Tasm!Peter Parker x gn!reader (no pronouns, no y/n)
Word count: 5.2k
Warnings: smut (18+ ONLY!), soft sex, heated sex, protective!Peter, mild injury and blood, idiots in love, mutual pining, fluff, action, love confessions, Peter and reader are grown in this one
Notes: Thank you SOOOO much to @rae-gar-targaryen my love for reading through this and giving me opinions on this!!! And for the title too cause I was drawing a blank lol (yes it’s Hozier). First time writing Peter so I wanted to make sure I did him right!! But I’m so happy with how this turned out so I hope y’all like this too! And I did leave this open ended on purpose and can be convinced to write more if this does well and there’s demand for it! So let me know what you think!
Feel free to also follow my update blog and turn on post notifs to stay up to date on when I post @flightlessangelwings-updates
~
“Damn Peter, you’re so tense today,” you exclaimed.
It was present in the tenseness of his shoulders, the line of his profile taut like a string ready to snap.
Peter sat on the floor in front of you in your small studio apartment as you sat on your bed and rubbed his shoulders. It was a routine the two of you developed over time, and it was something completely unspoken. Your entire relationship with him was unspoken, in fact. The two of you had been best friends for years, and as you grew into adulthood, it blossomed into more. Although he never officially asked you out, the two of you spent most of your free time together and you were comfortable with how things were.
A/N: Surprise! Two new writings in one week? (don’t expect this of me more lol). I missed Peter so here’s a Peter piece. Enemies to lovers, living situation inspired by New Girl (literally one of the best shows ever), only the best of the best. As always let me know what you guys think and enjoy!
Warnings: SMUT. DNI if you are under 18. 18+ only
Word Count: 11.6k+
Being in your twenties is such a surreal time in life. There are people who are getting engaged and married. Others are having children. Some work part-time jobs while going to school. The best part is that for the first time ever there is no set in stone plan to follow. You do what you think is right and hope for the best.
That’s why you didn’t second guess your living situation. Honestly, you loved it. Sure, the loft was cramped and at times could be hell on earth, but mostly it was home. Your safe space.
A/N: Hi everyone! I hope you all enjoy the new area I’m dabbling in. This is the longest fic I have ever written and I am so in love with it. As always let me know what you guys think & enjoy!
Word Count: 16k+
Warnings: Smut, 18+ content, DNI if you are under 18!
A lot of things in your life were accidents, including yourself. When you were six and learning to ride a bike and crashed head first into your neighbors mailbox, that was an accident. When you were fourteen and forgot to scan your mascara at the self checkout at Walmart, that was an accident. When you were seventeen and turned in your best friend’s homework instead of your own, that was an accident. The biggest accident of all was you, though.
Your mom accidentally found herself pregnant with you when she was only seventeen. She was in no shape to have a child and immediately shunned you when you were born. To say you had little to no relationship with her was an understatement. She was a wanderer and would go without contact for years at a time, randomly popping up to send you a text asking if you had fifty dollars to send her. You didn’t hate her anymore, as you grew up you understood that she was just a child when she had you, in no place to raise a baby and you couldn’t hold that against her anymore. Especially when you realized who you did have in your life, particularly grandma Elise.
Your grandmother stepped up to the parenting plate instead, taking you and raising you as her own. She had been single most of her life, losing her husband when your mom was only twelve and raised you on her own. You would do anything for her. She was your anchor and your everything. The only family you had. Except for the family next door.
4 Times Peter Said I Love You + 1 Time You Said It Back
A/N: Warnings will be added to this one due to smut and violence. However, I’ve been working on this one for awhile and I love it and I hope you guys do. As always let me know what you guys think and enjoy!
Warnings: Smut, 18+ content, DNI if you are under 18! Depictions of violence.
Word Count: 7.4k+
one
The -ber months were the best of the year and no one can argue with that. September meant the crisp air was starting to make its return, October was spooky season, November was stuffing your face with Aunt May’s delectable spread, and December was Christmas. Nothing beat the -ber months.
A/N: Angsty, fluffy, adult themes, all of the above. There are going to be warnings attached to this, but I love this piece. I’ve spent a little over a week working on it and I still have many more ideas for Peter fics. As always let me know what you guys think and enjoy!
Warnings: Adult themes, nothing too graphic, but I do recommend 18+ for this. Minors DNI. Talks of weight, many family issues mentioned as well.
