natureaker · 4 months ago
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I should make a YouTube video on my experience dealing with insurance for top surgery bc this shit is insufferable and everyone else seems to have a MUCH easier time with this than me. Just My Luck.
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nereidprinc3ss · 7 months ago
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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. 
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pathologicalreid · 8 days ago
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burn notice | s.r.
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in which your workplace is targeted by a group of extremists, and Spencer tries everything to keep you safe
margotober masterlist
who? spencer reid x fem!reader category: angst content warnings: fighting, threats, arson/explosion, politics, mass casualty event, sole survivor, greek mythology my beloved, public transit word count: 2.34k a/n: i genuinely think my laptop is going to start smoking if i leave it on for much longer.
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You pull your knees to your chest, sitting on the floor next to Spencer’s desk while he speaks with Hotch about the case. JJ waves at you solemnly before she heads out of the bullpen, leaving you as the last person. Setting your chin on your knee, you close your eyes and wonder how things got so messed up so quickly.
Someone was threatening your work, the threats weren’t directed at you personally, but with the way Spencer was acting, it might as well have been. The BAU had been called in by D.C. Metro yesterday, and that was when Spencer started acting overprotective.
The letters were demanding all of the money from a political action campaign, something you couldn’t give away. The money wasn’t yours to give. “Are you alright?” Spencer asks, having made his way down to his desk.
Accepting his hand up, you sigh, resting your cheek against his chest when he pulls you in for a hug. “Just a long day,” you murmur, wrapping your arms around his waist and finally letting yourself relax.
He chuckles lightly at your colossal understatement of the day’s events, gently rubbing your back before he goes to pick his messenger bag up, slinging it over his shoulder before taking your hand, “What do you say we order something out for dinner?”
You hum in response, “I think it’s pretty obvious that neither of us is in the mood to cook.” You don’t even need to bring up the fact that it’s eight p.m., you could be heading home at five and you still wouldn’t have it in you to cook a meal. You slip your hand in his while you’re heading to the elevator, waving briefly at Hotch as he locks up his office.
Spencer lets you sit on the metro, standing until it’s time to switch lines and he finds a seat while you’re headed to Farragut North. You rest your head on his shoulder, wondering if the food you ordered on the phone was going to beat you to the apartment.
You’re half asleep by the time you get to Van Ness, and Spencer practically drags you behind him as you exit the station and walk back to the apartment. As you expect, your food is waiting for you on the welcome mat, complete with the handwritten note from your favorite delivery driver, “God, this smells good.” You say, holding the warm take-out containers in your arms while Spencer opens the front door.
Setting everything on the kitchen counter, you retreat briefly to the bedroom to change your clothes, pulling on an old t-shirt before returning to the kitchen, taking your container, and sitting on the couch. “Are you going to work tomorrow?”
With food in your mouth, you nod at Spencer, watching him sit down on the other end of the couch. Swallowing, you shrug, “It’s election season, Spence. This is one of my busiest times of the year.”
“But there’s a group of people threatening to blow up the building that you work in,” Spencer reminds you, mixing up his food with his fork.
This isn’t the first time you’ve had this conversation today. “At the end of the day, it’s up to my boss to decide whether or not we get to take the day off or if we have to go into the office, and he said that anyone who doesn’t come in tomorrow gets fired.”
Spencer’s gaze narrows, “I quite honestly don’t care. I’d rather we go to having a single income than have you die in a domestic terrorism incident” He points his fork at you, “And for what it’s worth, your boss is an asshole.”
You huff in recognition, now that was something you were well aware of. This job was supposed to be your way in. A stepping stone on your way to being a liaison in the White House, but the world had started to slow down from the moment you entered the world of politics. Every ounce of excitement that you had felt when you first moved to D.C. was fleeting.
Work sapped joy from your life, and everyone around you knew it.
Fiddling with your chopsticks, you dig around in your takeout container for a carrot, “Do you think we could talk about something other than work?”
“I can’t stop thinking about how tonight might be my last night with you,” Spencer says morbidly, aggressively stabbing at his container. It was Spencer’s greatest blessing and his eternal damnation, being able to think so quickly and operate in a way that left his peers miles behind.
He saw the solution so plainly in front of him, standing in his pool of water with a fruit tree creating a foreboding shadow above him, but every time he reached out with the answer, you retreated. “DHS didn’t think it was a credible threat,” you murmur, setting your food down on the coffee table so you can attempt to have a real conversation with him about this.
Spencer huffs in response, the hair blowing strands of his hair around his face, “DHS isn’t emotionally involved in this case.”
You tilt your head to the side, “Do you think maybe you’re too close to this? What did Hotch say?”
“Fuck off,” he snaps. It was an instinctive reaction to your pushing, but that didn’t make the sting any less painful.
Crossing your arms in front of your stomach, you shrink back into your side of the couch, “Is that what you told Hotch, too?” You watch his reaction, the way he presses his lips together in acute shame for what he said to you, but he won’t take it back, and he won’t apologize for it. Not right now, at least.
He’s just afraid, you try to remind yourself. Spencer’s terrified of something happening to you and he has some sort of deep-seated inability to process fear, so when he gets scared, he gets mean. Right now, he was taking his fear out on you, and if something was going to happen to you tomorrow, you didn’t want him to spend his time lashing out.
You turn on the TV, flipping to a program that the both of you like before going back to your dinner, manifesting that the tense silence between the two of you turns peaceful before it’s too late.
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“Hey, what are you thinking about?” Nadine asks you, nudging your side gently with her elbow until you snap out of your fugue. “Are you heading home for dinner?”
Checking the time on your watch, you nod absentmindedly, “Probably,” your voice is rough from lack of use, spending so much of your day just staring at election models. You have the privilege of being the only employee who lives close enough to be able to go home for meals—you’d packed a lunch, but you have to stop at home for dinner.
In an unsurprising turn of events, your team was staying late at work tonight. You’d already texted Spencer to let him know, but you doubt that he even looked at your message. “Hey, at least no crazy person came and blew up the office,” she continues, noticing your melancholia.
You laugh without humor, a dry empty sound in response to your co-worker tempting fate. “Yeah, at least there’s that,” you respond, noting the strange air that remains in the suite, people are still thinking about the threat, even if they’re too scared to say it aloud.
Walking back to the office after making a sandwich at home, you pull your phone out of your purse and try to haphazardly type out an on my way text to Nadine, but when you send it, it doesn’t go through. Shaking it off, you drop your phone back in your purse and keep walking, sirens passing on the street as something goes on in the city. You think about texting Spencer again but decide against it—it’s better to give him his space.
A passing pedestrian knocks into you, getting you to lift your head to frown at him, but he just keeps running forward, not even bothering to throw a sorry over his shoulder.
“Is that building on fire?” Someone asks, and your heart sinks into your stomach at the question, picking up your own pace as tufts of smoke billow into the sky, suspiciously close to where your office is.
There’s a mob forming behind the police line, people who were in the middle of their commutes home when they found something to gawk at. Even people who choose to keep walking are rubbernecking, making double steps to look at the building for a split second longer. “Isn’t that the councilman’s office?”
“No,” you breathe, watching the flames as they only grow. The crowd clutches their pearls as people ask about people jumping from the building, your friends who would rather jump and possibly survive than burn to death. People run past you to get closer while you can’t do anything except watch in horror.
It’s not until one of the windows shatters that you move again, the location of the window right next to where you and Nadine had been standing earlier. You push through the crowd, trying to reach the police barricade as people ask Metro PD for answers.
You try to duck under the police tape before someone pushes you back, “No!” You cry, “No, no, no! Please let me through! I work here,” you try to explain through gasping breaths, “This is my job! These are my friends!” You shout over the ruckus, the smell of the fire filling your senses.
“Ma’am, ma’am,” one of the officers talks down to you, “We’re under strict orders from the FBI that no one is allowed to get through.” His voice doesn’t have an ounce of sympathy in it, and it pushes you closer to the ledge.
You point at him accusingly, “Fuck your orders! Let me talk to the FBI!” Desperation oozes from you in every direction as the crowd steps away from the crazy woman shouting about the FBI. “I know them all,” you plead, “just let me talk to them!”
The officer holds his hands out, “Ma’am, I don’t want to have to remove you from the scene.”
But you’ve already moved on from him, noticing a familiar cascade of dark hair on the other side of the barricade, “Oh my god, Emily!” Your voice is comparable to a shriek as you try to get her attention, “Emily, please!”
Relief floods your chest as her head snaps in the direction of your shouting, a confused look quickly morphing into shock as she recognizes you. “Let her through,” She calls to the officers, looking at you as if she’s seen a ghost. “What’s going on?”
You run to her first, adrenaline thrumming through every part of your body as you point to the two officers who made an enemy of you, “Those two won’t fucking listen to me!”
“We thought you were in the building,” Emily says, her tone is eerie, almost haunted.
Gasping for air, you wave your hand around at the building, babbling something about dinner and the walk while she continues to monitor your surroundings.
