eyes began to feel heavy hours ago. You still haven’t moved. You can tell Spencer’s tired, too. The bags under his eyes are prominent, darker than usual. 

Speak of the devil, both your phones buzz with an alert from your unit chief. 

Emily: I know you’ve been at that diner all night. Go home and go to bed, you psychopaths. 

You look at Spencer, brow raised. “My place?”

“Let’s do it,” Spencer smiles.

[hypothetical-strumpet]

For the game

Can I get Spencer, in a preschool playroom, with ²⁸⁾ “neither of us are leaving this room until you tell me how you got that shiner.”

Maybe reader is a preschool teacher and Spencer comes in on his day off.

Please and thank you. Also I love your stories so much!

you sure can! thanks for playing <3

Spencer Reid x gn!reader who has a black eye [1k words]

CW: no gender markers used for reader, discussion of a black eye, fluff

Spencer’s not in the practice of using his credentials to get what he wants, but the staff at the office of your school hardly bat an eye when he introduces himself as Special Agent Doctor Spencer Reid, wondering if they could point him in the direction of you. 

He thinks you might be friendly with the receptionist who lights up in recognition at Spencer’s name before dutifully instructing him towards your classroom. That’s probably for the best; it likely isn’t a good look on your part to have the FBI showing up at your workplace to speak with you. 

But it wasn’t the FBI showing up at the workplace to speak with you, it was just Spencer. And Spencer wasn’t in the practice of using his credentials to get what he wants, but he needs to see you; an achingly unfamiliar feeling for the agent but somehow it feels like a fundamentally natural response to a lack of you. 

The day is mostly done; most kids having been seen off on the bus and the remaining few petering out with their parents. Spencer smiles at all of them. 

But the sight of you has his smile falling from his face in an instant. 

“What happened?” He coos emphatically, nearly tripping over the tiny, miniature furniture built for tiny, miniature people. 

“Spencer!” You greet him, mouth open in silent surprise, the mottled skin surrounding your eye completely forgotten at the sight of him.

Luckily, Spencer doesn’t forget so easily. Or at all. 

“What happened to you?”

“What are you doing here?”

Spencer has the grace to chuckle at the two of you speaking over each other, his hands finally rising to take the sides of your face and tilt your head up to inspect it. 

You smile at him like it doesn’t hurt to do so, but Spencer’s sported enough shiners of his own to know that it does. 

“I leave for nine days and come back to find you bruised?” He pouts, thumbs gently brushing the space beneath your lower lashes – touch barely there – as your eyes flutter shut. 

“In fairness to you,” you begin with a chuckle, “this only happened today.”

“While you were at work?” 

Your eyes open then, smile growing even as your brows furrow in bemusement. “What? You leave work beaten and bruised, too. Not to mention the times you’ve been shot or-”

“Okay, alright.” He cuts you off gently, subconsciously worried that a tot might hear the word shot or stabbed. “Well, I tend to work with some of the most dangerous people in the country. You work with preschool children.”

“Hey,” you chide playfully, “you know as well as I do what the stats suggest; any number of these kids could grow up to be on the FBI’s most wanted list.” 

You’re not technically wrong but that’s not the point. Ignoring the area’s demographics, the role that early childhood education plays in the development of healthy behavior patterns, and how it leads to conforming to social norms, Spencer is of the mind that any child who is lucky enough to have had your influence in their life – however brief – can’t possibly grow up to be anything less than lovely. 

He doesn’t say any of that, though, narrowing his eyes in an attempt to level you with his best impression of one of Hotch’s glares; the way you beam at him has him knowing he’s fallen painfully short. 

“Neither of us are leaving this room until you tell me how you got that shiner.”

Your lips purse like you’re trying to be annoyed with him but just can’t manage it; your nose scrunching and hinting at a bit of embarrassment.

“You’re going to laugh at me.” 

“I’d never.” He says with a chuckle; you narrow your eyes at him. “I promise. What happened?” 

“Well…” you start carefully, taking a minuscule step out of Spencer’s grasp as you look anywhere but at him. “We were working on some gross motor skills.”

Spencer hums in agreement. 

“And some hand-eye coordination.”

“Oh jeez.” He whispers; you wince. 

“So I pulled out our little t-ball set.”

“You didn’t.” 

“I did.” You groan; morose. Your forehead tips down until it rests against Spencer’s collarbone. He welcomes you into his arms. “Most of them couldn’t figure it out, you know? I mean, some of them just kept swinging.”

Spencer winces, this time for himself; he does know, intimately. 

A laugh bubbles out of you. “I mean, one of them I had to keep telling to keep their eye on the ball, and they stepped up to the tee and actually touched their eye to the ball!”

“Hilarious and adorable, but I am struggling to see how that translates to you sporting a black eye.”

Spencer can actually feel you cringe against his chest. 

“Turns out, one of the kids has been practicing all summer with her dad. She, well, she’s got a really good swing on her.” 

“Oh, love.” Spencer pouts as he pulls you away from his chest to examine your face again. 

Yeah, just as he expected; still lovely albeit bruised.

“I feel ridiculous.” You admit with a laugh. “I mean, it was just one of those little plastic balls. Who knew they could cause so much damage?”

Spencer hums noncommittally. “The eye socket is fragile and the tissue surrounding it is very delicate with blood vessels very close to the surface. Even a relatively minor impact to the face can cause trauma to the area. It’s called a periorbital hematoma; it's caused by bleeding beneath the skin due to broken blood vessels.” 

His eyes leave yours only to flit down to your lips; you’re smiling at him. Beaming, really.

“What?” 

“I feel better now.” You murmur happily, leaning further into him so that your lips graze his chin as you speak.

He smirks, ducking his chin so that your lips are level with one another before pressing a chaste kiss to your lips.

“Well I’ll feel better once I get you home with a cold compress and furniture built for adults.”

You sigh happily and grab your work bag. “Well? Lead the way, Doctor Reid.” 

You don’t have to tell him twice.

© ellecdc; do not copy, translate, or repost my work anywhere under any circumstances.

[hypothetical-strumpet]

SOFT ANIMAL ―.✦ SERIES MASTERLIST

spencer reid x fem!nurse!reader

you do not have to be good.

you do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

meanwhile the world goes on.

- mary oliver, wild geese (1986)

spencer reid never expected to end up in prison. even more unexpected than that was finding her there. in the shadow of his darkest days incarcerated at millburn correctional facility, a nurse in the infirmary became his lifeline — a steady presence in a world unraveling around him. after his release, what began as survival turned into something deeper — a life built slowly, unevenly, through grief and grace and the kind of love that learns to stay.

a 13-part story about trauma, love, and all the quiet spaces in between.

꩜ = smut | ❀ = fluff | ⚡︎ = angst | ᢉ𐭩 = hurt/comfort

☘︎ = can be read as a stand-alone one shot

i. fluorescent mercy ᢉ𐭩 ❀ | ☘︎

ii. strange grace (18+) ᢉ𐭩 ❀

iii. fragile gravity (18+) ❀

iv. synodic curve (18+) ꩜ ❀

v. quiet proof ᢉ𐭩 ❀

vi. re-entry burn ᢉ𐭩

vii. verbal impulse (18+) ꩜ ❀ | ☘︎

viii. terminal velocity (18+) ⚡︎ ꩜ ᢉ𐭩

ix. convergence zone ᢉ𐭩 ⚡︎ ❀ | ☘︎

x. blind contour (18+) ꩜ ᢉ𐭩

xi. dark matter (18+) ᢉ𐭩 ❀ | coming soon

xii. long division ⚡︎ | coming soon

to be continued

main masterlist

[hypothetical-strumpet]

FRAGILE GRAVITY ―.✦ s.r. soft animal series ∘ part iii

pairing: spencer reid x fem!nurse!reader

summary: the morning after is tender and new, but reality presses at the edges. outside waits a world they’re still learning how to move through together.

genre: fluff, like the tiniest bit of smut if you squint

w/c: 5.2k

tags/warnings: post-prison Spencer, prison nurse reader, more making out ooooh, things get a lil heated but no real smut quite yet, still NSFW MDNI, a lil tension over reader’s job, but mostly fluff i swear

a/n: part 3 is here! this is much longer than i originally intended for it to be and part 4 is just as long if not a lil longer tbh, but the chapters will start getting shorter/more digestible after that!

series masterlist

It started with the warmth of him.

I’d never slept next to someone like Spencer before — so still, so quiet, like he was afraid to take up too much space. But even in sleep, he never let go of me. We shifted to a spooning position, his chest against my back, and his arm around my waist stayed firm through the night. His hand rested low on my stomach like he couldn’t bear the thought of distance, not even in sleep.

When I woke, it was to the warmth first, and then the smell of him — clean laundry and peppermint and something a little worn, like old books. His nose was buried in my hair. His chest rose and fell against my back in slow, deep waves. I didn’t dare move at first.

And then I felt it.

A shift in his breathing. The way his fingers flexed, slowly curling tighter against my shirt. The subtle but unmistakable press of him, hard against the curve of my ass. Not insistent, not purposeful — just there.

I bit my lip, suddenly wide awake.

He was still pretending to sleep. Maybe he was unsure if I’d noticed. But I had. God, I had.

I rolled over carefully, slowly, until I was facing him. His eyes were still closed, lashes dark and fanned out like they always were when he was deep in thought. But there was a flush climbing up his neck.

“Spencer,” I whispered.

He opened his eyes. Immediately. Like he’d been waiting for permission.

I reached up to brush a lock of hair from his face, and that was all it took — something in him came undone. He surged forward and kissed me like he’d been starved for it, hands sliding around my back, pulling me into him fully.

I gasped into his mouth. My thigh slipped between his, and he groaned — quiet, guttural, like it had been dragged out of him against his will.

“Good morning,” I managed to murmur between kisses, breathless.

“God,” he said into my neck, “I’ve been trying not to do this since the second I woke up.”

“Why didn’t you?”

His voice was hoarse, rough from sleep and restraint. “Because I wasn’t sure if it was okay. I wasn’t sure if you wanted—”

I cut him off with a kiss, deeper this time, slower. “I wanted,” I said against his lips.

His fingers tightened in the hem of the t-shirt he’d given me the night before. It smelled like him, and when he tugged it up over my hips, I arched into him without thinking.

We weren’t rushing. This wasn’t fast or fumbling. It was slow, almost reverent. His hand slipped beneath the fabric, splayed over the bare skin of my waist, and we both groaned at the contact.

He breathed my name like a confession. I whispered his back.

He kissed me like I was air after drowning, like he didn’t trust the moment to last. I kissed him back to prove it would. My hands slid under his shirt, palms grazing over his ribs. He was warm, lean, tense and rigid under my touch. He was holding in so much tension, it made me ache for him.

“You’re shaking,” I murmured.