Word Count: 12.2k+
“Okay, you’re completely packed right? Did you grab your toothbrush from the bathroom? I need to unplug the toaster. Can you make sure all the windows are locked? Shit, we’re late!” You were running around the apartment frazzled and trying to make sure everything was done before you and your boyfriend left the state for a week.
Imagine being in a poly relationship with the entire group and in the end they all leave and go off to do their own thing, seeing the relationship as a way to cope with the adventure, but to you it was everything.
You had never felt such love before, and you were ready to bask in it the rest of your life and give it back as well. However, you were rudely awoken to the fact that no one else felt the same when (and this is gonna be bad ending adjacent cause I dont thing anyone is like this) Wyll left to become Duke, Karlach became a mindflayer, Astarion went to the underdark, Gale went back to water deep, Shadowheart left to travel with her parent and on her religious journey, Laezel went to the Astral plane, and Halsin left for the new grove.
Imagine you had rings planned out, a tiny, personalized speech for everyone, maybe even thought up a tiny plan for the future you were so excited to share... but two days after the fight everyone dispersed, leaving you alone, and almost....bitter.
This was a quick idea maybe ill make something out of it
warnings: somno, non con, bruising, crying, slight pup mention (if u squint), discussion of cannibalism (metaphors), oral (f receiving), steve is a MUNCH, p in v, smut smut smut, pwp, guilt???, steve has self control issues poor bb
a/n: first lil oneshot to get yall thru the golden age draught (i’ll give u guys a hint, the smut for that series starts on ch 4)… nyway love yall pls enjoy this i sucked out of my brain at 3am cus imagine desperate stevie waking u up in the middle of the night starving for u (im dead kill me now)
You walk a fine line between god and animal,
You’re just a feral dog I worship in bedroom ceremonials.
⌖
Steve had always thought that you were just the prettiest thing he’d ever seen.
He never was one to care about arts, or religion, or the delicate intricacies of the world — until he’d met you. For within the crooks of your body, he’d found his religion.
And his favorite way to pray was late at night when you were fast asleep, body tucked into the confines of your bed, blissfully unaware of his growing desire to eat you down to your core — an animal-driven thirst, the only thing that could cure his insatiable hunger for you.
He felt you rustle beside him, rolling over so your chest was pressed to his, your breathing steady and calm, begging for him, begging for the sweet, sinful relief that only his teeth against your skin could supply.
Steve was a smart boy, a gentleman at his core, and although it was against the very nature of his being to want you this way, it was the only way he knew to love you — in sin-driven drinking from your lips and languid rolling between the sheets.
He could love you violently, if he let himself.
So instead, he waits until you’re asleep, your body warm and vulnerable. A perverted part of him finds you even prettier this way.
And as he felt the soft, steady exhale of your breath against his skin, he also felt his sleep pants tighten, an appetite for you growing deeper in his bones, in his flesh, in his marrow.
He wanted you to wake up to see him between your knees, all mouth and appetite and nothing else until you couldn’t take it anymore.
He wanted you longing for him — his sweet girl, suffering just for him. Just to make him happy.
He bit back a groan, fighting the urge to maim you, take you until you became intimate with death.
He wasn’t a gentleman; he was depraved.
Swallowing back his pride, his body rigid with repulsion, he leaned in close to you, inhaling your scent. His cock was rigid and painful, his hips taking up a languid pace as he rocked into nothing — his growing desire only disgusting himself more, and yet he continued.
His lips found your neck, peppering soft, drunken kisses to your skin.
He made himself sick. He hated how badly he wanted you like this. He hated his lack of self-control. He hated how good it felt. And most of all, he hated how your body reacted to him, even in sleep.
Your eyelashes fluttered softly, a quiet moan slipping from your lips as you stirred to a new position — one that left Steve’s aching cock against your leg.
He bit back a cry at the contact, his mouth diving deeper into the expanse of your beautiful, unmarked skin.
His kisses were pleas at this point — pleas for you to wake up and stop him, trailing down your chest, still rising with the steady beat of your breath.
Once he reached your stomach, he gazed up at you — eyes wired shut, mouth open slightly, brows clipped together.
He felt carnivorous, desperate to taste you, to eat, to ravage you the only way he knew how.
Slipping his fingers beneath the waistband of your panties, he carefully slid them down, stopping just below your velvet-covered knees.
I am all mouth. He thought.
I am all mouth, and you are all blood and tissues and sinews laid out for me to devour.
And so he did.