She places her hands on your shoulders to stop you from bouncing around, “Y/N, Spencer thinks you were inside the building.”
It’s like she’s knocked the hair out of your lungs, you shake your head, “I wasn’t. I was at home. I left for…” your voice trails off at the realization that at this very moment, Spencer thinks you’re dead. At the very least he thinks you’re trapped inside of that building when you very likely could’ve been at the apartment that you share while the fire was set.
“Reid!” Emily calls into her radio, rolling her eyes in frustration, “He took his earbud out.”
You tug at her arm, “Where is he?” Your voice broke, grief flooding your eyes as she communicated with the team.
She nods her head to the left, “He’s on the north side of the building.”
Not even waiting for her to finish her sentence, you took off in a full sprint, ignoring other people looking at you like you’re insane because the only thing you can think of is getting to Spencer. “Spencer!” You shout, your voice ragged from running, throat swelling with emotion as you scream for him.
JJ sees you first, “Reid!”
And you see him. It looks like Derek’s holding him back, stopping him from running into the building when you call out again, “Spence!”
He turns just in time to catch you, nearly toppling onto the ground as you launch yourself at him, wrapping your arms around him while he holds you so tightly that your feet lift off of the ground.
“Yeah, Emily,” Derek says into his radio, “We’ve got her.”
Your hands tremble with an assortment of emotions as you grip the straps of his Kevlar vest, depending on him to keep you standing, “I’m okay,” you babble, “I wasn’t in there.”
“I’m sorry,” Spencer responds, burying his face in your neck, you hold him impossibly tight as his tears hit your skin, eliciting a sob from the back of your throat.
You gasp, “I know. It’s okay. I’m okay,” you repeat like a mantra, a collection of words that needs to be tattooed on his brain. “We’re okay,” you tell him, smiling faintly as he walks backward to an ambulance, neither of you faltering in your grip of the other.
It seems like every cell that made up his body is shaking as he holds you, “I’m so sorry,” he apologizes again. This time it’s deeper. He’s apologizing for his behavior, sure, but he’s apologizing for this event.
A cry bubbles in your throat. Everything was gone. Your friends were gone. The last two years of your life burnt to ashes.
And when you lose your footing and you otherwise would’ve fallen to the ground, Spencer keeps you up, his grip holding you together—keeping you close.
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inkdrinkerworld · 6 months ago
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i saw this on instagram and felt it was very much in line with your blog's aesthetic rn!!!
could you please do a fic for spencer based on it 🥺
its okay if you are too busy :)
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6f1T0ju3sP/?igsh=MWZ1OWt4cGx4MWhlcg==
oh this is such a cute comment and such a cute video! spencer would so let you do it!!!
"Spencer, lay still." you're the only one of the two of you moving as you both lay on a picnic blanket.
Spencer's reading his Russian novel and you've gotten bored with your own and transitioned to picking daisies and fitting them in his hair.
He says your name softly, reverent like a prayer. His brown eyes lift to yours and find you smiling, a cheeky smile on your face as you spin a daisy between your fingers.
"How many are in there?" he asks, not wanting to reach a hand up and risk having them all fall out.
"About thirty," you hum, reaching for your phone on the picnic basket to take a picture to show him. "Here, look." Spencer's eyes lighten as he looks at the picture, a smile gracing his own lips.
"There's so many," Spencer turns then, his neck aching from his previous position. "Can I lay in your lap?" he asks, slotting his bookmark between his pages as he twists a little on the blanket.
"Course you can, that's optimal hair flowering position." Spencer chuckles, laying himself carefully in your lap and sighing. "Are your eyes tired, Spence?"
He hums, "A little, I think I may have to transition to my glasses again." you smile secretly, not so opposed to him wearing his glasses again as Spencer is himself.
"Really? The brown ones?" Spencer knows what you mean to ask. He nods all the same. "Those make you look even more handsome!" you compliment, earning a chuckle from Spencer as you weave another flower into his hair.
"I think you're the only one who thinks that. I'm just old now, I'm thirty three and I need glasses now more than ever."
You hum, "Imagine what your prescription would be like if you weren't anti-technology." Spencer laughs again, shaking some of the flowers free from his hair, but you don't mind. It just gives you more time to weave even more into his hair, till it's all just daisies and hardly hair.
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luveline · 1 year ago
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I love your writing sm!!! would you be willing to do something with Spencer where he calms reader down from a nightmare ? thank u so much!!! have a good day ❤️
thank you sm! ♡ gn!reader
cw drug use mentioned
In the dream, Spencer lives. 
Surprisingly. So many of your dreams are made of his demise. In one dream he gets killed in a cemetery, crying and alone and strapped to a chair. In another, a needle stays stuck to the crook of his arms as he slips into a too-heavy sleep. Sometimes he dies bleeding out from his leg, other times he makes it to the hospital long enough to feel the building crumble beneath him. 
You wouldn't want Spencer to stop telling you things, but every ragged chapter of his life acts as nightmare fuel. Every sentence, every line. Here he's lonely. Here he's afraid. 
Here, despite everything, he's alive, because this is the dream where you die first. 
You die like the snap of a firecracker hitting the ground and find yourself inverted, flinching up where gunpowder spilled down, your hand knocking into the soft of Spencer's stomach as you gasp for air. You're dead. You're dead, and Spencer's alone, and no one is going to look after him now. 
"Y/N?" His voice. The plastic and wood scrape as he grabs his glasses and shoves them on. "What? What's hurting?" 
You put your hand over your heart and will it to stop pounding so hard. It aches like a new bruise. 
"Baby," Spencer says softly, curling his arm behind the small of your back. He pulls your bodies together, tucking the sheets up your legs again with the other. 
"Bad dream," you say, wishing you'd woken crying. At least then you'd know what the emotion is under all your abject panic. 
"Just breathe… just breathe." He takes a slow, deliberate breath for you to follow. When he speaks, it's calm as the summer sea. "Another one. I'm sorry, you've had a lot of these lately, huh?" Spencer brings the hand furthest from you to your cheek, encouraging your cheek against his chin. "You want to tell me about it?" 
"I died." 
It must surprise him. For once, he doesn't have anything to say immediately. He turns his face in to kiss you, not fussy about where his lips fall. A slow, steadying kiss. 
"Those ones are some of the hardest," he says sympathetically. 
"I didn't… it didn't even matter. I hit my head and I woke up. But I…" How to explain it? "Spence, there was this split second where I thought I left you alone." 
"Don't worry about me," he says.
"But I do worry about you. I know you can look after yourself better, but– but people have let you down. I've let you down." 
Spencer's smile is audible, a lilt to the dulcet murmur he presses into your hair, "You're the last person I'd say let me down... You know, nightmares aren't scientifically quantifiable, there's no statistical data on what it means to have a bad dream, but. There are hundreds of thousands of books about it, and more than you'd think tend to agree that after you've had one, the fear remains. Like a bad cell. You can't remember it and it sticks around despite it." 
You wait for the silver lining. 
"So?" you ask. 
He chuckles quietly. "So, I know it sucks, but it's a good thing that you remembered it. Want me to tell you what the books say?" 
"About what it means?" you ask. 
"They say it's transitional. You're saying goodbye to something. Starting a new chapter." 
Spencer turns your face, his thumb stroking your cheek. Dead morning light floods the room like a splash of milk into tea, illuminating the small apples of his cheeks, the thick triangles of his lashes behind his glasses' lenses. He looks woefully handsome considering the hour, and, to your relief, he's completely unafraid. 
"Just don't say goodbye to me, okay?" he whispers.
You nod, fatigue pressing on your shoulders. 
Spencer gives you a quick, dotting kiss. "Thank you. Let's go back to sleep, yeah? Lay down." 
You curl up under his arm. His hand takes loop on your shoulder, drawing lazy, meandering circles until you're falling into a much quieter crop of sleep. 
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reidfucker · 7 months ago
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two left feet
dr. spencer reid knows how to dance. keyword, knows how to — not that he's any good at actually, physically performing it.
or dr. spencer reid asks you to waltz with him.
an itty bitty reid drabble as i try to familiarize myself with tumblr. no beta or second thoughts at all !!! i typed all of this out experimentally. (update: edited it a tad :–D)
oh, and spencer is a trans man. it's not explicitly stated or dwelt upon, but i hope you know.
once reid gets into something, he gets into it. lately, he's been reading up on dancing: in particular, the waltz.
in his silently agreed on corner of the couch, with his feet in your lap as you sat beside him. you see him reading the waltz book, whatever that entailed.
it wasn't uncommon for spencer to be interested by things he completely hadn't dabbled in the past. he usually accumulated facts on a multitude of topics, storing each trinket of knowledge for later use. though, he hardly ever applied those skills after getting familiar with them.
this time, he closes the book, thinking to himself. you can't help but giggle to yourself and wonder, what is so thought-provoking about the waltz? but reid finds something to ponder on even in the most mundane things, so there's no need to question.
"hm." reid hums, getting your attention.
"spence?" you can visibly see his train of thought derail.