“I know,” he said, voice cracked and low. “I didn’t think I’d get to feel anything like this again. Especially not with you.”

I pressed my forehead to his and let the silence stretch. I wanted him to feel how still I was, how steady. To let him have the space to fall apart a little, if he needed to.

He swallowed. “You’re not afraid of me?”

“No,” I said immediately, and meant it. “You didn’t scare me in there, and you definitely don’t scare me now.”

His eyes searched mine. That analytical part of him still working, as if he could catalog my honesty, verify it against every shred of doubt he had over his own goodness. But then his hand drifted down, trailing over the swell of my hip, and whatever analysis he was running fizzled out between us.

I rolled onto my back, pulling him with me. He settled over me, one knee between my thighs, his weight careful and light even though I wanted all of it.

“Is this okay?” he asked, already breathless.

I nodded, threading my fingers into his curls. “Yes. More than okay.”

He kissed me again, slower now, but deeper—like he wasn’t as afraid of being greedy anymore. His hand roamed under my shirt, splaying wide across my stomach, then moving upward so tentatively it made my heart catch. He was memorizing every inch, every reaction. He kissed the corner of my mouth, my cheeks, my jaw, my throat, reverent and hungry all at once.

When his thumb brushed the underside of my breast, I arched into him and let out a soft, unfiltered sound. His eyes snapped open, pupils blown wide, and I could feel him twitch hard against my thigh.

“Jesus,” he whispered, almost to himself.

“Spencer.” I dragged my fingers down his back, felt him shudder. “It’s okay. I want this.”

“I do too,” he said, lips brushing mine. “I want you.”

But then he paused, forehead pressing to mine again, panting softly. “But I want to take my time. I don’t want to… rush it. You deserve better than just— after everything, I…”

I kissed him quiet, gently. “Then we’ll take our time.”

He smiled into my mouth — crooked and unsure, but real. “Okay.”

We stayed like that, pressed together under his sheets, skin warm, breath tangled. Hands exploring, lips lingering, restraint thinning with every second. He never stopped touching me, but he never pushed too far. Like the whole morning was foreplay, a slow, simmering build.

I could feel how hard he was for me, but he didn’t let it control him. He just held me closer, slid his thigh between mine, and whispered everything he hadn’t had the chance to say when he was locked behind bars.

“I used to lie awake and imagine this.” His lips brushed the shell of my ear. “You. In my bed. The way you’d look in my shirt. How it would feel just to touch you without counting the seconds.”

I exhaled against his throat, and he kept going, voice barely audible.

“I’d picture your hand in mine. The shape of your mouth when you laughed. Sometimes I couldn’t remember the exact sound, and that scared me. Like maybe I made it all up.”

“You didn’t,” I whispered.

“I know that now,” he said. “But there were nights when everything felt made up. Like the signs I was picking up from you couldn’t possibly be real.”

His nose skimmed along my jaw. I felt his lips move there, slow and warm.

“You were real and kind in a place that wasn’t. You made it bearable. You found ways to protect me.”

I tightened my grip on his waist, heart aching. “I wanted to do more.”

“You did enough,” he murmured. “You were the only soft thing I had. The only person who looked at me like I wasn’t scary and broken.”

He was trembling again. I reached up, tucked his curls behind his ear, and kissed his cheekbone.

“Sometimes I imagined what your skin would taste like,” he said, voice rough with honesty. He pressed his lips to my neck and ran his tongue over the spot tentatively. My breath hitched.

“I thought I’d forgotten how to be touched. But then you touched me. That day I came in lying about a migraine…” He gave a quiet, breathy laugh against my skin. “It didn’t feel clinical. It felt like you wanted to.”

My heart swelled. My stomach fluttered. I felt every inch of him pressing against me, but his words were the thing unraveling me most. “I wanted to,” I whispered.

He pulled back to look down at me with soft, tender eyes, and he pressed a long kiss against my forehead before pulling me back to his chest, tucking my head under his chin. My body ached a little with the desire for more, more, more, but I didn’t push. He needed time. He needed slow. I could give him that. And I knew, without a doubt, that when it finally happened between us — it wouldn’t be just about lust or longing or relief. It would be about all the things we hadn’t dared say out loud yet.

I didn’t know how long we stayed like that — skin warm, breath shared, hearts in sync. His body pressed to mine, the weight of him just enough to settle the ache, just enough to not need more.

His head dipped, lips finding the crook of my neck, soft and slow. I felt him breathe me in, as if this closeness was the thing he’d been starved for. I reached up and threaded my fingers through his curls again, gently, just so he could feel it.

“I like waking up like this,” he murmured. His thumb traced absent patterns along my side, slipping just under the hem of the shirt he’d lent me.

“Like what?” I asked, voice hushed.

“With you,” he said simply.

He was quiet a long moment. He shifted against me a little, his cock pressing against my thigh. I heard him suck in a sharp, charged, measured breath.

“It’s not that I don’t want to have sex with you. I do. It’s not that,” he finally said, breaking the simmering silence.

“I know.” I cupped his jaw, turned his face toward mine. “You don’t have to explain anything. It’s okay.”

But he did anyway. Because of course he did. Spencer Reid couldn’t leave anything unexplained.

“I used to think about this sort of thing every night. Not really sex, just…this. You. Holding me like I wasn’t broken. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to feel something like this again without it feeling… borrowed. Like it wasn’t really mine to have.”

His hand moved gently along my side, not with want, but with something quieter. Reverent.

“Prison makes everything feel transactional and calculated. You forget how to want something just because it simply feels good to want.”

I kissed his cheek, slow and soft. He turned toward me just enough to press his forehead to mine. “But with you,” he said, “it doesn’t feel like that. It feels real. Like I might actually get to keep it. And I guess I’m just… scared I’ll break it if I reach for too much too fast.”

My chest ached — not from pity, not from sadness. Just from knowing him a little deeper. “You won’t break anything,” I whispered. “But we can go as slow as you need, and please don’t feel any sort of guilt over that.”

His eyes shimmered. He blinked quickly, then pulled me in like I was the last safe thing in the world. I let him. I let him bury his face in my neck, let his hands roam under the hem of my shirt and stay there, wide and warm and still.

“I like just holding you like this,” he said into my skin. “Is that okay?”

I gave the back of his neck a gentle squeeze. “Of course it’s okay.”

His body began to relax again, bit by bit. Not completely — I didn’t think he knew how to let go all the way yet, — but enough. His hand on my waist flexed now and then, like he was reminding himself I was there.

Eventually, I turned in his arms again, tucked myself closer. His chest to my back, our legs tangled. He exhaled like the weight of me against him was a lullaby.

And I realized: I didn’t need more than this. I just wanted him to feel safe. Desired. Held. If this was all we did for the next hundred mornings, I’d be more than okay.

—

The smell of coffee was already starting to fill the kitchen, warm and nutty and a little too strong. He moved quietly, barefoot on tile, sleeves shoved up, hair still mussed from where I’d had my hands in it. There was something so disarmingly domestic about watching him like this, moving about his kitchen making breakfast and coffee. Like this was already a rhythm we’d already fallen into, despite the fact it was brand new.

I swung my legs beneath me where I sat on the counter, his shirt brushing my thighs, and just watched for a minute. He looked… lighter. Not quite relaxed, but more settled than he’d been the night before. Still careful, clearly thinking too hard about whether the burner was on too high, but there was a softness to him now that hadn’t been there when I first walked through the door last night.

“You cook often?” I asked, just to break the quiet.

He glanced over his shoulder and gave me a half-smile. “I try. I go through phases. Last year I was convinced I was going to master homemade gnocchi. That lasted about three attempts.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m just hoping I don’t burn the toast.”

I laughed softly, reaching over to steal a piece of cut fruit from the bowl he’d set down. “Seems like you’re doing fine.”

“Don’t jinx it.”

The comfortable silence that followed surprised me — not awkward, not weighed down by everything that had come before. Just easy.

I let it linger a little before I spoke again. I took a breath to steel myself. “Can I…can I ask you what happens next here?”

His hand paused halfway to the pan. He looked up slowly, more cautious than startled, and searched my face like he was making sure he’d heard me right.

“I mean,” I said, gentler this time, “you’re out. I’m here. You called me because you wanted to see me. Last night… that wasn’t just something that happened. I’m not trying to force some big ‘what are we’ conversation nine and a half hours after our first kiss — I promise you, I’m not that psycho — but I am curious to know if you have any idea of what you want here.”

He turned the heat down on the stove a little and stepped closer, wiping his hands on a dish towel.

“I keep thinking about that conversation in the infirmary,” he said after a moment. “The one about our hypothetical first date.”

I smiled at the memory. “Pie and constellations.”

“And museums, and trivia, and that coffee shop on Pennsylvania Ave with the terrible chairs.”

“You remembered,” I murmured.

“Of course I remembered.” He leaned against the counter opposite mine, towel still in hand, fingers worrying at the hem. “The truth is… I thought about those things for a long time after we talked. I’d let myself imagine them when it got quiet enough. Just pieces of it, though. Just what it might feel like to look across a table and see you laugh.”

My heart twisted, but I didn’t look away.

“I guess,” he continued, voice softer now, “what I’m saying is… I don’t want that date to be hypothetical anymore.”

The vulnerability in his expression nearly undid me. Honest and open in a way that felt impossibly rare. “Then let’s make it not hypothetical.”

A smile pulled at his mouth, slow and a little shaky, weaved with disbelief. “You want to go on a real first date with me?”

I slid off the counter and crossed to him, resting my hands on his chest. His heart was beating faster than mine. “More than just a first date, if you’ll have me. A second and a third and a fourth would be nice, too. I think we have too many great ideas for just one date.”

His arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me closer, forehead dipping to rest against mine.

I squeezed him tighter and grinned. “For the record, I still want that planetarium date to be the first.”

“You’ll get it,” he said. “Stars and pie. Just like I promised.”

We stayed like that for a few seconds, long enough for the pan behind him to start quietly hissing again.

“Shit,” he muttered, turning back to the stove. “Eggs.”

I leaned against the counter beside him as he tried to salvage what he could, watching the way his brows furrowed in quiet concentration. There was something so endearing about how seriously he took it — like a decent breakfast was the first rung on a ladder he hadn’t dared start climbing until now.

“Should I be worried?” I teased. “Am I about to eat prison-grade eggs?”

“I’ll have you know these are organic,” he said, feigning offense. “And I used salt and pepper.”

“Oooh, fancy.”

He glanced over at me, grinning as he slid the eggs onto two mismatched plates. “You say that now. We’ll see how smug you are after the first bite.”

“I work there, Spencer. I’ve eaten the food before. And I can’t cook to save my life. Trust me, my standards are already on the floor.”

He handed me a plate and sat beside me at his small kitchen table, both of us still barefoot, still half tangled in the quiet comfort of waking up in a place that didn’t feel temporary. I watched as he took a bite, chewed carefully, then nodded like he was evaluating himself.