It started gently, of course. His tongue grazing over your clit, a single finger spreading your folds, baring you to him in complete, unconscious vulnerability.
But his appetite for you grew — hips grinding into the mattress, he got messy. His skin heating and face growing hot between your thighs, hands wrapping under either leg to spread you wider for him, to take him deeper.
Drowning in pleasure, drunk on your taste, all teeth and tongue and urgent eating, like he feared you’d go bad before he finished.
And with one hungry, animalistic suck of your clit, you jolted awake.
“Steve?” Your voice was raspy, your head groggy as you felt the blood buzzing between your thighs, a feeling you knew all too well.
Eyes tracking down your covered body, you pulled back the blanket to reveal a very hungry, very desperate Steve — sweat glistening on his forehead as he ate away at your insides, hips rutting desperately against the mattress.
You let out a broken whine, an agonizing, all-consuming thirst clawing at your bones, begging to be set free.
And at the sound alone, Steve finally looked up from between your legs, his chin and nose shining with your juices, even through the pale darkness of your bedroom.
“I’m sorry, baby. It happened again. I couldn’t help it. Please don’t get mad at me. Just had to taste you, had to have you.” He was ready to dive back into your core again before you stopped him.
“God, what’s going on with you, Stevie? You’re a mess, and sweaty, and god you look terrified.”
His whimpers and moans were broken, his eyes flickering back down to your cunt, like he couldn’t think of anything else, couldn’t concentrate when he was so close to getting you off.
“M-fine. Please. Just need it.” His words were muffled and mumbled before his mouth was back on your center, his tongue working between your lips and diving into you in a way that brought suffering.
Your body felt heavy in his hands, thighs gripped so tight you felt an ache blossoming, the start of a couple more bruises.
Your core felt raw; even with his tender touches and licks, you were so painfully teased that you thought maybe god bore you this hungry.
Yet even at your desperate whines and begs, he never let you go, hips still drawing in circles against the bed and tongue still working heavily on your cunt, eating so violently you thought he might choke.
Your stomach burned, one single rough and calloused finger of his sliding between your folds and spreading you open onto his tongue. “Please let me taste you.” he used his other hand to push your thigh over his shoulder, your body twitching at the new angle, now a writhing mess below him. “God, I need it so bad it hurts, please. You’ll give it to me, right?”
You let out a sob, fingers clutching his hair, pulling it back till you’re sure he felt it in his dick.
“That feels good? How good, baby? Let me hear, please.” He adds a second finger, exploring the crooks of your body until you’re nothing but a brain-dead pup laid out under him.
Your moans grow louder and louder, his tongue dancing along your clit as his fingers swirl inside you, pulling at your g-spot, tugging at your core. Your body hot and mind hazy, room spinning and breath heaving.
“That’s it, just a little more. Give it to me, baby.” He purred, his rhythm evening out as you feel yourself glide over the edge, your hand gripping at his wrist as he continues to fuck up into you.
Your skin was humming, mind purring with serenity as you feel him bundle the panties at your knees, tugging you down closer to him as you watch him sit up, his pants wet and face red, his cock springing free as he lies over you.
“I’ll be quick, baby. I’m so sorry,” a broken whimper breaks from his throat as he aligns with your entrance, “Just be still.” A hand comes up to your mouth to stifle your scream as he slams into you.
You felt the first tear slide down your cheek and over his palm as he began to settle into a rough pace, his cock breaking you open with every drive.
He was gluttonous for you, completely drunk and dizzy and lost in your soppy cunt, hand still pressed tight against your mouth as he fucked you hard and quick. No room to draw you out or have you finish again, just enough to shoot up inside of you and let you weep in his absence.
“I’m so sorry, baby. Please forgive me.” He muttered against your neck, your throat raw from crying against his palm, his sweat heavy against you like perfume.
And somehow, you felt him begin to pull another orgasm deep out of some depraved and perverted part inside of you, your loins burning as you knew now that there would be no god who could give you your purity back.
His head fell into the crook of your neck, hips stuttering as you felt him whimper against your sticky skin, “Fuck, you’re gonna cum again, aren’t you?”
He released your mouth, your body sucking in a breath you didn’t quite realize you were holding, your hands gripping his shoulders as you felt him push you both over the edge.
The fall was long and hard and left your body feeling humiliated, stuffed full of his seed as he kissed your cheeks clean of the tears, mumbled apologies leaving you deaf. Your mind only waking up enough to watch him sat between your legs, eyes fixated on your core as his cream seeped out and onto the damp mattress.