"oh– um– i was just wondering if..." he considers his words, "i was just going to ask if you'd like to dance with me."
you grin, "aw, of course. who am i to decline you?"
"um... i'm no good yet. but hey, what's learning without trying?" he gives a shy smile, getting on his feet pushing up his reading glasses, instead of taking them off. you told him he looked cute in glasses, and he'd look cute nonetheless, but you noticed he wears them more often now.
"what songs go well with the dance you have in mind?" you say, browsing through your cd collection.
"would it be cliché if i said 'cant help falling in love' by elvis presley?" spencer stands slightly behind you, sort of waiting for you.
"yeah... very cliché. but it's okay, i'll play it anyway." you can't help but grin at how anxious he is about nearly everything.
"well, it's because my mother loves that song. well, used to, now she can hardly remember things."
you turn to him once the cd is in place, "you don't need to explain yourself to me, spencer. i like the song." you reassure him, "now... shall we dance?" you hold a hand out.
spencer gladly takes your hand, gladly taking charge. you've never danced before, and it's evident that spencer hasn't either, but strangely, you feel like the ceramic couples spinning together inside a music box.
he closes his eyes, following the rhythm, visualizing the images from the textbook.
what a mind, you think. it would be nice to live inside his brain: to know every thought before it's fully processed, to see what images flash through his mind, to watch the connections between lines from books and quotes an unsub dropped.
on the other hand, you don't know what you're doing. spencer's eyes flutter open and closed every once in a while and he oh-so-softly laughs whenever he commits a mistake. you consider kissing him, but you don't want to interrupt this brilliant mind at work.
once he's comfortable enough with the pace, he leans his forehead on your shoulder, transitioning into slow dancing. you wrap your arms around his waist, and you just melt together.
rocking you back and forth just in time with the rhythm, he whispers in your ear, "you know, waltzing was considered... scandalous back in the day. couples danced in what they called 'closed position,' they were practically, uh, pelvis to pelvis."
you chuckle, giving him a nod. he feels you nod and takes it as a sign he's good to continue.
"yeah, up until the waltzes of strauss, it was deemed inappropriate. i get that, 'the blue danube' is such a beautiful song, it's hard to pass up the opportunity to... y'know..."
reid rambles on, whispering to you all throughout, as if he were professing his love for you. and in his own little way, you knew he was.
he takes a few (many) awkwardly timed steps, and even you can admit your bodies don't flow together seamlessly. but really, it isn't half-bad.
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iamidentical · 6 months ago
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catching up with the guys i mentioned in my first u18 men's worlds post, now that the gold medal game is over and canada's won:
- gavin mckenna is undisputably the Next Big Thing. as an underage player, he ended the tournament 2nd in overall points and 1st in goal-scoring with 10 goals and 10 assists in 7 games. #mctankformckenna
- tij iginla can rip some pucks and i wish he were still a tbird. 6 goals and 6 assists in 7 games. check out this photo with his dad after the game (the flames have got to draft him, right?).
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- kashawn aitcheson defended well, good in transition, according to scott wheeler. he ended the tournament with 1 goal (tied for second in goal-scoring for canadian defensemen) as well as 2 assists for a total of 3 points in 7 games.
he got a little buried in the net as the celebrations began:
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- malcolm spence ended with the three goals from the preliminary rounds as well as 4 assists for a total of 7 points in 7 games.
here's spence handing off the trophy to mckenna, who handed it off to iginla next.
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the usa probably deserved to win throughout most of that gold medal game, but hey, who can stop a mckenna hat trick?
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birdybirdnerd · 2 months ago
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Midnight for spence, secret for Nance, wound for raph-nce (I had to keep the bit going)
ALRIGHT sorry i had to wait till i could be somewhere with wifi to do this
oc asks: not so nice edition!
Midnight: What keeps your OC up at night? Do they have nightmares? Fears? Anxieties? What do they do in the small hours of the morning when they should be sleeping?
changes over the course of parable actors. before meeting up with the brigade, spencer has a lot of anxieties about his parable, nightmares about endless looping hallways and being alone and not mattering to anyone. nightmares about waking back up there specifically, all the hard work hes put into becoming his own person erased like it never happened. he uh, did a lot of late night wandering whenever it kept him up, or drank himself unconscious. not good!
after basically adopting gidget, his anxieties turned towards 'oh god oh fuck this person needs someone put together to help them and im a mess, this is a mistake, im gonna fuck them up irreversibly and just continue to traumatize this poor traumatized kid and that is the LAST thing i want'
things get a lot better for awhile there, until, of course, the end of reset the actors, when his fucking narrator returns and now spencer needs to handle this and deal with this and figure things out and he cant impose this bastard on other people, he can take care of it himself, and god hes so annoying and awful but hes too pathetic to just drop off on the street and wipe my hands of the whole thing, and id feel like a fucking fraud if i didnt give him a second chance but now the nightmares from when i first left the parable are back and theyre mixing with new ones where nansen somehow figures out how to go back and drags me back and it was all for nothing, ill never see the others again, oh god-
so uh. yeah. he quit drinking for awhile there for gidget, but nancys return marks a return of his alcoholism (for a bit. they all get their shit together again thank god and spencer never, ever again touches the stuff except for a Single glass of champagne/wine at a particularly fancy dinner or party, maybe once a year at most)
Secret: What's one secret your OC never wants anyone to know about them?
nancy admits this to dr joy one session, and no one else.
when he first saw spencer in the falling-apart parable the coalition had made their base, when the rescue attempt for the narrator was in full swing, when hed spent years with a slowly dawning horror at what the other versions of him had done, and what that corrupted parable leading the charge was doing,
he was so, so close. seconds away, even. from grabbing spencer and running and not stopping until they were back, safe, in their own parable
he would have done it, if spencer hadnt interrupted him to demand his help in finding gidget
Wound: How does your OC handle being wounded? Are their wounds mostly physical? Mental? Emotional? What's the worst wound your OC has ever experienced?
raph is a HUUUUGE drama queen and makes a mountain out of a molehill to cope. the more dramatic she is about something though, the less serious it actually is
but when shes really, actually hurt, she tends to retreat. hide it. put on a smile and act like nothings wrong, what are you talking about? this goes for both physical and emotional hurts, too; shell work on a twisted ankle or a pulled muscle until the pain is literally too much for her to even move, and keep forging onwards when her head is a disaster zone until the depression is so thick and murky she cant see a way out of bed in the morning
dont think shes had any suuuper serious physical injuries, maybe needed stitches from falls on set or casts for fractured bones. shes pretty hardy, even if she can be kind of a clutz
emotionally, the worst shes been would have to be... hm. sometime maybe a few months before the brigade formed, i can see her having started her transition months prior. shes been part of this theater/drag group for almost a year now, surrounded by people so, so much like her that love her so much. helping her figure her way out in the world, and in herself. odette dotes on her, is supportive, helps her get on hormones and become more comfortable with herself.
estrogen therapy comes with increased mood swings, heightened emotions, and raph already has bipolar disorder. she feels so much all the time, and the hormones make that stronger, and one day she realizes all the good she has and how different everything is and shes faced in the mirror with the face of someone she can actually love-
and she suddenly feels like a fraud. shes a fake. shes not human, shes not one of these girls. she was made to press buttons, was made as a vessel for the players enjoyment of a game that wasnt even fun anymore, none of them had to go through what she did and she cant even tell them, shes crazy, shes nothing, her narrator was right-
big bad mood swing. bed bound for weeks. raph loses a lot of weight, burns some bridges when the only energy spikes she gets are to yell at the people she loves with all her heart (those bridges reform, i promise, amends are made and therapy helps all). its bad, and the only reason she didnt fully waste away was that odette never once gave up on her, despite rows and no responses.
raph still feels so terribly guilty about this, but has worked to be at peace with herself over it since then
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emilyprenkissme · 1 year ago
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Welcome, newbie.
Spencer woke up with a sinking feeling, fully aware that today held the promise of misery. His sleep was disrupted by the unmistakable sound of his neighbors clumsily maneuvering what must be bowling balls at an ungodly hour—6 am to be precise. Blinking his eyes open, he allowed the dim morning light to filter into the room, confirming his dread. Rain poured outside, not the picturesque kind, but the type that seemed to possess a magnetic force, coercing you to stay in bed all day.
In his groggy state, he reached for his phone, rubbing the sleep from his eyes with his free hand, only to find a message from Hotch waiting for him.
We've got a case. Come in early.
Cursing Hotch under his breath, Spencer knew he had a mere 34.3 minutes to transition from his cozy bed to the front door of his apartment if he intended to avoid being late. Swiftly, he dressed himself, tossing a pre-made PB&J sandwich into his bag for lunch. Then, with a sense of urgency, he rushed out the door, practically sprinting. A personal best, it took him just 26.4 minutes to prepare.
Following his usual route, Spencer passed by numerous Starbucks outlets before reaching his favorite one, the one where a friendly barista affectionately referred to him as Spence. As he pulled up alongside it, he glanced at the time—luckily, he was on schedule. Entering the café, his disappointment was palpable; the barista he liked wasn't there. He let out a soft sigh as he placed his order for a cappuccino with light foam and a buttered croissant. Then he was on his way.