“Okay,” he said. “Not great. But not bad.”

I took a bite of mine. “It’s food. It’s hot. You made it for me. I give it five stars.”

A few minutes passed in quiet chewing and the clink of forks against ceramic before he spoke again. “I have a few things to take care of today. Nothing major — just errands, calls I’ve been putting off, bureau paperwork I need to fill out, mundane stuff as I try to get my life together again.”

I nodded. “Do you want company?”

He considered the offer. “Actually… yeah. If you’re up for it.”

“Of course.”

“And maybe after…” He hesitated. “We could find a bookstore or something. There’s this one I used to go to before. I’d like to see if it’s still there.”

I smiled, nudging his foot with mine under the table. “Then we’ll go. But it’s not a date. Pie and stars will be our first date, so you better get to planning that.” He chuckled and nodded, taking another bite of his eggs as his eyes lingered on mine.

The day was already starting to press in, real life creeping at the edges — messages waiting, tasks returning, maybe even headlines that still had his name in them. But for now, the toast was warm, the coffee was strong, and we were sitting at a table without any distance between our chairs.

Not a perfect morning, but a real one.

—

While he got dressed and ready for the day, I changed back into the clothes I’d walked over in, folding his t-shirt neatly and setting it on his coffee table. Then, I wandered.

Not snooping exactly — more like orbiting. Letting my fingers trail across the edge of his bookshelves while the morning light filled in all the corners I hadn’t seen clearly last night. The place was quiet, modest. A little dusty in spots, like it hadn’t been fully lived in for a while. But the bones of him were everywhere — in the rows of battered paperbacks, the overstuffed folder of old jazz and classical records, the framed photo on the end table of him with his mom, both of them squinting in the Vegas sun.

He had a chessboard set up near the window, half a game frozen mid-play. Next to it sat a mug of pencils and a folded newspaper crossword, filled in with dense black ink. A photo strip was wedged between two spines — four blurry shots of him making faces in a booth with someone I didn’t recognize.

I paused at the bookshelf. Rows and rows of titles, some worn nearly to disintegration. A few in other languages. A first edition Asimov. A cracked-spined Vonnegut. Multiple copies of the same Arthur Conan Doyle book. His world was vast and carefully kept, even when everything else had been out of his control.

“You’re gonna get lost in there,” he said behind me, voice low and amused. I turned to find him dressed and buttoning the cuff of his shirt, eyes crinkled at the corners.

“Too late,” I said. “I already found three things I want to steal.”

He crossed the room, kissed the side of my head, and murmured, “I’ll frisk you before you leave.”

I grabbed my bag, giggling. “You’re always welcome to frisk me,” I teased. “But good luck. I’ve got an entire stolen hospital pen collection you don’t even know about.”

—

We walked the five blocks to my place side by side. We didn’t hold hands, but his arm brushed against mine every so often. I unlocked my door and let him in first. He wandered around my apartment the way I just had his while I ducked into the bathroom, peeled off my t-shirt and jeans, and stepped under the hot spray of the shower.

Fifteen minutes later, hair damp and face fresh and dressed in clean jeans and a loose cardigan, I found him at my kitchen counter paging through one of the used cookbooks I never actually cooked from.

“I thought you said you can’t cook,” he said.

“I can’t. Doesn’t mean I don’t aspire to.”

He smiled, then glanced at the time. “You ready?”

—

The rest of the day wasn’t glamorous — and that was part of the point. There was something oddly reassuring about the shape of it, how ordinary it all felt. We stopped by the dry cleaner, where he had to spell his name out three times before they found the smoothly pressed suit and four dress shirts he’d abandoned there over three months ago. Then we walked to the bank to reactivate an account that had gone dormant. Lunch was fast — takeout noodles on a bench while he skimmed forms from the Bureau, glancing up at me every few minutes like he couldn’t quite believe I was still there.

We hit the post office so he could pick up a hefty stack of mail they’d been holding. He bought a new phone charger and grabbed a bottle of antacids at the drugstore. He made a call to someone from his legal team and waited on hold for twenty minutes with a look of resignation.

At some point, I bought us both coffees. At another, he asked if I minded if we stopped by the bookstore after all. I said yes before he finished the question.

“Everything okay?” I asked, somewhere between the forms and the phone calls.

He nodded. “It’s a lot of boxes to check. But…I’m glad they’re mine to check now, you know?”

We didn’t talk much more after that. There wasn’t really a need. The rhythm of his errands did the talking — the reaching for keys, the polite small talk with strangers, the standing a little too close in line because he kept leaning into me like a magnet drawn to its opposite pole.

By the time we walked back to his place, the sun was dropping low, casting long shadows between buildings. He looked tired — not just from the day, but from the slow, careful act of re-entry. Of trying to reclaim his place in a world that had kept on spinning without him.

He unlocked his door and beckoned me inside, his hand lingering on my lower back for a long moment until he pulled it away to untie his shoes. I dropped my bag by the couch, and he asked if I wanted to stay for dinner.

I said yes. Not because I was hungry, but because I couldn’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.

—

He let me borrow another shirt to sleep in. A different one this time — softer, a little too big in the shoulders. It still smelled like his laundry, like his soap and his skin.

The night wasn’t as quiet as the last. There was more movement in it — brushing teeth side by side, shifting under the covers, a moment when our knees bumped and neither of us adjusted right away. We talked a little. Nothing heavy. Just…space-filling noise. He told me about a book he wanted to reread. I told him about a dog that came into the ER once, how its owner was out of his mind on edibles and thought his beagle had grown two heads. We laughed, but it felt like talking around the center of something.

And we still didn’t have sex.

Not because the moment wasn’t there. It was — humming at the edges like something half-finished. His hand lingered on my hip when the light was already off. My breath caught when he shifted closer, one leg nudging between mine, his fingers ghosting over my wrist before curling away.

But he didn’t move. And I didn’t push.

And still, as I lay there in the dark with his breath warming the space between my shoulder blades, something in me turned over — not impatient, just…aware. Aware of the fact that we hadn’t defined anything. Aware that I didn’t know what I really meant to him. I told myself it didn’t matter. That what he needed right now wasn’t clarity or pressure or declarations. He needed quiet. Familiarity. Space to choose.

So I stayed still. Let myself fall asleep before I could overthink it into something it didn’t need to be.

—

The next morning, I woke up before he did.

The sun hadn’t fully climbed over the buildings outside, and his room was bathed in a watery kind of light — soft, indirect. I watched him sleep for a moment, his mouth slack, his lashes twitching slightly with whatever dream he was stuck in.

It felt strange to get dressed in silence. Stranger still to find my jeans folded neatly on his bathroom countertop, like some part of him had expected this. Like he knew I wouldn’t stay for breakfast this time.

When he padded out to find me, sleepy and mussed and half-buttoned, I was already lacing up my sneakers.

“You’re leaving early,” he said, voice still rough from sleep.

“Yeah. Work,” I replied, and winced a little as I waited for the moment to hit.

There it was — a flicker in his expression. Something pulled tight behind his eyes. He nodded, but didn’t say anything.

I stood, walking up to him. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, too fast. Then softer, “I just…sort of forgot. That you’re still going to be there. At Millburn. In my mind it feels like no one good should ever be in that place, even for work.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want you to think I’m upset with you for it,” he added quickly, eyes meeting mine. “You were never part of what made it—” He broke off. “It’s… just hard. The reminders.”

“I get it,” I said softly. And I did. But it still stung — not his honesty, just the truth of it. That my job, the thing I’d built my life around, now existed as a haunting shadow at the edge of his recovery.

“I don’t want to make this process any harder for you,” I said quietly, my gaze falling to the floor.

“You’re not,” he replied, shaking his head. “You’re the opposite of that.” He lifted my chin gently, but the silence that followed had weight to it. There was something he left unspoken hanging between us like cloudy smoke.

I stepped forward and kissed him, soft and brief.

“I’ll call you later,” I said.

He didn’t say much else, just lingered in the doorway barefoot, one hand braced against the frame like he couldn’t hold the weight of the moment up without leaning against it. I could feel his eyes on me as I stepped into the hall, like he wanted to say something more but hadn’t decided what it should be. So I turned back and smiled at him, and he gave me one in return, just enough to carry with me for the rest of the day.

—

The infirmary was slow that day — a couple of bandaged hands, a sprained ankle from a basketball game, a few medication distributions. Nothing unusual. Nothing that should’ve rattled me. And yet, I caught myself watching the clock more than I usually did, nerves hitching with each passing hour like I was waiting for something to happen. Something to crack open.

It didn’t. The day passed quietly. But the weight of him never left the room.

I kept hearing his silence from that morning — not harsh, not even cold, but… measured. And maybe that was worse. He hadn’t really flinched when I mentioned work. He didn’t shut down or pull away. But he also hadn’t said much at all. Just that small shift behind his eyes, like a door closing softly from the inside.

By the time I made it home, I was tired in that strange, uneven way — the kind that doesn’t come from work itself but from what you carry with you through it. I kicked off my shoes, dumped my keys into the dish by the door, and called him before I could talk myself out of it.

He picked up on the second ring.

“Hey,” he said, voice scratchy from sleep. “You home?”

“Just walked in,” I replied, pressing the phone between my shoulder and cheek as I peeled off my jacket. “Did I wake you?”

There was a pause — long enough to hear the rustle of sheets or maybe a sweatshirt being pulled over his head. “No. I was just… lying here. Thinking.”

I hesitated. “About this morning?”

“Yeah,” he admitted quietly. “About a few things. But mostly that.”

I sat on the arm of my couch, the line humming gently between us. “You don’t have to explain anything,” I said. “I just… wanted to check in. I didn’t like the way we left it.”

“It wasn’t bad,” he said quickly. “It was just… complicated.”

“I know.” I pressed my thumb to my temple, let out a breath. “It’s just my job. I don’t really plan to stay there that much longer, to be honest. Maybe another year, then I’ll go back to the ER. But I get why being with me might always feel like a reminder for you.”

“I don’t want it to be,” he said. “I don’t want that place to take this from us.”

Something in my chest loosened. “I don’t want that either,” I said.

Another pause — softer now, easier.

“What’re you doing tomorrow?” he asked eventually.

“Nothing I can’t move,” I said, a small smile tugging at the corner of my mouth.

“Come over,” he said. “We’ll talk. Or just hang out. I don’t want that weirdness hanging between us.”

Relief threaded through my voice before I could catch it. “Okay. I’ll come over tomorrow.” The smile on my face as I said it was almost audible in itself.

“I’ll have another shirt ready for you to wear,” he said, a hint of something lighter returning to his voice.

We said goodnight not long after that, sweet and quiet and tender. Just two people trying to stay in step, even when the ground under us still felt a little uneven.