“So pretty, so perfect.”
“Let me make it better.”
“I’ll lick you clean, baby.”
He was gentle in his movements now, but you knew deep under the tender kisses and kitten-licks, he was still hungry. An appetite so enormous he could eat and eat and eat himself sick, even if it meant you suffered, even if he knew it would bring you agony.
He’d dip a finger inside, and lick it clean, and repeat until it was like he was never there aside from the tender bruises scattered against your hips and tear stains on your cheeks.
As he crawled back on top of you, pulling you into him, his scent enveloping you and hands finding a soothing pattern on your back — you knew you could never blame him for his hunger.
You think god bore him this way, and you think you might’ve been born the same.
You wonder in the same way what it would be like to take from Steve without him knowing any different — your lips wrapped tight around his cock as you sucked him dry, or rode him until your legs gave out.
Until he cried as you did.
You thought maybe it was unfair, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care.
Because you knew Steve would one day eat you until there was no more left of you to love. It was just a matter of when you’d wake up to see all that was left of you was your ankles, and maybe a little of your blood.
absolutely LOVE your writing!!!! im afraid the spencer somno one made me pregnant........ and it gave me an idea. i saw your last post is a request and came to ask are you taking them???? cause i need spencer (i imagine first seasons but it doesn't need to be) completely obsessed with his girlfriend and the way she's so horny for him! like initiating sex at the most random domestic times cause he's so sexy all the time!!! and she needs him all the time!!!! he can't be more happy to have a gf that loves him so much and finds him so attractive so of course he let's her use him for her pleasure 😵💫😵💫 he's fascinated with the dynamic, "yes baby make yourself feel good" <33333 while she's crying bouncing on him and the sight is so good and so beautiful in his completely in love brain that he cums imediataly
spencer reid with a horny gf that he'd never say no to
UR SO SWEET (is it too soon to say i love you?) YES!!
ohhh he is so pleasantly confused by how attracted she is to him but he is Not about to argue, especially when she’s kissing on him and trailing her fingers over his waistband in the middle of the night
“mmm honey?” he grumbles and she’s sooo turned on by him all of the time but his sleepy voice gets her even wetter
“need you, spence, please.” she whines and he’s never going to deny her of anything she wants, but especially when it’s him
“yeah, baby, what d’you need?” he says between heated kisses and she just starts pulling on his pajama pants and boxers
“oh, fuck, okay, baby, okay” he lifts his hips up so she can get them down to his ankles
he trails his fingers inside of her sleep shorts and she’s not wearing any panties and he can immediately feel how wet she is
“jesus, honey, you’re this wet for me at this hour?” and all she can do is whine and rut her hips against his hand
“please, spence, please”
so he fingers her just enough to stretch her out for him, turns her on her side so they’re spooning, his chest pressing into her back, and slowly guides his pulsing dick inside of her
he loves when she gets like this and the sight and feeling of her makes it so he’s already twitching and leaking
he wraps his arms around her to pull her as close to him as possible so he can get so deep inside of her, just how she likes
he squeezes on her breasts and nipples with one hand and circles her clit with the other
they’re both moaning and panting and their neighbors can definitely hear them but they don’t care, they need and love each other so so much and the only thing they can think about is each other
she’d get frustrated that she can’t turn around all the way to reach his lips to kiss him properly if he wasn’t pleasing her in 3 different ways already
she pushes her hips backwards with each thrust and she’s too fucking hot and it’s the middle of the night so spencer knows that he won't last very long (he rarely can with her)
"yeah, baby, fuck yourself back on me, help me make you feel good"
he manages to make her cum once before he does, but she immediately turns around in his arms to kiss him so intensely and he knows she needs more
he can't believe that someone loves him this much and needs him so badly
he makes sure that she cums at least twice before he gets up to get a cloth to clean up with, smiling at himself in the bathroom mirror
he has hickies on his neck that she must have put there before he even woke up, his hair is a complete ruffled mess, and he’s never ever been happier
-
she’s just completely shameless for him and absolutely initiates sex whenever she can
while he’s reading, curled up on the couch in his glasses, with his fingers trailing over the pages, she curls up next to him and can’t stop herself from grabbing his hand to suck on his fingers
his looks over at her with his mouth opened into an ‘o’ and can already feel himself getting hard at the feeling of her warm wet mouth and tongue drenching him
she’s soon bringing his hand through her panties and literally using him to rub on her clit and she pushes his fingers inside of her
she’s moaning and writhing and all he can do is watch and let her use him, she’s so beautiful and he can’t believe that she’s his
“need you to fuck me, spence”
“yeah? let’s go to the bed?”