The drive remained uneventful, a familiar routine of passing cars and towering trees. This afforded him ample time to contemplate the impending case they were about to tackle and to immerse himself in the new podcast he had been engrossed in for the past week.
Meanwhile, Aj stirred beneath the cool sheets of her new apartment, a far cry from her old life in Manassas. The morning sun filtered through the blinds, casting gentle stripes of light on the walls. She blinked sleep from her eyes and stretched her arms, feeling the excitement and trepidation of a new beginning.
The faint buzz of her alarm clock served as a reminder that her days as a detective in the Manassas police force were behind her. Today marked her first official day at the Behavioral Analysis Unit.
The aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafted through the air, a comforting companion during her early mornings. Aj poured herself a cup, savoring the rich flavor, and contemplated the challenges that lay ahead. The cases she would investigate, the profiles she would build—these thoughts fueled her determination.
Her drive was short, a mere 35 minutes. The short time didn’t stop her from contemplating just quitting her new job and moving to Australia. Her nerves were at a high. Her feelings were muddled. On one hand, she was happy to be moving forward in her career, but on the other hand she wanted so badly to return to the familiarity of the police force. She sighed heavily, her grip on the steering wheel tightening.
Driving through the streets of Quantico, she marveled at the change in scenery. The quiet, tree-lined roads of this small Virginia town were a far cry from the bustling streets of Manassas. She passed quaint houses with well-tended gardens. It was a different world, but it was one she was determined to navigate. One she was determined to build her life in.
Pulling into the parking lot was surreal. She knew through the metal doors in front of her, was her future. She knew the BAU was expecting a courageous, well versed detective. She knew she had the capability to be that for them, but the familiar feeling of anxiety made her feel like maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t enough.
“You’ve got this, Aj. You’ve got this.”
Her words of affirmation were enough to get her through the doors, but were they enough to get her through the trials of being in the BAU?
In the hushed corridors of the BAU, Spencer found himself in a moment of curiosity, he had heard the whispers of a new member of the team. As he stood at the coffee machine, he felt a large hand grip his shoulder. He jumped slightly, turning to see a sly, familiar smile.
“Relax, pretty boy, I’m just here to show the new girl how to use the coffee pot.” Spencer's eyes lit up when he heard ‘new girl’. He smiled widely and spun himself completely to face Derek. He’d been curious all day, and finally his thirst for curiosity was about to be quenched. His gaze immediately fell on the woman behind Morgan. Her dark hair and piercing gaze made him take a loud gulp of coffee.
Aj’s glance fell on him, her eyes lighting up with something neither of them could quite figure out.
“Amelia Hayle - er- Agent Hayle or AJ, but there's already JJ and I don't..”
She was rambling, and Spencer thought it was adorable. His smile was unmistakable and dopey as he watched her ramble on about things he couldn't care less about.
“Spencer, Dr. Reid if we’re doing formalities.” The both of them laughed, “Welcome to the BAU.”
“Formalities…” Derek chuckled out “what he means to say is welcome, newbie.”
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(short ramble of a first chapter…getting back into writing and stuff!! but hopefully i can get this lil fic rolling)
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rjzimmerman · 3 months ago
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Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:
To understand the big ideas about the energy transition in a new book by David Spence, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, let’s start with a quote from the fictional soccer coach Ted Lasso:
“Be curious, not judgmental.”
Those words are often attributed to Walt Whitman, although there’s no record that the poet ever said that.
Spence cites Lasso’s advice as part of a larger argument about the need to engage with people and to avoid being caught in an ideological silo at a time when the country needs to build a durable majority in favor of a transition away from fossil fuels.
His new book, Climate of Contempt: How to Rescue the U.S. Energy Transition from Voter Partisanship, digs into the structural political and regulatory challenges that hinder the energy transition, and how a polarized media environment is a barrier to consensus.
But this is not a pessimistic book.
“We need to start talking to one another offline, or, if it’s online, across ideological and partisan boundaries, in patient, respectful and open-ended ways,” Spence said in an interview.
He urges a bottom-up view of the politics of the energy transition, in which the main obstacle is that many voters have been swayed by dubious information and economic fears. The antidote is not to demonize or mock people who have been swayed by bad information, but to genuinely engage with them, he said.
Admit it. Some of you rolled your eyes with that last sentence, and that’s part of the problem.
If more voters come to outwardly appreciate the benefits of the energy transition, it will give their elected officials more leeway to support policies that promote renewable energy, electric vehicles and limits on carbon emissions.
His book speaks my language. As a Midwesterner who covers the energy transition, I am struck by how often the national discussion led by climate and clean energy advocates excludes or is insensitive to the concerns of rural residents. For example, I see lots of talk about the need to develop vast amounts of wind and solar on farmland, but not enough about how to do it in a way that steers an appropriate share of financial benefits to people in host communities.
A larger issue is the perception in rural areas that the energy transition is being imposed on them by outside forces. This view creates fertile ground for bad actors to argue that renewable energy is harmful to health or will wreck the local economy.
I don’t mean “rural” to be a synonym for “conservative” or “Republican” in all cases, but as it applies to this debate, I’m talking about rural people who are likely to be conservative and vote Republican.
Spence makes it clear that a big part of the problem is misleading messages being aimed at conservative audiences. He also finds fault with a media landscape in which politically liberal audiences consume media that can make them more extreme in their views.
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natureaker · 6 months ago
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I think my torso has actually been masculinizing!!! Yipee!!!
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serendipity-calling · 10 months ago
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butwhatif-imagines → serendipity-calling
Hey y’all; long time, no see. The former “Agent Spence” here coming to you as “Dani” or @danicoro !
This blog has been converted to be used as a writing and aesthetic blog for mine and my wife's original characters.
I understand original characters and related works are not everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s totally understandable. If you enjoyed the tone of my previous writings, I would hope you might still be able to enjoy my non-fandom writing, too. I hope you’ll stick around, but no hard feelings if you don’t.
The blog is still a little bit under construction with regards to OC profiles and pages, but please enjoy the aesthetic posts and occasional writing.
For those of you who just want the old imagines writing, the non-list based prompts that I filled during my time running the imagines blog can be found at and will continue to live on in perpetuity on the ButWhatIfImagines AO3 account.
If you have questions about this transition, feel free to message me or send an ask, and I will do my best to answer 💜 Thank you for your support!
Last update: 18 September 2024
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pathologicalreid · 1 month ago
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See the thing that bothers me about the team not helping Reid is how carefully they handled Strauss's alcohol addiction. Honestly I just feel like the whole plot wasn't resolved well with Spence but alas
tw for drug abuse and alcoholism below the cut
very different situations. hydromorphone appears on the DOJs list of controlled substances and alcohol does not.
the federal government has put a plan in place that very clearly provides steps that agents (for the sake of this conversation, we're talking about FBI agents) follow when they or another agent have an alcohol dependency. they started this operation in 1970 and it's continued since, with legislation passed in 1994 creating the employee assistance programs (EAP) and drug deterrence program (DDP). the EAP is what we see referenced in season 7 when morgan and hotch have their intervention with strauss. they have this in place so that these situations can be handled anonymously, providing for smooth transitions when recovering alcoholics are able to return to work. (there are many other reasons, of course)
since the creation in 1994 the EAP hasn't been expanded to provide assistance to agents who are addicted to drugs, like our beloved spencer reid. i don't think it's likely that the legislation will ever be expanded taking into consideration the US government's 'war on drugs' (which is a whole other can of worms). even marijuana, which is legal in 24 states and the district of columbia is on the controlled substances list, and smoking weed is still a fireable offense when you're in the FBI. the FBI won't even hire you if you've smoked weed within 12 months of your application date.
in the end, the story i see the most is that mgg asked for the plotline to be dropped. i also recognize that cable television in 2006 was likely not receptive to a drug addiction plotline.
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mt-musings · 2 years ago
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Bluebell
Chapter 41
After being abruptly transferred to the BAU at what she suspects was Gideon's request, Cassie Boann struggles to find her footing. Shy and solitary by nature, the transition is made all the more difficult when Dr. Spencer Reid seems to take an almost immediate dislike to her. Unfortunately for them both, their respective areas of expertise leave them paired off more often than not. But when Cassie's past literally starts hunting her, Spencer is forced to consider that he might, in fact, not hate her at all.
Quite the opposite, actually.
Spencer Reid x OC
Warnings: Canon typical violence, kidnapping, stalking, drug use, blood, injury, death, PTSD, eventual smut, more tags to be added
***Smut in this chapter, minors DNI***
Series Masterlist
Read on AO3
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41. In the Dark of the Night
The rest of the week went by in a haze of lectures and reconstructions and research. Spencer had been right—it had only taken them another two days to close the case in Colorado, but before they could even fly back they were called out to Anaheim. By the time she was cleared she was the only one in the bullpen having to wait until the next case to meet with the team. 