ᝰ.ᐟ

part iv

[hypothetical-strumpet]

STRANGE GRACE ―.✦ s.r. soft animal series ∘ part ii

pairing: spencer reid x fem!nurse!reader

summary: when spencer, fresh out of prison, calls, she comes — and in the quiet of his apartment, something shifts. a kiss, a night, a beginning.

genre: hurt/comfort, fluff, smut if you squint

w/c: 3.1k

tags/warnings: post-prison spencer, kinda emotional bc Spencer like JUST got out of prison, pretending the whole plot point of diana reid living with spencer isn’t a thing for the sake of this, making out, things get a lil heated but no true smut, still NSFW MDNI, sexual tension, horny spencer, horny reader, uh oh boner alert, vaguely implied intimacy issues/prison trauma, alexa play fresh out the slammer by taylor swift

a/n: eeeep soft animal part 2! don’t worry prison arc is already over, our boy is freeeee and I couldn’t torture reader any longer by keeping him in there. again, i am very very brand new to posting fics on tumblr (+ writing for criminal minds in general) so I appreciate any and all interactions with this fic and any advice/feedback in my asks is always welcome! please reblog if you enjoy <3

series masterlist

A week passed since Spencer’s last visit without so much as a sighting of him. I thought about calling in a favor with one of the COs, asking about him under the guise of needing a follow-up exam. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to risk any suspicion.

When my phone buzzed that night, I almost didn’t answer.

Unknown number.

Probably spam, or a wrong number. Normally I ignored those sorts of calls without second thought, but something inside my brain told me to answer anyway.

“Hello?”

There was a pause on the other end — but it wasn’t dead air. Then, a voice:

“It’s me. It’s…it’s Spencer. Spencer Reid.”

I froze. My heart kicked so hard I had to press a hand to my chest. I was silent for so long that Spencer thought I’d hung up. “You there?”

“Y-yeah, I— Are you okay?” I finally replied after the shock wore off. It came out like a reflex. Not “where are you” or “how did you get out,” but rather a desperate need to know he was alright.

“I think so,” he said, and there was a quiet steadiness to it that hadn’t been there the last time I saw him. “I’m out.”

My fingers curled tighter around the phone. “Out,” I echoed, trying to make the word feel real. “You mean…?”

“I got released,” he said. “A few days ago. My team caught the actual killer.”

“And now?” I asked softly.

“Now… I’m home. In my apartment. It doesn’t feel like mine again yet, but it’s quiet. It’s… better.”

There was something about the way he said home that made my throat tighten. “Why are you calling me?” I asked, voice small.

He let out a breath, almost a laugh. “Because when it got quiet, and I finally had a choice… I wanted to hear your voice.”

I didn’t reply yet. I couldn’t.

“I thought about you,” he added, softer now. “More than I probably should’ve. But I think that’s what got me through the worst of it.”

I closed my eyes, and the line was quiet for a beat. “I kept thinking about your hands,” he said. “The way you touched me like you didn’t want to stop, even though you had to. You were scared someone would notice.”

I swallowed hard.

“But I noticed. Every time,” he added.

I swallowed again, fingers curling into the blanket. “That wasn’t exactly medical protocol.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s why it mattered.”

Something about the way he said it made it impossible to breathe for a second. Silence passed between us again, but it wasn’t uncomfortable.

“I don’t know what this is,” he said. “Or if it’s anything at all. But I know I want to see you again, if you’re open to it.”

I pressed the phone tighter to my ear, as if I could get closer. I let out a breath, words lodged in my throat.

“Will you come here?” he asked softly after a long stretch of silence.

I blinked, then sat up straighter. My answer came out quiet, but certain.

“Yes.”

—

After we hung up, Spencer swiftly texted me his address. My eyes bulged out of my head when I read it — 5 blocks from my apartment. He lives five blocks away from me. All this time, before he got locked up, he was in my neighborhood and we never once crossed paths. Or maybe we did, and we just didn’t know it. Something about our proximity made my heart flutter. Maybe, in a better, more fair universe where he never saw the inside of Millburn’s walls, we still would have found each other.

I changed quickly — nothing dramatic, just a clean t-shirt, jeans that didn’t look like I’d slept in them, and a light jacket. I brushed my hair, threw on chapstick, and stood frozen in front of the mirror for a full minute before grabbing my keys.

The streets were mostly empty this late, and I barely noticed the walk. My heart kept beating faster the closer I got — half panic, half adrenaline. When I reached his building, I hesitated with my finger over the buzzer.

The elevator ride took too long. Every second felt like a held breath. I knocked softly on the door of Apartment 23 before I lost my nerve, and while I waited, I realized I hadn’t at all prepared for what would happen next. I hadn’t thought about what I’d do when the door opened — would I wave? Say hello? Shake his hand like we were meeting for the first time, like we weren’t already tangled up in something we’d never named? Should we hug?

The lock clicked, and the door creaked open. And there he was.

Not wearing Millburn’s scratchy polyester uniform. Not under flickering fluorescent lights. Not watched, not guarded, not contained.

Just Spencer, right in front of me.

His curls were tamer. His clothes were soft and civilian. His eyes were the same.

For a second, we just looked at each other. I felt myself blinking too fast, my chest too tight. He was here. He was okay. And for the first time, I got to see him where he belonged.

“Hey,” I said, but it came out more like a breath than a word.

He smiled — not the small, shy one he’d given me in the infirmary. This smile was big and bright and laced with relief and genuine joy. “Hi.”

Hi. One word, and that was enough to pull me in. I stepped towards him and inside his apartment without giving it another thought. His hand found my waist like it had been there before, and the distance between us disappeared. I buried my face against his chest, the top of my head tucked under his chin, and I fought back tears I hadn’t been expecting.

He smelled clean. Like laundry and something sharp, like soap or aftershave. He felt warm. Solid. Human.

Eventually, he pulled back just far enough to look at me. “You didn’t know I was out.”

I shook my head. “Not until you called.”

He nodded. “Good. I wanted to tell you myself.”

The words sat heavy in my chest — because he’d thought about that. Because I mattered to him enough for it to be a conscious decision.

His apartment was quiet — just soft lamplight, books lining the shelves, half a tea kettle on the stove. Clean, but lived in. Walls painted green and much nicer furniture than I’d ever owned. Somehow both exactly what I expected and not at all. I tried not to stare.

“Tea?” he offered.

I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure I’d be able to taste it. My nerves had hit a high, buzzing pitch — everything inside me tuned to this strange frequency of disbelief.

He moved around his kitchen like he’d only been gone a day, not months. I watched him from the edge of the couch, unsure if I should sit. I wanted to ask so many things — about his release, about how he was doing, about how it felt to be here — but none of them made it to my mouth.

“You’re really here,” I said instead.

He set the mugs down on the coffee table and sat beside me — not too close, but not too far. Close enough that if I shifted just a little, my thigh would probably brush his.

“I kept thinking about this,” he said softly. “Not just getting out — this. You. Sitting here. In my apartment.”

I swallowed, hard. “I’ve thought about it too.”

He didn’t touch me, not right away. But the space between us thinned, almost vibrated with possibility. Everything that had to stay hidden before — all the lingering glances, the touches passed off as clinical, the things neither of us could say aloud — it was still here. And now, there was nothing stopping it, except ourselves.

He looked at me like he wasn’t sure if this was real — like I might vanish. I wanted to tell him I felt the same, but the words lodged in my throat again.

The quiet between us wasn’t awkward, but it was charged. Heavy. The kind of quiet where you hear your own pulse. Where the air feels like it could crack open if you moved too quickly.

He was sitting so still — hands clasped in his lap, shoulders hunched like he was still trying to make himself a little smaller. But his eyes kept flicking to mine, then away, like he wanted to say something but couldn’t quite get there. Like he was waiting for permission to want something again.

I swallowed hard, my throat tight. “I wasn’t sure what I’d find when I came here tonight. Who I’d find.” I looked down at my hands, fingers twisted together in my lap. “But it’s still you.”

He exhaled through his nose, barely a sound, but I felt it. The shift in the room. The relief, the ache, all tangled up in that one breath. I turned toward him, slowly, my knee brushing his. “You’re different out here than in there, obviously,” I added. “But you’re still you.”

He looked at me then, and whatever guard he’d been holding up cracked, just a little. I could see the want there, deep and quiet and scared out of its mind.

I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t have a plan. But I leaned in, not all the way — just enough that the space between us could disappear if he wanted it to. Close enough to feel the warmth of him, the rise and fall of his breath.

His hand lifted — hesitant, like he was reaching out in the dark. His fingers found my cheek and hovered for a moment before they touched my skin. Light, barely-there pressure.

“I don’t know how we’re going to navigate this,” I said softly. “But I know I want it, Spencer. I want to try.”

His brow furrowed, and for a second he looked like he might cry. He let out the breath he seemed to have been holding since I walked in, and nodded. “Me too.”

And then, there was that smile — the one I hadn’t really let myself hope for. The real one I’d only ever seen in flashes before now. It bloomed slowly, like it surprised even him.

“Come here,” he whispered.

My breath caught, and I climbed into his lap like I’d done it a hundred times before. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.

His hand was still on my cheek, steady, anchoring me there. He leaned in slowly, as if he was giving me time to change my mind — like he didn’t quite believe I wouldn’t. His eyes flicked to my mouth, then back to my eyes.

“I’ve wanted to do this ever since our first game of chess in the infirmary,” he murmured, his voice low and raw and gravelly. His lips brushed mine — just barely — and it felt like a question and a promise in the same breath.

And when he finally kissed me, it wasn’t tentative. It wasn’t cautious or unsure. It was full of months of tension and weight and wondering. It was his hands cupping the back of my neck, his mouth finding mine with a hunger he hadn’t let himself feel until right now. It was soft and deep and breathtaking, like he was relearning what it felt like to touch and be touched with care.

His hand slid from my cheek into my hair, fingers threading slowly, anchoring me there. Mine curled into the fabric of his shirt, pulling him just a little closer. And when I tilted my head, opened my mouth, let him take more — he did. He tasted like peppermint and tea and something warm I couldn’t quite name.

There was nothing clinical about this touch. No need for excuses now.

The kiss broke a few minutes later, only because we needed air. He pulled back half an inch, eyes darting between mine like he was afraid to wake up.

I leaned back into him, slower this time. His arms circled my waist as I shifted to straddle him, and the new position knocked a soft exhale out of him. My hands ran through his hair — I’d wanted to do that for too long — and when I tugged gently at the ends, he groaned low in his throat.

Something about that sound unraveled me.

“I wanted this so much,” I whispered, mouth brushing his jaw.

“I know.” His hands ran up my back, warm under my shirt. “Me too.”