“no, i can’t wait, right here, please spence please”
and what else is he supposed to do but fuck her into the couch cushions!?
-
or when he’s in the kitchen making them coffee and breakfast on a weekend morning, sun painting everything golden
his pajama pants are loose around his hips and his shirt is riding up his sides, leaving a smooth strip of skin that she can’t help but touch
she wraps her arms around him from behind and kisses at the back of his neck as she unties his pants
“oh, good morning!” he squeaks out and she trails her hand down the front of his pants and into his boxers, stroking him until he’s groaning, head tilted back, and painfully hard
she hops up onto the kitchen counter, pulls his pants down just enough for his cock to spring free and she pushes her sleep shorts to the side, there’s no time to take them off, she needs him now
she pulls him toward her with one hand on his shoulder and the other on his dick, guiding him inside of her
the stretch is almost too much without any foreplay and first thing in the morning, but she doesn’t care, she loves how he feels inside of her and will take him no matter what
he's so loving and so concerned though, "you sure, baby? need me to finger you first?"
"no, spencer, i need you now"
so he places his hands on her thighs to open her up for him even more, and the sound of their moans mixes with the sound of the coffee pot brewing
he's stretching her so wide and he feels so so good that she starts tearing up
it’s then that he realizes that he hasn’t even kissed her today, so he leans forward to do so, and she immediately gets her tongue in his mouth and is nibbling on his lower lip
“fuck, honey, i love you so much” he says
“i love you, spence, you're so hot, fuck” she replies as she pulls his hips closer to push his cock in deeper
they both wish that they could start every single day like this
-
he knows he’s too down bad for her once she manages to convince him to have car sex, but he wouldn’t have it any other way
they’re having a date night and they’re supposed to be on their way to a movie after having dinner
but the way he looked in the candlelight, in his suit and tie, fingers wrapped around his glass that was dripping with condensation has her dripping for him
and he tipped 30% on their expensive ticket
her panties are absolutely soaked and she can’t think about anything other than his cock
she tells him to pull over onto a dark side street and at first he’s concerned that she’s going to be sick or something, maybe the food didn’t sit well with her? he’ll have to look up the ingredients that were in her meal and cross-reference them with things she’s had before to make sure this doesn’t happen again and-
oh- she’s leaned over the center console and is pulling him towards her by his tie and oh fuck now she’s making out with him and palming him through his nice dress pants
“honey, we can’t do this here!” he tries to tell her
she grabs his hand and shoves it between her legs so he can feel that her panties are completely drenched
“need you, spence, need to fuck you right now, i can’t go sit in a movie theater like this”
and he completely agrees, he doesn’t want her to be uncomfortable literally ever but especially not for the whole duration of a 2/3 hour movie
he doesn’t know what to do though, he’s never had car sex before
“okay, fuck, okay… should we get in the backseat?”
she just shakes her head and climbs over the center console to straddle him, licking into his mouth and grinding roughly on his hardening cock
she reaches her hand to the side of the seat and leans it back before he can even think about doing it himself
she unzips his pants and pulls him out of his boxers and he’s absolutely throbbing and she’s barely touched him yet
she hikes her dress up so she can rub herself against him, skin to skin, and he has no idea when she took off her panties but she’s completely exposed for him
she’s grinding back and forth on him, he can feel her folds sliding up and down his cock, and he’s not even inside of her yet, but he’s already moaning and gripping at her hips
“oh, yes, baby, use me so you can feel better? need you to feel better so we can go see our movie?”