She didn’t mind, really. It reminded her of CASMIRC where she had her little desk in the corner where everyone left her alone for the most part, unless her supervisor stalked over to tell her off for her excessive reports or exhumation requests. Except for the fact the in the BAU she actually got visitors.
Penelope made it a habit of stopping by her desk, of dragging her back to her ‘cave’ so she wouldn’t have to sit out in the bullpen by herself. It made it harder to plow through her backlog of files in-between consults for the team, but it was nice. It also meant that she could pick Penelope’s brain about the difficulty of different government databases to hack into and who might be able to. They even went out to dinner the night they wrapped the case to celebrate and walked around one of the downtown malls. 
It was probably the closest she’d gotten to having friends and a normal social life in her entire life. 
She’d finally gotten back to her apartment around 9:30 and showered and changed into a pair of oversized sweatpants and a tank top before turning back to the bags she’d dropped at the end of her bed.
Penelope was a dangerous person to shop with. She was just so encouraging and complimentary and bubbly it was hard to say no like she usually did to everything that wasn’t strictly necessary and practical. Usually she only replaced something after it had been torn beyond repair, only bought sweaters and cardigans that were at least four sizes too big so she could easily hide her shoulder holster, only bought wide leg work pants to conceal the fact that more often than not, especially after Whitefish, she was carrying a third handgun on her left ankle. The last time she’d bought new workout clothes had been when she’d turned eighteen in Boston. Hell, the only thing she was diligent about replacing and upgrading were her sneakers, and that was only because she need to to run as much as she did. 
But nothing she’d gotten today was necessary or practical. Certainly not the black near-mini skirt and tights, or the over the knee black boots Penelope had insisted she pair with it. Not the short sleeved babydoll top she’d bought on a whim because it was the same purple as Spencer’s favorite tie. 
And certainly not the three matching lace sets of underwear.
If she was being fair it was long overdue that she bought some actual bras—not just black compression ones she wore regardless of wether she was working out or not. Of course that hadn’t been her reasoning behind the choice. 
She glanced over at the sound of her phone, furrowing her brow until she saw the caller ID.
“Hey Spence.”
“Hey! I know it’s late, but I’m just getting in and I know you’re a night owl, so I was just thinking maybe if you’re feeling up to it we could have a movie night or something. I mean, if you feeling like coming over! It’s almost ten, I know, but I just—I missed you.”
“I missed you too. I can be up in twenty minutes?”
“Perfect! I’m still on the Metro, so I’ll beat you there by like 10 minutes.”
“Have you eaten? I can pick something up on my way over.”
“Actually—I’ll call in a pizza at Mario’s, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course. I’ll see you in a few.”
“I can’t wait.”
She couldn’t help but smile at her phone, even after they’d hung up. She surveyed the lacy lavender bra and panties on her bed for a moment before grabbing them and her new shirt and crossing to the bathroom to change before she lost her nerve. 
She took a steadying breath before knocking on the door. She knew, at least at first glance, that she looked nothing out of the ordinary. She’d braided her hair back like she almost always did for work and wore the same ripped jeans and oversized corduroy jacket she wore almost everywhere when she wasn’t at work. But she was hyper aware of the light fabric of the shirt, of the feeling of the inside of her jacket on her arms.
Her spiral was cut short when Spencer opened the door, beaming. His hair was still damp from the shower and he wore a comfortable pair of sweatpants along with a t shirt and cardigan. She couldn’t help but smile back, holding up the pizza box.
“I have a delivery for a jet-lagged Doctor,” she quipped and Spencer laughed before tugging her inside, taking the box from her and dropping it on the edge of the table so he could kiss her. She couldn’t help but melt into him, bury her fingers in his curls as he pulled her close.
“Missed you,” she said when they finally broke apart, trying the ignore the way her heart was hammering in her chest.
“I missed you more,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead before retrieving the pizza and carrying it over to the coffee table. He disappeared into the kitchen and she could hear him pulling out plates and glasses. 
“What do you want to drink?”
“Whatever you’re having,” she replied, suddenly realizing she hadn’t even taken her shoes off. She kicked them off quickly and placed them next to his before hesitating with the buttons of her jacket. 
She was being stupid. He’d already seen her scars—twice before they’d ever even been friends, and she’d practically given him a tour of her left arm. She hadn’t really cared before they’d been friends—he’d made the same face everyone did, a mixture of pity and morbid curiosity, but he hadn’t asked questions, which she’d appreciated. 
She took a deep breath before undoing the line of buttons and hanging her coat on the rack, forcing herself to ignore how exposed she felt. She crossed to his tiny kitchen to find him at the counter, pouring two glasses of wine. She glanced down at his table where he’d left out his chessboard—he’d been playing himself before he’d gotten called away to Boulder. She traded a black night for a white bishop, narrowing her eyes at the board.
“Check in two, Mate in four.”
Spencer whipped around to look at the board. “How did you—I thought you said you weren’t good at chess.”
“I’m not,” she said, hiding her grin as she watched him pour over the board. “Not compared to Gideon.”
“You were hustling me, the night of the opening,” he laughed, nose scrunching up, “I should have—“ he broke off, looking up at her for the first time eyes wide. She stood frozen as his eyes roved over her, fighting the urge to shrink away.
The silence was awful. It was enough to bring on the familiar pricking of tears, the heat of mortification high in her cheeks. She dropped her gaze to the floor.
“Cass, you look—God, you’re so pretty,” he said, stepping forward to run the edge of the sleeve between his fingers. She looked back up at him, the faintest smile curling her lips as she searched his face.
“I went shopping with Penelope.”
“Yeah? That’s great! Did you guys have fun?”
“Y-yeah. She really likes to shop. Somehow she makes it contagious.”
“Did you get anything else?”
She could feel how red her cheeks were as she answered. “A few things.”
“You’ll have to show me.”
She just nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She carried the plates over to the coffee table while Spencer carried the wine, seemingly oblivious to her embarrassment. 
“I’m glad you and Garcia hung out—she really likes you. I think this time was really good for you. I mean, you’re royalty now,” he said, smirking as he plopped down on the couch. “Fair warning, Morgan has not shut up about the fact that you not only get drunk in shitty college bars, but, and I quote, ‘go to mummy burlesque shows with all your secret nerd friends’ and don’t invite anyone on the team.”
“It wasn’t mummy-themed burlesque—“
“I don’t think that mattered. I think he just wants to drag everyone over there the next time we’re free on a Friday.”
“That would—I don’t know about that.”
“It might be fun.”
“Or it might give Morgan a year’s worth of blackmail.”
He snorted, flipping open the pizza box and grabbing a slice. “That is a possibility.”
“It was cool though. It would be fun, if you wanted to go sometime. Ayesh really wants you to come to the Tombs too. He seems to doubt my ability to carry the streak.”
“Of course. It’d be nice to get to know your friends more too. I really only ended up meeting them in passing, besides Ayesh.”
“Yeah, well now he calls you with the evidentiary report before me now half the time.”
“Eventually you have to stop being mad about that.”
“Says who?”
Spencer laughed, and then sat up, setting his plate on the table before crossing to his bag and digging through. A second later he pulled out a DVD, holding it aloft with triumph.
“I found it at the airport in Anaheim—I thought since never watched anything as a kid it might be fun,” he said, setting the movie up before tossing her the box. It was the animated Anastasia. 
“I watched things as a child!”
“Oh yeah? Other than the X Files?”
“Sometimes I watched MTV while I was doing my homework, if we had cable. And I had a foster mom who made us watch those stupid After School Specials.”
“Well, this is adorable, and the songs are really good. And it has Christopher Lloyd in it.”
“Who’s Christopher Llyod?”
“Who’s—Back to the Future, The Addams Family, Clue?” He asked, eyes wide. She just shook her head. “We are going to have to have a movie marathon next time we have a few days. You are missing out on so many classics.”
“Okay,” she said, grabbing her glass of wine as he plopped back down on the couch and grabbed his plate. She curled into his side, glad to just be close again. However much fun it was to have some semblance of a normal social life for a few days, she’d pick quiet nights in with Spencer every time. 
“I really missed you,” she said, eyes locked on the movie as she took a deep draft of her wine. Spencer pressed a kiss to the top of her head, wrapping his free arm around her. 
“I missed you too. It was terrible, knowing that you were still hurt and I couldn’t do anything. And then Anaheim just made it worse—it was so weird to not have you there, like half my brain was missing.”
“Half your brain is better than most people’s whole.”
“Maybe, but I couldn’t wait to get back.”
She smiled at him before dropping her gaze and finishing her glass of wine and leaning forward to place it on the table. She tucked herself back against him, arm curling around his waist. 
She wasn’t really watching the movie, even though Spencer was right, just like always—it was really cute. Instead she focused on the weight of his arm around her, the way his fingertips played across her skin, on tracing the swirling cables of his cardigan. She looked up as he turned towards her, eyes half-lidded and pupils blown. His gaze flicked down the her lips for a moment before returning to her own, his free hand gently raising her chin so he could press a sweet, chaste kiss to her lips before almost immediately deepening it, teeth nipping at her bottom lip. She couldn’t help her tiny gasp at the sensation. He pulled back enough to look in her eyes, searching her face for something.