We stayed like that for a while — kissing, touching, moving in slow, molten inches like we had all the time in the world. His hands weren’t greedy, but they were purposeful. Mapping. Memorizing. Every time he touched a new patch of skin, I felt the zap of it deep in my spine.

And god — when he looked at me like that? Like I was something he couldn’t believe he actually got to have? That made everything else disappear.

I could’ve gone further. Would’ve. Wanted to. But I felt the subtle way his breath caught, the firm tension in his shoulders. Something in him still hadn’t exhaled. He still hadn’t let go of everything he’d been carrying since his arrest, so I slowed us down. Kissed him softer. Ground my hips against his just once, slow and full — and when he gasped into my mouth, I let that be enough.

When we pulled apart, I curled into his chest, and he held me like he didn’t want to let go.

“Sleep here,” he murmured into my hair. “If you want.”

I lifted my head, giving him a soft smile. “I do.” I pressed my lips to the side of his neck, just once.

He shifted, and I felt it — the way his body responded to mine, hard and undeniable against my thigh. He froze for a second.

“Shit,” he muttered under his breath, eyes wide and a little mortified. “Sorry.”

I laughed before I could help it, fingers brushing through the curls at the back of his neck. “I felt it earlier, Spencer. It’s okay.”

He let out a soft, relieved, still-embarrassed laugh, forehead pressed to mine. “You make it hard to think straight.”

I kissed him again, slower this time. “Good.”

Eventually, reluctantly, he pulled back enough to let me get up. He walked me to his bedroom and grabbed me something to sleep in, handing me a worn, soft t-shirt from his drawer with the words FBI Academy sprawled across the front in faded screen print.

I ducked into the bathroom and peeled off my clothes slowly, my skin still sizzling everywhere he had touched. My mind replayed every breath, memorizing the way he looked at me like he couldn’t believe I even existed. When I caught sight of myself in the mirror, cheeks flushed, lips kiss-swollen, I didn’t fully recognize the woman staring back.

I slipped the shirt over my head — no bra underneath, just panties — and pulled it down til it hit mid-thigh. I padded back into the room, finding Spencer in bed, arms propped behind his head, waiting for me. He had changed into a t-shirt and blue plaid pajama pants.

When I slid under the covers beside him, it didn’t feel awkward. It didn’t even feel new. He reached for me like it was instinct — like he’d been dreaming of pulling someone into him for so long that his body already knew the way. Like he’d been dreaming of me. I settled against him, bending my leg so my thigh stretched across his hips, my head tucked under his chin. His arm wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me tight, and his other hand rested low on my back, under the hem of the shirt, his long fingers warm against my bare skin.

I could feel him again — hard between us, barely restrained. But he didn’t move. Neither did I. The air between us was thick with all the things we hadn’t said yet. Everything I’d thought about on those nights between his visits. Everything I felt when I filled out that report, trying to get him somewhere safer. Every phantom brush of our hands, every minute stolen under the fluorescent lights of the infirmary.

He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. Swallowed.

“You okay?” I whispered.

A nod, then, “Yeah. I just…” He let out a slow breath. “This doesn’t really feel real.” He released a dry, disbelieving chuckle.

I felt that too — the surreal ache of being so close after spending so long holding back. I imagined it must be a thousand times more intense for him, feeling all of this and readjusting to freedom all at once.

I reached for his hand and laced my fingers through his. “It is,” I whispered.

My leg stayed bent over his front. His hand didn’t leave my waist. His cock throbbed gently between us, pressing into the soft flesh of my thigh, and neither of us pretended we didn’t feel it.

We lay there for a long time like that — pressed together, aching, breathing each other in.

Eventually, he shifted enough to pull me in tighter. His leg hooked around mine, his lips brushing my temple again.

“I feel like this is a dream,” he whispered. “I know it isn’t, obviously. And even if it was, I don’t subscribe to the pseudoscience of dream analysis. But still.”

I smiled against his throat. “You’re not dreaming, Spencer.”

“I might be,” he laughed.

I tilted my head and kissed him again, soft and slow and full of promise. “Then wake up with me,” I murmured.

He exhaled, long and warm. “I will.”

And when I finally closed my eyes, my whole body buzzed with the ache of holding back.

ᝰ.ᐟ

part iii.

[hypothetical-strumpet]

FLUORESCENT MERCY ―.✦ s.r. soft animal series ∘ part i

pairing: spencer reid x fem!nurse!reader

summary: spencer reid was never cut out for prison. under the buzz of the fluorescent overheads in the prison infirmary, spencer meets a nurse who sees beyond his inmate number.

genre: hurt/comfort, fluff

w/c: 7.7k (yikes sorry)

tags/warnings: s12 prison arc, mentions of drugs and murder, afab reader goes by she/her pronouns, flirting, banter, probably horribly inaccurate info on medical treatment and prison healthcare, mention of Alzheimer’s/schizophrenia, sadboy spencer, minor sexual tension, fluff, mentions of blood and other injury, spencer gets hurt a few times but he’s okay, reader lowkey kind of cyberstalks spencer but it’s fine she’s sweet

a/n: hello!! first time posting a fic on here eeeep. mostly writing this for myself more than anyone else tbh, but i hope anyone who stumbles upon this mouthful enjoys it. get to know me here. a few disclaimers: I am not a nurse!!! I have never worked in the correctional system or even been inside a prison before!!! there will probably be plenty of inaccuracies as to how that all works, and if that will bother you, this probably isn’t the fic for you and that’s okay. this is just for funsies :-) staying mostly true to the prison arc canon but with some tweaks for the sake of the story. story is told by reader from first person, very very minimal use of y/n (only when it’s absolutely necessary). again, i am very very brand new to posting fics on tumblr (+ writing for criminal minds in general) so I appreciate any and all interactions with this fic and any advice/feedback in my asks is always welcome! if you enjoy, please reblog! there’s really no other way for me to get this thing out there as a brand new blog, so that would mean the world to me 🤍

this is part of a series, but can be read as a stand-alone one shot!

series masterlist

Some days the air inside the infirmary felt heavier than others — thick with stale disinfectant and something harder to qualify. Grief, maybe. Danger, sometimes. Or resignation. Or just the ache of a hundred slow-moving lives, pressed up against metal and concrete.

I’d gotten used to it, mostly. That dull, pulsing ache. But occasionally I still caught myself pausing between tasks and wondering how I’d ended up here. Not in a bad way. Just… reflective. Being a nurse in a prison infirmary wasn’t the kind of job most little girls dreamed about, and it definitely wasn’t the kind of job that made first dates lean in with interest.

But I chose this. On purpose.

I’d seen what broken systems could do. I’d watched people be forgotten because it was easier that way. Being here meant I could be the person who didn’t look away. The person who treated people like people, even when the rest of the world pretended they were less than human.

I never used to picture myself here. Not in a place like this, anyway. But life doesn’t always move in straight lines, and I’ve learned not to fight the curves.

I became a nurse because I wanted to help. Not in some abstract, motivational quote-type of way, but in a way that matters. Out of school, I specialized in trauma for a while. Emergency room work in the city, night shift, a revolving door of chaos. At first, I loved the fast-paced and high-intensity nature of that environment, but I burned out quickly. When the opportunity came up to transfer into the correctional system, most of my colleagues looked at me like I was nuts for even considering it. But I didn’t flinch. People in here deserved care, too. Especially in here. No matter what they’d done to end up in prison.

There’s a different kind of urgency in prison nursing. You see a lot of pain that runs deeper than physical injury — shame, grief, resignation, embarrassment, numbness. Some inmates came in loud, either angry at the world or simply desperate to charm their way into extra pain medication or a reason to sit out of laundry duty. Others were quiet and looked right past you — or through you. Quiet because of shame or misery or as if the simple act of hearing their own voice could beckon danger to their feet. I didn’t blame them. The main goal for most was survival, plain and simple. And sometimes, simply surviving a place like this was hard enough.

—

He came in during the tail end of my shift one Wednesday — tall, hunched a little like he didn’t want to take up any more space than absolutely necessary, with curls still damp from the showers and a bloodied gauze pad pressed sloppily to the side of his left hand. A cut. Not bad, but deep enough to need attention. He sat perched on the edge of the cot like it might vanish under him if he moved too suddenly, his shoulders rounded and his head dipped down.

“Spencer Reid?” I asked to confirm his name, checking the file. He responded with the tiniest nod of acknowledgement, as if he forgot his muscles still worked. I lifted my eyes up from the paperwork to try to meet his, but they remained firmly trained down at his lap.

He was a new inmate, having just arrived at Millburn three days prior. Eerily quiet. Noticeably out of place. Something about his appearance didn’t seem to suit him, either. The patchy stubble peppering his jaw and the unruliness of his hair just looked off, and it was clear that he normally presented himself in a way that was much more cleaned up than this. It took me about 45 seconds to determine that the version of him before me wasn’t an accurate depiction of the man inside the jumpsuit.

My cursory read of his file was littered with red flags. Arrested in Mexico? Immediate FBI involvement? Last-minute switch from protective custody to gen pop upon arrival? Something seemed… strange, even for federal prison, where strangeness and corruption were the norm. I shook my head slightly, as if trying to literally clear my mind. Investigating or even knowing anything about his background at all wasn’t my job: I was here to provide medical care, so I turned off the instinctually curious part of my brain and got to work. “So. You cut your hand?”

He nodded once, barely lifting his eyes. “Library. Book spine split,” he replied. “There was a metal strip inside the binding. I wasn’t paying attention.”

His voice was soft but even, the kind of tone you could almost mistake for calm if you weren’t paying attention. He didn’t flinch when I took his hand, but I felt the muscles in his forearm and wrist pull taut like a wire. Clearly this man was uncomfortable with physical touch. I almost felt bad, but I couldn’t do my job without touching him, so I kept my hold.

“Sorry to hear that,” I said, trying to find that tone that falls somewhere between neutral and kind. “The prison library is supposed to be a safe place amongst all the chaos.”

The corner of his mouth twitched ever-so-slightly. Maybe a smile, maybe just a tic.

I cleaned the cut and wrapped it. His tension seemed to fade a bit as I worked, but it was replaced with something sadder — surprise at the genuine care I was showing him.

“Should heal up fine,” I told him. “Just try to keep it clean. If you notice any signs of infection like redness or fever, tell the guards you need to come back. Otherwise, I hope I don’t have to see you back here again. No more cuts, okay?”

He gave a polite nod, still not quite looking at me. “Thank you,” he murmured. He flicked his eyes up to me for a fleeting moment — brown, maybe? Hazel? Somewhere kind of golden in between? Before I could decipher the answer, he dropped his gaze back down to his lap.

And then he was gone, escorted out just as quickly as he’d come in.

It wasn’t anything remarkable. It was the type of patient interaction I’d normally forget before a shift was even over. But something about the way he’d sat so quietly, like he was trying not to leave even a speck of evidence of his existence, stayed with me.