“Is this okay?” He asked, voice barely more than a whisper. She nodded, biting her lip. 
“Yes. Please, Spence,” she whispered back. She wanted that and so much more, to drown in him, to lose herself in everything that was Spencer. 
He closed the distance in an instant, one hand knotting itself in her hair as the other tugged her into his lap. She kissed him back, gently cupping his jaw and hoping he couldn’t feel the slight tremor of it. She tried to focus on the feeling of his hand at her back, the light scratching of his nails on her scalp as he buried his fingers in her curls, tried to ground herself to the feeling of his touch. 
When they finally broke apart they were both breathless, color high on their cheeks, pupils blown. She grinned at him shyly as she sat back, just admiring his face.
“You’re so beautiful, Spence,” she said, almost not recognizing her own voice because of the soft breathiness of it. She couldn’t find it in herself to care, tracing her thumb along his cheekbone as she memorized the brown of his eyes, the flecks of amber that haloed his iris. Her gaze flicked to his perfect button nose across the sharpness of his jaw to the softness of his lips, slightly swollen from the intensity of their kisses. 
“Cassie, you’re—“ Spencer started, breathless, chest heaving. She dropped her hands to the hem of her shirt before she lost her nerve and pulled it over her head, letting it fall to the floor. 
Spencer gaped at her, mouth slightly open. She watched his eyes trace up her torso, lingering on the lavender lace of her bra. She knew he could see the mess of scars across her chest and stomach, the thick, ragged ones along her ribs, the circular burns, the newest scar right under her rib cage that hadn’t yet silvered, that was still a livid sort of red. The places—like along her collarbone and chest—where there were more scars than skin. 
She dropped her gaze, pressing her nails into the flesh of her palms to keep herself steady, to make sure she kept her breath even and not too fast.
She’d been stupid, really, for thinking Spencer—for thinking anyone—might want her after seeing the horror that had been carved into her flesh. Selfish, really, to put him in the awful position. Spencer was beautiful in the way Michelangelo’s David was beautiful, in the otherworldly way he’d painted the angels and she was a nightmare straight out of Bosch’s Vision of Hell. 
She started at the feeling of Spencer’s hands settling at her waist.
“Sorry, sorry!” He said quickly, eyes wide. “I just—you’re so pretty, Cass. C-can I touch you?”
She hesitated a moment before nodding. 
He ran his hands up her sides, feather-like, thumbs toying with the lace at the base of her breasts. Somehow she felt small in his hands—delicate. He pressed open-mouthed kisses down her neck and chest, the sensation alone enough to make her arch into him and moan before she could stop herself. She froze, turning bright red. Spencer looked up at her through half-lidded eyes.
“Do that again,” he said, voice deeper, rougher than she was used to hearing, a hint of an authoritarian edge to his words. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, sucking a mark into her skin. She whimpered, knotting her hands in the back of his sweater. His hold on her tightened, one hand slipping up to cup her breast through her bra, thumb lazily circling her nipple. She bucked her hips into his at the sensation, her breath ragged. He pressed a kiss behind her ear and she melted, running her hands up his chest before catching his lips with hers, a desperate edge to the kiss. 
“Cassie—darling,” he said between kisses. 
“Yes,” she replied, breathless. 
“I—I need to know what you want. We can—we can stop right now—“
“Do you want to stop?” She asked, brows furrowed as her stomach dropped. 
“I—no. But I only want to do what you’re comfortable with.”
“I—I don’t want to stop. But I—haven’t, before,” she said haltingly, cheeks crimson. “I’m sorry—“
“No, no, no, why are you sorry?” He said, sitting up and wrapping her in a tight hug. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Cass.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing and I—I just don’t want to disappoint you.”
“You could never, Cass, I promise.”
“You’re not just saying that, right?”
She knew her voice sounded incredibly small and pathetic, could feel tears pricking her eyes as she looked away. She hated the chasm of unknown that permeated everything, hated that she was so hesitant and unsure and scared, hated that even now, when all she wanted was to get lost in Spencer she was still buried under everything that had been done to her nineteen years ago. 
“No, of course not! I adore you, and I want you. Today, tomorrow—any day. I-I’ll show you just how much, but I want you to be sure, okay?”
“Please? I want you, Spence. So badly.” 
Spencer just stared at her a moment, bottom lip caught in his teeth, cradling her head in his hands. “God, Cass. Say it again.”
“I want you. Please,” she said, voice still breathy and shy. 
He kissed her, a new edge of desperation apparent even before he wrapped his arms around her and stood, pulling her gently towards his bedroom.
Spencer pulled off his cardigan without bothering with any of the buttons, the t shirt underneath riding up and baring a strip of his stomach. Cassie traced the skin without thinking, pulling back when he jumped at the contact. 
“Sorry—“
“Your hands are cold,” he said, grinning as he recaptured her lips. He took them gently in his own and placed them back on his bare skin, thumbs tracing soothing circles over the back of her palms. He shivered as she ran her hands up his chest to his shoulders and then back down, toying with the hem of his shirt.
“Can I?” She asked, pulling away enough to search his face. He nodded, eagerly, half ducking out of it when she lifted it over his head. She smiled at the was it messed up his curls, at the hint of a dimple in his cheek before letting her gaze trail lower, across the newly exposed skin. It was smooth and unblemished and faintly dusted with hair and she couldn’t help but trace over his collarbone, run her fingers over his stomach. There was something fascinating abut how smooth and soft it was, how the only real variation in color was the handful of freckles across his shoulders. 
“What are you thinking?” He asked, watching her explore. 
“How to tell you that you have nice skin without sounding like I’m lowering a basket of lotion.”
Spencer barked out a surprised laugh, dropping down on his bed. She followed, biting her lip to suppress her own laugh. She’d said it without thinking, too enraptured by Spencer to filter herself. 
“I love it when you really smile,” he said as he threaded his fingers through he hair, pressing desperate kisses to her lips. “I love that I can make you smile like that.”
She closed her eyes, focusing on the feeling of Spencer all around her, of his breath fanning across her face, of her lips on hers, of his hand cupping her through her bra, his thumb playing with the edge of the lace. 
“I love you,” she breathed, pressing her forehead to his before dipping to press open-mouthed kisses to his throat, to the crook of his neck. He sucked in a shaking breath, grip tightening momentarily. She hummed her approval, reveling in the way the simple pulling of her hair sent tingles through her, straight to her core. 
“Lay back, Cass,” he whispered, gently guiding her back against the pillows. She followed his lead, a bubble of anxiety rising in her stomach, though it was different from the panic she was used to. It was more anticipation as she watched him kneel above her, straddling her hips. 
“Is it okay—can I take this off?” He asked, playing with the strap of her bra. She nodded, biting her bottom lip. She sat up to allow him to unclasp it, trying not to watch his face as he tossed it haphazardly behind him. Her chest had some of the worst scarring, even carving through her left nipple in a way that left a thick indentation in the areola. Spencer’s face didn’t change though, except for a slight darkening of his eyes as he dropped to his elbows to press an almost harsh open-mouthed kiss to it, kneading the other. She gasped at the feeling of his teeth grazing her nipple and he looked up to search her face.
“Was that okay?”
“Yes—yes,” she replied, voice shaking as she reached out to weave her fingers through his curls. He grinned at her before continuing his ministrations. He alternated between sweet kisses and hints of teeth, grinning into her skin each time she gasped or wriggled, slowly working his way down her stomach to the waist of her jeans. His hands stilled at the skin above and he looked up again, taking in her half-lidded eyes, her bottom lip red from being caught in her teeth. 
“Do you want to keep going?”
She nodded.
“I need you to tell me, sweet girl.”
She shivered at the endearment, something she knew he noticed by the up quirk of his lips. “I want to. I want to keep going. Please.”
“So polite,” he said teasingly, maintaining eye contact as he undid her jeans and pulled them from her legs infuriatingly slowly. She held his gaze, unable to look away. This was an entirely different Spencer from the one she saw at work, that she spent days with in coffee shops and museums, spent trading rambling facts. His usually neat hair was mussed every which way, his lips pink and swollen from their kisses. Underneath all his lovely sweaters he was lithe, the muscles in his arms and torso more defined than she would have guessed. But more than that it was something that had shifted in his demeanor. There was a different sort of confidence in his actions, his words, that she wasn’t accustomed to. And still he was gentle, soft where she needed him to be, even without asking, without being told to be. 
He made her feel safe, somehow, even in the face of the unknown. Even stripped bare, every awful mark on her skin on display. 
She hadn’t realized how foreign the feeling had become. 
He tossed her jeans over his shoulder, not caring where they landed. He kissed back up her leg, from her ankle up her calf, to one of the few scars not from Olney, but from her fifth foster father’s stupid Doberman he never bothered to train. He pressed a kiss to the inside of her knee, eyes finding hers as he slowly continued up, looking for any sign of hesitancy on her face. His fingers hooked in the sides of her panties and she nodded, cheeks flaring at how frantic he’d managed to drive her with just his kisses and trailing touches. 
“Yes, please—please Spence.”
He pulled them off faster, tossing them off the bed before running his hands up the sides of her legs, settling on her hips as his eyes dragged across her, lip caught in his teeth as he sat back to get a better view. She squeezed her thighs together, a flush rising in her cheeks at the intensity of his gaze. She dropped her own, eyes widening slightly at his arousal tented in his sweat pants. She knew she had no metric to go off of, but she knew he was big. Big enough that she wondered how she’d possibly fit all of him inside her. 
She looked back up as she felt his hands at her knees, lightly pulling them apart. 
“I want to taste you.” The phrase fell from his lips so easily, not a hint of embarrassment on his beautiful face. She just stared a moment, feeling that she must be crimson. He traced circles along her inner thighs with his thumbs, the same reassuring pattern he traced on her back when they cuddled together on the couch. 
“Please, sweet girl, can I?” He asked sweetly, though the glimmer behind his eyes let her know he knew exactly what he was doing. She didn’t trust her voice, instead letting her thighs fall open as she watched his face. He grinned at her, hastily pressing kissed up her inner thighs before burying his face in her core. She moaned at the sensation of his tongue on her clit and he laughed without stopping, making her throw her head back into the pillows, eyes squeezed shut.
“Fuck! Fuck—fuck!” She cried, thighs clamping around Spencers head. Somehow it only seemed to spur him on more. Suddenly she couldn’t form a complete thought, couldn’t do more than whimper his name and stutter obscenities. She covered her mouth to muffle her babbling, trying to focus on simply breathing as she felt herself begin to tense.
Her eyes flew open as Spencer’s hand closed around her wrist and tugged her hand away. He looked up at her, mouth and chin gleaming with her slick, his other arm wrapped around her thigh.
“I want to hear your pretty moans for me.”
“Spencer—“
She nearly screamed as he sucked on her clit, the shock of pleasure almost pushed her over the edge. She felt him look up rather than saw him, eyes squeezed shut as she threw her head back. 
“Do you want more?”
“Please, please,” she whimpered, practically begging. She felt his hot breath ghost over her slit before she felt his fingers trailing through her folds, blushed at the sound of how obscenely wet she was. She gasped as he sunk in a finger and it brushed something inside of her that made her jolt with a different type of pleasure. It was a strange feeling, but nit unpleasant. He froze.
“Are you okay?” He asked, concern clear.
“Feels—feels so good,” she gasped, chest heaving. He set a languid pace, brushing that place each time and sending starts through her. He circled her clit with his thumb as he slowly added a second finger, watching her body tense as she slipped closer and closer to release. He quickened his pace, placing sloppy kisses to her clit. She tensed, arching  her back as something snapped and she came so hard her vision went black for a moment. She swore, moaning his name. He rode her through it, slipping his fingers from her as she started to come down and climbed up to kiss her. She could taste herself on him, on his lips and tongue. She was still trembling with the aftershocks, still panting as if she’d sprinted a mile. 
“You did such a good job,” Spencer said, one hand cradling her face, eyes full of pure adoration. “My sweet girl, you’re so perfect. You look so pretty when you cum.” 
She bit her lip, trying to hide how much his words effected her. She doubted it worked. 
She ran her hands down his chest and stomach, savoring the little shiver her touch sent through him. She paused at the waistband of his sweatpants, fingers tracing the fabric.
“Spence, can we—please? 
“Can we what?” He asked, very clearly enjoying her shyness. He tucked a stray curl behind her ear, waiting for an answer. 
“Please, Spencer, I want you so badly.”
He took pity on her, pressing a sweet kiss to the tip of her nose before rolling off of her and digging through his nightstand for a condom. He kicked off his pants and boxers, slipping it on before crawling back between her legs, elbows pressed into the mattress on either side of her head. He gave her a sweet, almost chaste kiss, eyes lingering on her lips before meeting hers.
“Are you sure?” He asked, his previous playfulness replaced with seriousness. 
“I’m sure.”
“Promise me you’ll tell me if anything hurts, okay?”
“I will.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead as she felt him run his cock through her slick folds. She couldn’t help but buck her hips, needing more. He chuckled, tangling his fingers in her hair.
“You ready, sweet girl?”
She nodded and gasped as she felt him slowly press inside, searching her face as he did. The stretch was so much more than his fingers, almost overwhelmingly so. There was a sharp sting of pain, but there was a different sort of pleasure in being just so incredibly full of him. 
“Cass—“
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” she panted quickly, already knowing what he was about to ask from the furrow of his brow. “It’s just—You’re just big.”
He slowly pushed in until he bottomed out with a moan, peppering her face with kisses. The fullness knocked the wind out of her for a moment, and she grabbed hold of his forearm. 
“God, you’re so fucking tight. You feel amazing.”
“I love you. God, I love you, Spence. You’re so good to me. I’m so lucky, so lucky,” she babbled as he began to gently rock into her. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him closer, close enough that she could kiss him. She nipped at his bottom lip and he bucked into her harder, making them both moan. 
“I love you so much. You’re doing so good. Fuck,” he said through labored breaths. He picked up his pace as she bucked to meet his hips, eyes screwed shut at the sensation of being so full. The sting had mostly given way to pleasure, especially when Spencer’s hand snaked between them to rub tight circles into her clit. 
She swore, arching into him, nails pressing into his back. He kissed her, hard, slipping his tongue into her mouth. She moaned into his mouth as her pleasure grew closer and closer to a crescendo. 
“Fuck, I’m close,” Spencer said, pressing his forehead to hers as his hips pistoned forward to drive into hers. “Can you cum for me, sweet girl? Can you show me that pretty face?”
His words were the last little push she needed to fall off the edge. A moment later Spencer pressed himself into her as deeply as he could manage, shaking as he joined her in bliss. They lay there for a few minutes as they came down, holding each other, before he finally pulled out, careful to go slow. 
“I love you. That was wonderful, you were wonderful.”
She leaned up to kiss him, breath still stuttering slightly, heart hammering against her ribs. He smiled into the kiss, one hand carding through her curls, long pulled free of her braid. She clung to him, something in her craving the feeling of his skin pressed against hers, of his weight anchoring her. She felt a little strange, almost lightheaded and like she was about to burst from the sheer amount of emotion rioting in her, even if she wasn’t sure she could put a name to what it was. 
Spencer was the first to move, pressing another kiss to her lips before moving to sit at the edge of the bed.
“I’m going to go throw this out and clean up and I’ll be right back, okay?”
She nodded, watching him grab a fresh pair of boxers and pajamas as he crossed to the bathroom. She knew she should get up too, but her legs were still trembling in an unfamiliar way. She knew virginity was just a patriarchal concept, but she still felt different. Maybe it was the riot of hormones she knew were flooding her system or maybe just the fact that intimacy of any sort was so foreign to her. 
She tried to focus on her breath, on slowing it down, on forcing the tears she felt pricking her eyes back. It didn’t make sense—she wasn’t sad, she wasn’t hurt or scared, but she couldn’t push the feeling back down. She curled in on herself, hoping it would wash over her like a wave, that it would pass before Spencer came back. 
---
Spencer returned a few minutes later with a warm washcloth and a glass of water for Cassie, absently humming to himself.  He was still riding high, still replaying every beautiful face Cassie had made, every sound, every delicious moment of pleasure he’d been able to give her. He’d never seen her so soft and shy, and he’d never felt luckier to be allowed to see her that way, that she trusted him that much. He’d particularly enjoyed the way she reacted to his praise, the way she simply melted at his sweet words. 
It definitely presented interesting options for the future. He tried to focus on that, rather than the implications of why such simple, sweet affirmations had such a profound effect on her. 
He was surprised to see her curled up in a ball, shaking with silent tears. 
“Oh no—Cassie, sweetheart, what is it? Are you hurt?”
“No—I’m sorry. I don’t know why, I’m just overwhelmed. I—I just need a minute.”
“Of course—of course,” he said, pulling the blanket from the end of the bed and wrapping it around her before holding her tight. She pressed her face into his chest, clinging to him like a lifeline. It was a few minutes before she calmed and lifted her head, her face heartbreakingly repentant. 
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. 
“No, no, no,” he said, wiping the remaining tears from her cheeks. “Don’t be sorry. Just—are you sure you’re okay? I didn’t hurt you?”
“No, I’m fine. Really. It’s stupid, I don’t know why I did that.”
“Can I profile you a little. Just this once?” He asked, brows furrowed. 
She nodded, avoiding his gaze. He cradled her face in his hands, brushing away her tears. 
“I think it’s really hard for you to be vulnerable with anyone. I think it’s hard for you to let someone else take charge and take care of you, because you’ve only ever been able to count on yourself. I think you loath your scars and you think everyone else finds them just as offensive as you. I think you’re unbelievably hard on yourself and you rarely had anyone tell you how utterly amazing you are and receiving even just a little praise in such a vulnerable state was a lot. And you know what else? I think you’re really brave, for letting yourself be vulnerable, and I’m really honored that you chose to do so with me. And I think you’re beautiful, with or without your scars, and brilliant and strong and funny. And you’re my favorite person, and I love you, and I missed you, so much it hurt.”