Some inmates at Millburn talked too much. Some didn’t want to talk at all. Spencer Reid was the kind who seemed like he used to talk a lot, but had forgotten how.

—

My apartment was dark and quiet when I got home from work — just the low hum of the refrigerator and the occasional creak of the air vents as they settled into the night. I shrugged out of my scrubs, tossed them into the laundry basket, wrapped my robe around my body, and tied my hair up, my mind in a post-work fog. Some shifts clung to me longer than others. Today hadn’t been particularly bad, but I still felt the weight of it hanging somewhere behind my sternum. The longer I worked at Millburn, the heavier that weight seemed to get.

I microwaved a cup of leftover soup and curled up on the couch with my legs tucked beneath me, a blanket over my lap, and the TV playing something I wasn’t watching. My body was home, safe, comfortable. But my mind? My mind was somewhere else entirely.

The quiet, sad patient from the other day. Spencer Reid.

I hadn’t seen him again since I’d cleaned out that cut on his hand a few days ago, but for some unknown reason, he lingered in my head longer than most patients ever did. I’d told myself it was just professional curiosity understandably fueled by glaring abnormalities — that strange patchwork of mystery surrounding his intake file, the dissonance between the man and the setting. But if I was being honest with myself, I knew it was more than that.

It was the way he held himself like he was waiting to be punished for existing. The way his eyes, when they finally lifted, looked out from a place far deeper than the moment called for. The way he thanked me like my ounce of kindness caught him off guard.

One thing seemed clear: he didn’t belong there. I didn’t know what he’d done to end up in a federal penitentiary, but everything about him — the tone he used, the posture, the way he moved like someone used to quieter places — made it feel off. Not in the arrogant way that some white-collar criminals carried themselves, no — there was no smugness, no entitlement. Just… misalignment. Like he’d been suddenly dropped into a life that wasn’t his own.

I reached for my phone before I could talk myself out of it.

The search bar blinked at me, empty and expectant. I hesitated. It was a line I hadn’t crossed yet since I took the job at Millburn, but curiosity had always been a close cousin to empathy, and mine were tightly wound. So I typed his name into the search engine.

I was met with dozens of articles. Some recent — bold headlines about his arrest, drug and murder charges, extradition from Mexico, and a leaked photograph of him looking disoriented and bruised, eyes wide with something between confusion and betrayal. I learned he was awaiting trial, denied bail and remanded to federal custody.

I continued to scroll. Older articles populated the page — articles that painted a very different picture of the man in the photo. An FBI profiler with the Behavioral Analysis Unit out of Quantico. Over a decade of service. Genius-level IQ. Multiple PhDs. A polymath, one article said. Another quoted a journalist who referred to him as “a human encyclopedia with a badge.” I found footage of him from an old press conference, standing stiffly beside a blonde woman in a blazer, answering questions with a verbosity of language and a voice that sounded steadier, more self-assured than the quiet one I’d heard in the infirmary three days ago. I breezed through a few more articles, then I stopped scrolling.

I didn’t know what any of it meant, but I did know that the story in the recent headlines didn’t seem to line up with the man I’d met, the man who he appeared to have been prior to his arrest. That nagging feeling in my gut, the one I’d felt since his eyes first met mine, was still there.

I closed out of my phone and sat in the quiet a while longer, my vision blurred and out of focus, wondering what it must feel like to go from that kind of life — traveling around the country, solving impossible crimes, saving countless lives — to a place where everything is taken from you. To become the type of man that people only see as the charges on a rap sheet.

Whatever he’d done (or hadn’t done), he was still a person. But it was obvious to me that he no longer really felt like one.

I shut off the TV and let the darkness settle around me. I took a long, warm shower in an attempt to clear my head, but his name and his face still hovered around the hazy edges of my thoughts. I’d met a lot of inmates who wore guilt like a second skin. Spencer Reid didn’t. Whatever his story was, I had a feeling it hadn’t been fully told. And part of me — the quiet, stubborn part — wasn’t quite ready to let that go.

—

The second time I saw him, it was raining. Not the kind of rain that makes people pause at windows, but the kind that soaks the world in gray and turns everything sluggish.

Inside the infirmary, the ceiling buzzed faintly with humidity and fluorescent fatigue, and the consistent pitter-patter of rain against the barred windows made it easy to forget there was any world outside these walls at all. I was restocking gauze when I noticed his name on the intake log, two and a half weeks from his first visit.

Reid, Spencer. Mild cough. Lightheadedness. Possible fever.

My fingers paused over the clipboard, barely grazing the pen. I wasn’t sure what I expected — or why it mattered at all. He was just another patient. Just another inmate. Still, I felt something shift when I walked up to his cot. He was noticeably pale, a little drawn, like the weight of something invisible had pressed down on his bones. The weight of this place, of his situation.

“Hello again,” I said softly. “Guess we’re making this a habit. Thought I told you I didn’t want to see you back here?”

He looked up at that — actually looked up. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes stayed on mine for a beat longer than they had last time.

“I didn’t plan on it,” he said, voice quiet.

“I believe you.”

I moved through the usual steps: gloves on, vitals checked, a listen to his lungs. He wasn’t running a high fever, just something low-grade. His breath hitched slightly on the inhale, but there was no wheeze, no crackle. Probably viral. Should clear itself up in a week at most.

Still, he looked… frayed. Like someone who hadn’t slept properly in days. His hands were clean, but his nails were shorter than last time, bitten down. His face appeared sunken and his under eyes had a distinctly purple hue to them.

“Have you been sleeping?” I asked gently.

He tilted his head. “As much as possible. So, no.”

I didn’t push. Sometimes the answer wasn’t what mattered — it was how it was given.

We were quiet for a while as I documented the basics. I could feel his eyes drifting across the room, landing briefly on the supply shelves, the bulletin board, the sink. Avoiding mine, but not out of defiance. Out of caution, maybe. Or simple awkwardness. He coughed, and I handed him a paper cup filled with water.

“I read once,” he said suddenly, “that coughs often get worse when you’re trying not to think about them.”

I offered a small smile. “Sometimes trying not to think about something just leads you to focus on it even more. And thinking about a cough can trigger the reflex, even without physical cause. So I would say try not to think about it, but, you know…vicious cycle.”

His mouth twitched — a shadow of amusement, there and then gone. The air between us felt a little less still.

“You’re not what I would’ve expected from someone who works here,” he said after a moment.

I arched a brow, clipping my pen back onto my clipboard. “What did you expect?”

He shrugged. “Less… human.”

I offered him a small, empathetic smile. “Well,” I said after a beat, “lucky for you, I don’t know how to be anything else.”

I handed him some Tylenol and told him to keep hydrated. As I wrote out the discharge slip, I instructed him to come back if the fever feels like it isn’t breaking, and to try and get as much sleep as is possible in a place like this.

“Thanks,” he said before he left. Just like the time before, the word landed like he really meant it.

He walked up to the guard waiting for him, stepped out into the corridor, and was gone. I found myself wondering, again, who he really was — beneath the headlines, beneath the polyester prison uniform, beneath whatever pain had hollowed him out into a shell of who he used to be.

—

The infirmary was chaos.

Not the full-blown ER chaos of my past — just the slow, stomping, institutional kind. Raised voices, the occasional drop of blood, too many bandages unrolled across the counters. There had been some sort of fight in the cafeteria, supposedly over a stolen piece of cornbread. Or maybe a slur. Or a look. No one ever really knew for sure how these things started. By the time the inmates were dragged in — limping, cursing, sweating, sometimes screaming — it didn’t matter anyways.

I was elbow-deep in a butterfly bandage on one man’s eyebrow when I noticed him: Spencer, sitting quietly near the far wall.

He didn’t look as badly hurt as the others. His posture was too upright to suggest anything broken. He was holding a wad of gauze to his arm.

I clocked him on the low-priority end of the triage sheet: Laceration, superficial. Minor bleeding. Stable.

Sandra, the other nurse on duty, eventually crossed the room to him once we’d worked through the others. I could hear her asking him to remove the gauze.

“Clean cut,” she said. “Might need a few stitches.”

“I’ve had worse,” he replied, voice flat.

I was just finishing with discharge paperwork for a dislocated shoulder when I heard Sandra say, “We’ll get you patched up quick. Hang tight.” I glanced over, and he was already watching me. He quickly flicked his gaze to the floor.

“I’ve got that one Sandra,” I said over my shoulder, peeling off my gloves and tugging on a fresh pair. “Can you finish up this discharge for me?”

She raised a brow but didn’t question it, just nodded and switched places with me.

“Lucky me,” he murmured. It wasn’t quippy or sarcastic. It actually sounded genuine.

“You say that like you’re not sitting on a lumpy cot with your arm bleeding.”

He tilted his head, lifting his eyes to meet mine. “Well. Silver linings, I guess.”

I sat on the rolling stool beside him and started cleaning the wound. It wasn’t deep, but it ran a jagged path just beneath the curve of his bicep — a random flying lunch tray, I guessed. Wrong place, wrong time.

“You weren’t involved in the fight,” I said, phrasing it as more of a statement than a question.

“No,” he confirmed quietly. “Just passing by. I ducked too slow.”

I smiled without looking up. “Ah, classic mistake. You’ve got to learn to duck before the tray gets airborne.”

That actually got a laugh out of him — a soft, surprised sound, as if he hadn’t expected it from himself. He blinked down at me, momentarily disarmed. “You make jokes now?”

“Only in life-or-minor-laceration situations.”

The edges of his mouth twitched again. The usual shadow in his eyes was still there, but it seemed to thin out when he looked at me. A veil, instead of a wall.

“You’ve done this before,” he said as I threaded the suture needle.

“Stitches?” I asked. “Well, yeah. Hundreds of times.”

“No. I meant…this. Calming people down.”

I paused for just a second, then resumed. “Part of the job too, I guess.”

He didn’t reply, but his breathing had slowed. I worked quickly, neatly. The room was almost empty now. Just one CO near the door, arms crossed, barely paying attention. When I finished, I handed Spencer some gauze and medical tape. “You’ll want to keep this dry, at least for twenty-four hours. Try not to lift anything heavy. Or start any cafeteria fights.”

He shot me a shy, lopsided smile. “No promises.”

The guard called his name then — sharp, abrupt. Spencer stood, moving more slowly than necessary, tucking the gauze into the pocket of his jumpsuit. He looked down at me one last time, and for a second, neither of us said anything.

“Thanks, y/n.”

It was the first time he’d said my name. He must’ve read it on my badge, clipped to the pocket of my scrubs.

“You’re welcome, Spencer. Try not to need to come back if you can help it.”

He followed the guard out without looking back, but something lingered in the air after he left — the smell of antiseptic mixed with something warmer underneath, just a faint trace of something hard to name.

—

It had been a long morning — nothing dramatic, just a steady stream of minor injuries and chronic complaints. Small cuts that somehow still bled too much, headaches no amount of ibuprofen could touch, an older inmate who claimed chest pain every Tuesday at the same time he knew my shift started like clockwork. I was halfway through restocking the suture tray when a CO came in with another patient. I looked up and fought back a smile at who it was.

The new cut Spencer was sporting wasn’t too bad — a scrape along his forearm, probably from another cafeteria scuffle or a hallway shove — but it was deep enough to bring him back.

Fourth visit to the infirmary in the two months since he first arrived at Millburn. Enough visits that I didn’t need to check the intake clipboard to remember his name, or his face, or his voice.

Spencer sat in the same cot as last time, waiting quietly, hands folded like he was at a lecture instead of a prison clinic. When I walked over, he looked up and nodded in greeting. No smile this time, but not cold either.

“You again,” I said, slipping on gloves.

“Apparently I’m accident-prone.” His tone was deadpan, but there was a flicker of warmth behind it. He offered his arm without being asked.

The scrape was shallow, red around the edges but clean. I could’ve just sent him off with a bandage and a warning, but I didn’t. I pulled over the tray and got to work slowly, methodically cleaning the wound slower than I usually would.

After a moment, I said, “So, Spencer. If you’re going to be a repeat visitor, we might as well get to know one another.”

He looked up at me blankly, blinking.

“Where’d you grow up?” I asked.

He looked back down at his arm while I ran an alcohol pad across it. “Las Vegas.” He winced a little — whether at the words he was saying or the sting of the disinfectant, I wasn’t sure.

I nodded like I didn’t already know. Like I hadn’t read three different articles and an old symposium transcript with his name on it one night after my shift, sitting at my kitchen table in the dark.

“Have you always lived there?”

“No. My mom’s still there, but I moved away when I went to college and left permanently for work. I live here in DC now.”

“What kind of work?” I asked.

He hesitated, just for a second. There weren’t any other inmates in the infirmary, but he dropped his voice to a near-whisper. “I, uh, I’m with the FBI. Behavioral Analysis Unit. Or I was, at least.”

I kept my expression neutral. “That sounds intense.”

“It is.” A pause. “Interesting, though. Never boring. Lots of travel.”

I wiped the scrape clean, letting the silence stretch for a beat before I spoke again. “Do you miss it?”

Another pause, this one a little heavier. “Yeah,” he replied quietly.

He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t push. Just taped down the bandage and asked, “What’d you study before the FBI?”

“Mathematics. And chemistry. And engineering.” He paused, then added, “Also psychology. Sociology. And philosophy, more recently.”

I looked up at him, eyes wide. “All of those?”

He gave a tiny shrug, like it wasn’t worth mentioning. “I finished my first PhD when I was seventeen.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Show-off,” I said with a breathy laugh.

That got a smile. A real one this time. He looked almost sheepish. “You?”

“What about me?” I asked, pausing my work on his arm to meet his eyes. Hazel in this light. Golden brown in others, definitely.

“Where’d you grow up?”

“Philadelphia,” I said. “Still have the accent when I’m tired or drunk, I’ve been told.”

He nodded like he could hear it already, even though I wasn’t sure I’d ever let it slip around him. “Did you always want to be a nurse?” he asked.

“No,” I admitted. “I never knew what I wanted to be when I was growing up. I actually started college as a literature major before I switched to nursing. I worked in the ER for a while before I ended up here. This job just kind of…fit.”

He didn’t ask what I meant by that. Most people didn’t. He just nodded again, like he understood anyway. “Do you like it?” he asked.

Somehow it felt like a bigger question than it was. “Sometimes,” I said with a quiet sigh. “Some days are harder than others.”

He looked at me for a long moment, and it oddly felt like he knew exactly how I was feeling, like he could see the way the job was wearing me down. Now it was my turn to feel intimidated by his gaze. I turned awkwardly to look at the clock then busied myself tidying up the tray, pretending that the eye contact didn’t linger.

“There you go,” I said, gently patting the gauze I’d taped to his arm. “Try to avoid any more cafeteria collisions, please.”

“I’ll do my best,” he murmured with a shy smirk. He stood when the CO came to collect him, but before he turned to go, he paused.

“Thanks. For this,” he said as he tilted his chin to his arm, “and for… treating me like a person. Just…thanks.”

It wasn’t just polite. It sounded like he meant it. Like it mattered to him, that I called him by name and asked about his life. “You’re welcome, Spencer.”

This time, he did smile at me before he left.

And this time, I watched him walk away a second longer than I meant to.

—

I’d barely clocked in when the alert came through: inmate altercation, multiple injuries, possible head trauma, ETA three minutes.

Not exactly an unusual start to a shift. Fights were as common as bad coffee at Millburn, and most days followed the same dull rhythm — triage, patch-up, repeat. But one name on the intake list made my pulse hiccup: Reid, Spencer. Stab wound to the thigh. Suspected concussion.

I barely looked up at first — just long enough to confirm it was him, sitting upright on the cot, jumpsuit leg soaked with blood and torn a little above the knee. He didn’t look scared, but he didn’t look fine, either. Sandra moved toward him with a clipboard, but I touched her arm before she could speak. “I’ve got this one.”

“Of course you want the cute one,” she grumbled under her breath, but then she just nodded and headed over to tend to another waiting inmate.

I crossed the room slowly, cataloging him: alert, steady breathing, pale but not shocky. His gaze wasn’t confused, just… disconnected. Like he’d already run the numbers in his head and decided exactly how bad it was and whether it had been worth it.

He turned his head when I got close. There was blood on his temple — superficial. The leg was worse. Deep, clean. Too clean for it to be the result of a chaotic brawl, which meant it wasn’t chaos. It was personal. And the angle of it appeared to be possibly self-inflicted. I wondered if he’d done it to himself in an attempt to get moved into solitary.

“Hey,” I said. “Rough day?”

Spencer gave me a humorless half-smile. “Story of my life lately.”

I pulled a stool beside his leg, gently peeling back the torn fabric to assess the wound. “You’ll need stitches. At least ten. You take a hit to the head, too?”

He hesitated. “Not really.”

I met his eyes. I hesitated too, then dropped my voice. “But you could say you did.”

He blinked. Just a flicker. I pressed on, quietly. “If you did, I’d have to put you on observation. Infirmary bed. Eight hours minimum. Away from the block.”

A beat of silence. Then a soft, “Yeah. I definitely got hit in the head.”

I nodded once, then clicked my pen and wrote it down. Possible concussion. It wasn’t a complete lie — not exactly. But it wasn’t about the protocol either.

As the infirmary quieted and the other inmates cycled through, I stitched his leg in silence. Sandra kept to the intake desk. I led Spencer to the far corner, away from the fluorescent overhead lights, and dimmed them slightly. I pulled a tray table between us and sat down across from him like we had all the time in the world.

“Brain games,” I said, gesturing to the shelf behind me. “Helps me assess cognitive function.”

“You’re making that up,” he said, almost smiling.

“Of course I am.” I smirked, setting up the chessboard. “You play?”

“I used to. Not as much anymore,” he said quietly.

We played in silence first, but slowly, words started to fill the spaces between our moves. He told me about his eidetic memory and the languages he could speak. I told him about my time working in the ER, about the burnout, about why I took this job. He mentioned someone named Gideon — an old friend, mentor maybe — who taught him to play. I lost three games in a row, and on the final checkmate, I groaned. “Let’s take a break.”

He nodded, then opened his mouth like he might say something else, but he didn’t. I waited. Sandra disappeared into the break room.

After a few seconds, I spoke. “Can I ask how you ended up here?” My voice stayed soft, careful. Not clinical — I wasn’t asking as his nurse.

His whole expression shifted, and he looked guarded. I regretted asking instantly. “Sorry. You don’t have to—”

“No, no. It’s okay. I want to tell you. I just don’t know where to start.”

“Start at the beginning,” I suggested with a shrug.

He looked away, pausing. He took a long breath, and for a moment before he spoke, I thought maybe he never would. “My mom,” he finally said. “She’s schizophrenic. And… about a year ago, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.”

The words knocked something loose in me. I felt it, sharp and instinctive. “I’m so sorry,” I said.

He blinked like he hadn’t expected sympathy. “Thanks. I didn’t really handle the diagnosis well. Started looking into treatments — trials, compounds, oils, anything that might help. I found a woman in Mexico making something that worked. Nothing illegal, but the specific compound isn’t FDA-approved. So I started traveling down there every few months, in secret.”

I watched his leg bounce slightly under the table. Not from pain, but from nerves.

“The last trip… someone drugged me. Planted narcotics in a car and somehow I ended up behind the wheel in the desert. The woman I’d been getting the medication from, Rosa — she was murdered. They blamed me. I was arrested. Framed. I know that probably sounds like what every guy in here says, but…it’s true. My team and I think it was a serial killer we arrested a few years back — he escaped custody last year.”

His voice got quieter as the story stretched out. Thinner, like it was costing him more and more to keep talking. “My team got me extradited back to the U.S. They helped find me a good lawyer. But I was remanded to custody without bail. So… here I am.”

I let it settle, allowing myself to feel the full weight of it. I’d read bits and pieces online, after that first cut I’d stitched months ago. But hearing it like this? It was different. Sadder, somehow. “I believe you,” I said softly.

He blinked. “Why?”

I tilted my head, considering. “Because…well, I’ve seen guilty. This isn’t it. Plus, if your team’s still backing you, that means something.”

He looked down, fiddling with a chess piece. “I think most people want to believe I’m guilty. That I snapped or something. It’s easier than believing the alternative.”

“Easier doesn’t mean truer,” I said simply.

He looked back up and smiled. It was small, but real. “Can we play something else now?”

We pulled out Scrabble, and the conversation drifted with it — books, places, bad camping trips. He laughed at my story about a raccoon stealing my breakfast, and the sound surprised both of us.

“I haven’t laughed in a while,” he said.

I poked the back of his Scrabble tile rack. “You’re welcome.”

Sometime during our third game, he asked: “Why aren’t you married?”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You don’t wear a ring. I just assumed.”

I shrugged. “You first.”

He laughed quietly. Told me about his failed attempts at dating. The woman he lost at the hands of her stalker. The job that got in the way.

I gave him my version. How the hours I worked scared people off. How guys never seemed to call back after finding out I worked in a men’s prison. How I’d rather be alone than explain myself yet again to someone who wouldn’t get it.

“Honestly,” I said, “most men want someone who makes their life easier. Not darker.”

“That wouldn’t stop me,” he said quietly.

I stilled, the statement catching me off guard. I waited a moment to process what he’d said, to make sure I’d heard it correctly. “What?”

His cheeks flushed. “I mean, it…it wouldn’t stop me from wanting to know someone. If they worked here. If they were like you.”

“Like me?”