She stared up at him, tears once more glistening in her eyes. Then she hugged him, almost too tight, check pressed to his chest. 
“I don’t deserve you.” 
The words broke his heart, the fact that she so clearly couldn’t see even an ounce of the Cassie he knew, the Cassie he loved. 
“You deserve the world, Cass. I don’t care how long it takes, I’m going to convince you of it.”
He squeezed her tight, pressing a kiss to the top of her head before pulling her to a seated position.
“Come on, you have to go pee, or you’ll get a UTI. I’ll grab you pajamas, okay?”
She nodded and he watched her cross to the bathroom, admiring her svelte form, the slight swaying of her hips. It was the first time he’d truly seen it, the first time it hadn’t been drowned in the oversized clothing she favored. He knew it was another way in which she hid, another barrier of protection. 
He’d seen as much in the look on her face after he’d turned around in the kitchen to find her in that beautiful silk shirt she’d picked out with Penelope, a shirt that—while still slightly too big—was far more fitted and revealing than anything she’d ever worn around him. And while he’d been struck by how the color complimented her eyes, how the overtly feminine cut of it brought out the softness in her features, contrasted with the sharp line of her jaw, the lean muscle of her bare arms, her face had whitened and she’d avoided his gaze as she tried to cover her scars as subtly as she could manage. 
He wished he could convince her that the only shock of seeing the extent of them had been the amount of what she’d endured, that she’d managed to survive it. That the only disgust he had was for what had been inflicted on her, for the lingering pain it still caused her. 
He crossed to his bureau, pulling open Cassie’s drawer to see if she had anything stashed there. He found only a few work sweaters and a pair of trousers and a handful of practical underwear, of which he grabbed a pair, very unlike the pretty lace matching set she’d worn tonight.
He hoped she believed him, hoped she took even a little bit of what he’d said to heart. He hated seeing her cry, hated the way she looked at herself, hated that she’d so clearly been let down by so many people in her life. 
He pulled out another drawer filled with his own sleepwear, picking the softest set he had before walking to the bathroom to gently knock on the door. She opened it, halfway through brushing her teeth. He set the clothes on the corner of the sink, pressing a kiss to the crook of her neck as he watched her in the mirror. 
They both still looked disheveled, but in the endearing post-sex way that left a slight glow to the skin, cheeks and lips rosy.  Spencer catalogued the hickeys across both their necks and chests, hickeys that would certainly be of interest to the team tomorrow. 
He doubted that would be a fun thing to explain. 
She finished brushing her teeth and pulled on the pajamas with a quiet ‘thank you.’ 
“Do you want to read, before bed? I picked up the new Collected Poems by Auden,” He asked, knowing how it helped her to sleep better when he read to her, how it made him sleep better to know she was safe in his arms. Her face lit up and she nodded, reaching out to wrap her arms around him and tug him back towards the bed. 
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context-studies · 15 days ago
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my research report
The artist I will be writing about is British photographer Jo Spence. Many of her works involve the themes of body and identity, she used the human figure, both clothed and nude, as a way to talk about socialist themes, identity, gender and how female artists were depicted at the time, with her photography.
Spence and artist Terry Dennet created the remodelling photo history series where they “attempted to look closely and clearly at the way photography works in our society” Spence, J. (1986). They paired landscapes with the naked body to comment on the way the female nude is used in artwork. They also featured props and dressed in costumes in order to depict different personas. In the ‘beyond the family album’ series they explore parts of photo albums not usually included such as illness, divorce and other events most wouldn’t wanted memorialized in a photo album. In an article by the MACBA they claim that “Spence believed that the private uses of photography in family albums are ‘visual constructions’ that do not represent the ‘self’” MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona. (2024). 
After Spence was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1982, she continued taking self-portraits of herself in order to shed light to her experiences with cancer, she used her body to “explore how I felt about my powerlessness as a patient” Spence, J. (1986). In the photo therapy series, she created with artist Rosy Martin, Spence took a series of photos depicting herself with baby food dressed in baby clothes. initially feeling joy, then they transition to her feeling disgust as she has to eat the baby food. Spence created these in order to depict the infantilization she experienced, and powerlessness she felt while being treated at the hospital.
After being diagnosed with breast cancer her work can be described as “Spence’s control of the representation of her body, even as she lay dying, is a monument to her radical creative process and a testament to her refusal to bow to what is deemed an appropriate image of a woman.” David Campany. (2016). She began depicting her physical and mental health through her photography, depicting herself with skull imagery, with her face deteriorating, floating in a body of water, and more, as a way to continue challenging people’s views on women in photography and to portray her views in her illness and her own death.
David Campany. (2016). Jo Spence: The Final Project - David Campany. [online] Available at: https://davidcampany.com/jo-spence-the-final-project/.
Karsten Schubert London. (n.d.). Publication: Jo Spence - The Final Project. [online] Available at: https://www.karstenschubert.com/publications/84-jo-spence-the-final-project/.
Spence, J. (1986). Putting myself in the picture : a political, personal and photographic autobiography. London: Camden Press.
MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona. (2024). Remodelling Photo History, 1982 | Jo Spence | MACBA. [online] Available at: https://www.macba.cat/en/obra/r2823-remodelling-photo-history/ [Accessed 9 Oct. 2024].
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ultraheydudemestuff · 8 months ago
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Dr. James Bell House (Bell-Williams House)
1822 E. 89th St.
Cleveland, OH
The Dr. James Bell House, also known as the Bell-Williams House, a 1901 Richardsonian Romanesque home in the Hough neighborhood designed by noted local architect George J. Hardway that epitomizes the local reaction against the excesses of Victorian architecture, is a historic home located at 1822 E. 89th Street in Cleveland, Ohio. Designed by Hardway for Dr. James Bell (a local dentist), it was completed in 1901. The home is a prime example of the Cleveland-area reaction at the end of the 19th century against high Victorian architecture, utilizing elements of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture to create a highly individualized, severe style.
     James Richard Bell was a prominent dentist in Cleveland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1900, he commissioned noted local architect George J. Hardway to design a large residence on E. 89th Street in the southeast quadrant of the Hough neighborhood, one of the city's oldest settled areas and which at that time was inhabited largely by white, middle-class and upper-middle-class residents. The block on which Bell chose to build was built up with a number of large residences over the past 30 years, ranging in style from Italianate to extremely elaborate Queen Anne style. The increasingly elaborate embellishments of Victorian architecture had fallen out of favor with homeowners and architects in northeast Ohio by the late 1890s, and Bell and Hardway agreed on a home that was simple to the point of being severe.
     The Bell House is largely Richardsonian Romanesque in style. However, it deviates from this style by featuring a contemporary massing and relying on plain exterior walls. The three-story structure is constructed of stone and brick. The front of the house is roughly square, with an east-facing gable, a single dormer on the south side, and steep roof pitch. The third-floor windows are topped by round stone arches, with stone slabs constituting the lintel and sill of the first and second story windows. A rusticated stone porch with canopy provided the entrance to the house. The narrow-depth center section of the house features projecting polygonal bay windows on all three floors on the south side. This projection is topped by a hip-end roof. The north side of the center section is essentially a triple-wide dormer or gable facing north, with a gable roof. The rear of the building, which is about as large as the front section, returns to the square plan, although it features two dormers on the north side and none on the south. The home originally had 12 rooms, four baths, and a third-floor ballroom. By the 1970s, the ballroom had been divided and the house now had a total of 21 rooms.
    Bell occupied the home until his death in 1912. The home was bequeathed to his wife, Anna Roeder Bell. She died in 1940, and bequeathed the home to her daughter, Frieda Meriam. Mrs. Meriam died in 1942, and the home was sold to John A. Smith in 1943.By 1947, the home belonged to the Sabo family, and by 1948 the Jaskell family. By 1956, it was owned by Enoch Spence, who sold it by 1961 to Harold C. Scheunemann, who in turn sold it to Raymond Beedlow by 1966.  The Hough neighborhood became an overwhelmingly poor African American area by 1960. In May 1968, the mansion was purchased by the Berry Foundation.  It became the home of the Martin Luther King Residential Youth House, a residential home for troubled black youth. The ballroom was probably turned into bedrooms about this time.
     In the early or mid 1970s, the youth house closed, and the Lee Heights Community Church rented the structure for use by The Straight-up Half-Way House, a transitional residence for alcoholics, criminals, and drug addicts. The Berry Foundation sold the house in 1979 to a private owner, Margaret J. Williams.  Because it exemplifies the local architectural reaction to the excesses of Victorian architecture, the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 16, 1986, and it is part of a Register-listed historic district, the East 89th Street Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 26, 1988.  It was also named a Cleveland Landmark by the Cleveland Landmarks Commission, under the name Bell-Williams House.
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