Spencer nodded. “Smart. Honest. Beautiful.” His voice cracked shyly on that last one. “Brave. A little scary.” He chuckled, then took a breath. “If they were you,” he finally clarified softly, his eyes awkwardly flicking down to the board before meeting mine again.

We didn’t move. Didn’t touch. But something shifted — a soft tilt in the air between us.

He swallowed hard. “That was inappropriate. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“Technically, yeah, it was inappropriate. But I’m not uncomfortable.” A moment passed. My knee brushed his under the table — light, accidental. “It was an unexpected comment, but it wasn’t unwelcome,” I finally added.

He paused for a few beats, absorbing what I’d said, the way I’d reacted, the brush of my knee. “Hypothetically,” he said, “if I got out of here… would you want to try meeting again? On the outside.”

I let the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding leave me slowly. “Hypothetically… yeah. I’d like that. If you’re talking about a date, that is.”

He blinked, like he hadn’t expected that answer. “O-okay. Cool,” he stammered. A sheepish smile tugged at his lips. “Cool.”

I grinned. “So, Spencer. On this hypothetical date, what would we do?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he looked up, very seriously, and asked, “Are we flirting?” It looked as if his brain was mid-calculating risk and probability, like he couldn’t dare answer my question until I answered this one.

I stared back at him. “Do you want to be?”

He coughed, surprised I’d thrown the question back at him. “I…don’t not want to be. I just didn’t think you’d want to flirt with me.”

“I don’t usually flirt with inmates,” I said slowly. “I mean… I don’t ever.” I held his gaze. “You’re a special case.”

Spencer tilted his head slightly, watching me like he was trying to decode a particularly complicated puzzle. “Special how?”

I met his gaze, letting the moment stretch between us. “You’re…different. You don’t walk in here full of swagger or venom. You don’t talk down to anyone. You’re very attractive. You’re nice to me even when you don’t have any reason to want to be. You don’t…you don’t belong here.”

His throat worked as he swallowed, then glanced toward Sandra before returning his eyes to mine. “Some days I’m not sure where I belong anymore.” There was a quiet honesty in his voice that hollowed something out inside me. That sharp, aching awareness of how deeply alone someone could feel, even in a room full of people. Especially then.

I reached across the little table and nudged the corner of the Scrabble board closest to him with my fingertips. “Well, for the next few hours, you belong here. With me. Under ‘observation.’” I gave him a tiny, conspiratorial smile.

He smiled back, the edges of his lips tugging up in that crooked way I was beginning to associate with him. “You’re a very thorough observer.”

“It’s in the job description,” I said with a shrug. “Besides, I like to be sure.”

Spencer leaned forward a little, elbows the table, fingers laced together. “What are you sure of?”

I thought for a moment before responding. “I’m sure you didn’t do what they say you did. I’m sure you’re extremely intelligent. I’m sure you care about people more than you let on. And I’m sure that I haven’t looked forward to a shift like this in a very long time.”

Spencer looked down, like he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing, or didn’t know what to do with it. “You’re going to get in trouble for being nice to me.”

“I’m not being nice,” I said. “I’m being… honest. Besides, no one’s listening.”

We sat in silence for a moment, letting that word — honest — hang in the air. It meant something different here at Millburn. It was rare. Sometimes costly. But with Spencer, it didn’t feel dangerous.

Sandra’s voice cut through the stillness, calling out a question to me from the front desk. I stood, my hands brushing the front of my scrubs.

“I’ll be right back,” I told him, heading over to help.

When I returned a few minutes later, Spencer was still seated in the same spot, but his posture had shifted slightly — more relaxed, more open. He’d turned one of the Scrabble tiles over in his fingers, tracing it absently, as if lost in thought.

“You didn’t swap the tiles to cheat while I was gone, did you?” I teased as I sat back down.

He grinned, shaking his head. “I’m too much of a perfectionist. Cheating would ruin the whole point.”

“Good to know,” I murmured, reclaiming my spot across from him. “So. You never answered my question.”

He tilted his head.

“Hypothetical first date. What would we do?”

A small flicker of hesitation crossed his face — maybe uncertainty, maybe just the weight of imagining something he wasn’t sure he should allow himself to hope for. But then, he spoke.

“I’d take you to the planetarium,” he said. “They do these night shows on Thursdays. There’s music — actual curated playlists — and they project constellations onto the dome. You can lean back and look at the stars without all the city lights getting in the way.”

I blinked, caught off guard by how perfect that sounded.

“That’s…actually kind of dreamy,” I said.

He gave a small, bashful shrug. “It’s quiet. We wouldn’t have to talk unless you wanted to. And afterward, there’s a diner around the corner that makes really good pie. We could split a piece or two.”

“Pie and stars,” I said. “I could go for that.”

“I’ll remember,” he said quietly. “For after. If there is one.”

And just like that, the atmosphere shifted again — still soft, still tentative, but edged now with something more electric. Hope. A thread of connection thick enough to feel, even in a place that was never meant for anything tender.

The game slowed, and we didn’t look at the board as much. Our conversation stretched out between moves. I told him how I like old Hollywood movies and hiking when I could get out of the city. Spencer mentioned classical music, science fiction, the smell of bookstores. We sketched out a series of hypothetical first dates like kids killing time — a Sunday at the museum, a night at a trivia bar, a coffee place with mismatched mugs and not enough chairs.

“Do you always win at Scrabble?” I asked, knowing the hours had dwindled away.

“Almost always,” he said, then added with a smile, “Unless I get distracted.”

I raised a brow but said nothing. I thought for a moment, then carefully placed a series of ten tiles along the edge of the board in front of him — each one selected for the small score number etched into the corner. It spelled out gibberish, but it’s not the letters that mattered. When he looked up, I met his eyes.

“That’s a phone number,” I said softly, “not a word.”

He looked down at the tiles, then back up at me again, a soft smile curling at his lips.

“I figured you could try to remember it for when you get out.”

“I will,” he said, his knee brushing mine under the table again — this time, I knew it hadn’t been accidental.

Suddenly, the loud buzzer of the door cut through the atmosphere we’d been so perfectly curating. A CO walked in, indicating the end of Spencer's observation period. I stood up and walked to him. “I need a minute to finish the assessment, then he’s all yours.” The officer nodded then leaned against Sandra’s desk to make flirty small talk.

I padded back to Spencer and noticed the shift in his demeanor — he was scared. Sad, too, for this to end, but the fear in his eyes at the prospect of going back to his cell was evident.

I looked over my shoulder to make sure the guard was distracted, then placed a hand on his knee under the table. “I think I can help,” I said quietly. I stood and grabbed the assessment sheet, filling in my “findings.”

“Patient remains alert and oriented. Mild fatigue consistent with post-concussive recovery. Observation window uneventful. While current concussion symptoms appear mild and improving, patient is at increased vulnerability for subsequent severe head trauma.”

I paused, then lowered my pen, pressing the tip to the page just a little harder.

“Recommend reevaluation for protective custody placement based on frequency of injury and heightened vulnerability. History of recent trauma and exposure suggests increased risk of harm in general population. Further monitoring advised.”

I stared at the paper for a beat, listening to the low hum of the overhead lights. My eyes flicked up to Spencer, who looked at me with some confusion on his face, then back down to the sheet. The language was clinical, common, nothing dramatic. But I knew what it could do for him.

It wouldn’t get him out. But maybe it would give him a little more space. A little more safety. A little more time.

I signed my name at the bottom and flipped the file closed. I motioned for Spencer to get up. “Stay safe,” I said quietly, giving him a look only he could decipher before I waved to the CO to come over.

“Here’s my assessment for the warden,” I said as I handed the file to the CO. “Make sure he gets it tonight, please.” The officer nodded — I had good rapport with the COs here — and he led Spencer out. Spencer looked over his shoulder at me for just a moment, and I saw something deeper in his expression, something he hadn’t shown since I’d met him.

Hope.

—

A week after his concussion observation period, he came in holding his head like it hurt.

It was the first thing I noticed — the way his fingers pressed into his temple, his expression pulled tight in manufactured pain. I’d seen patients genuinely suffering from migraines, seen them blink and tense and wince and faint. This wasn’t that. This was a performance, and not a very good one. He should stick to his day job, I thought to myself. Not cut out to be an actor.

I stifled a giggle and walked up to his cot, looking up from my paperwork and smiling at him softly. “Hey. Back so soon?”

Spencer lowered himself onto the cot with a dramatic sigh, hand still braced against his forehead. “Migraine,” he said, wincing dramatically. “Started last night. Light sensitivity, nausea… the works.”

“Mmhmm,” I hummed, standing and reaching for the small penlight in my coat pocket. “You want to tell me why your pupils look perfectly normal and your blood pressure’s textbook perfect?”

He smiled, just barely. “I missed your voice.”

That stopped me cold. Just for a second, but long enough that I had to pretend to be very interested in the pulse oximeter in my hand.

“That’s…not usually a billable symptom,” I murmured.

He chuckled softly. It was the first time I’d heard him laugh like that. It was warm.

I stepped closer, wrapping the pulse oximeter around his finger even though I already knew what it would say. The tips of his fingers were cold, but his skin was soft. I held it a second longer than necessary, just watching the numbers rise on the tiny screen.

“Looks like you’ll live,” I said.

He tilted his head, looking at me more closely now, and the moment stretched between us — full of unspoken things that couldn’t be said in a place like this. His eyes scanned my face like he was memorizing it.

“I wanted to say thank you,” he said quietly. “For the report you wrote. The recommendation. I’m not stupid. I know that was you.”

I didn’t answer. I just looked down and reached for the thermometer instead. His hand was still resting on his thigh, twitching slightly like he wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“It was medically sound,” I said, voice low. “Repeated head trauma and high-stress environments can—”

He interrupted me with my name. Just my name, nothing else.

I swallowed.

I pretended to take his temperature, the plastic probe tucked beneath his tongue as if any of this still resembled medicine. My fingers grazed his jaw. When I pulled it back, I reached for his wrist to take his heart rate again, manually this time. My fingertips slid over his skin too gently, too deliberately.

The CO by the door shifted his weight with a faint grunt, and I blinked, heart jolting back into rhythm. I pulled my hand back and stepped away, jotting something on the clipboard that didn’t matter. “I’m prescribing you sleep. Go take a nap, FBI boy.”

He smirked at the nickname and stood slowly, like he didn’t want to. “Wasn’t really about the migraine,” he admitted, voice low but steady. “I just… I wanted to see you.”

The truth of it landed heavy between us, no performance, no pretending. Just honesty — stark and bare and strangely brave.

I felt the words settle into my chest like a secret I was glad to keep. I nodded, barely. “I know.”

He gave me a small, crooked smile — softer than the last, tinged with that same look in his eyes I saw last week - hope.

ᝰ.ᐟ

part ii.