she’s almost annoyed that he’s still thinking about the movie when his tip is catching on her entrance with every grind, but she just finds him so hot and so endearing and so hot
she grips his base to guide him inside of her properly and she looks so so beautiful tonight (all the time, actually, but especially tonight) and he’s nervous about someone seeing them, so he’s already biting his lip and closing his eyes to stop himself from cumming
“feels so good, spence, you always feel so good.” she tells him and he’s flushed down to his chest and he has to loosen his tie to get some air
“yeah, honey? fuck me so good”
“love when you need me like this”
“love when you use me like this”
his words only make her ride him even faster and harder, she leans to suck on his neck and the new angle is so delicious, it pushes him in even deeper
she’s rubbing her clit with one hand and has the other wrapped around his jaw to keep him looking at her
the new pace and angle and the sight of her like this has him cumming before she does, and she whines in frustration
she has tears in her eyes so of course he says, “it’s okay, baby, keep going”
he’s so overstimulated that it’s starting to hurt but he wants to be good for her, so he squeezes at her gorgeous tits through her dress and leans up to kiss her until she’s groaning and trembling all over him
she gives him a chaste kiss and thanks him before she climbs back over to the passenger seat
his dick is still out and he’s sweaty and completely awestruck
once he’s pulled himself together enough to drive them to the theater, he looks at himself in the car visor mirror to make sure he’s decent enough to be seen in public, and his lips are stained red from her lipstick, he has red marks scattered near his collar, and his hair is a wreck, he looks wrecked
once they’re inside he reaches into his pocket to pull out his wallet to pay for their popcorn, and his fingers brush against damp lace
he looks over at her all wide-eyed and she just hums questionably and curls herself into his side, gazing up at him with this sparkle in her eye that he just knows is going to get him in trouble someday
hopefully they’re not pushing their luck too far when she starts brushing her fingers against his bulge in the back row of the dark theater
-
i hope u liked anon! had to start with a reverse somno situation since u mentioned that one! <3
Can you do Spencer with a breeding kink? Like him and reader are having sex and he creampies her.
spencer reid with a breeding kink ft creampies and a minor marriage kink? (idek i got a lil carried away)
my first ever request eek!!
ever since spencer and reader’s 1 year dating anniversary he’s been actually obsessed with the thought of forever with her
really he’s been fantasizing about it since he first saw her, but he’s having a harder and harder time pushing the thoughts away
the thoughts of being married to her, getting to call her his wife
of having a house with her, a picket fence and a garden and a yard
and children, of course
he wants to have kids with her so so badly
the thought of having little versions of the two of them running around makes him feel dizzy with excitement
when he spends too long envisioning her pregnant he has to sneak away to take care of himself, jerking off in the bathroom, he just can’t contain himself
he knows that she wants it too, but they’ve both agreed that they want to wait until they’re married and settled in a house to have kids
she’s literally still on birth control
but that doesn’t stop him from panting into her mouth as he’s slowly fucking her “let me make you a mommy”
“please baby let’s have a baby”
“i’m gonna fill you up with my cum”
he’s lifted one of her legs around his waist so he can get even deeper inside of her and she moans at the feeling of his cock in her stomach
“you wanna be a daddy, spence?”
“yes baby yes, gonna make you a mommy so i can be a daddy, we’ll be the best parents, yeah?” she’s delirious and drunk on him, he’s everywhere all at once, so all she can do is whine and nod
“fuck, you’re gonna look so beautiful carrying our child”
“can’t wait to make you my beautiful pregnant wife”
she’s completely breathless with how full she feels, he’s fucking her so deeply that she can barely get air into her lungs
after he’s emptied himself inside of her and has pulled out, he can’t stop himself from kneeling between her legs to stop any of his cum from dripping out of her
he uses his fingertip to push it all back in and slowly finger fucks her to pump it all in as deep as he can
“gotta make sure it takes, right baby?”
-
after they’ve discussed it and have decided that they are ready to try for a baby, they both become insatiable
she’s riding him into the mattress, his hands squeezing at her hips as she lifts up and drops herself back down again and again and again
his face is flushed and he has this sparkle in his eye as he looks at her and she’s just so in love with him
she sinks completely down on him and grinds her hips to keep him as deep inside of her as possible and he throws his head back, “fuck, baby”
speaking of
“gonna come inside me spence? put a baby in me?” she whispers in his ear
he lets out the most visceral groan of pleasure
“fuck me, yes, yes, please, need to see my wife so full of me”
“please, i’m so deep in you, it’ll be so easy to”
“please, i can’t wait to see my wife pregnant”
she bites her lip to hide a smile at how her words affect him, she never knew that he’d get so worked up by these words
she lifts up his cock until only his tip is left inside of her and sinks back down, over and over until he’s whimpering and he can’t keep his hands off her bouncing tits
“i cant wait for these to get all swollen and leaky, they’re already so perfect i wont be able to handle it”
“so close, baby, so close to giving you a baby”
“yeah, spence? gonna make me a mommy?”
“show everyone that i’m yours?”
after he paints her walls with his cum, he lays her flat on her back so that gravity can’t ruin his plans
“i can feel you dripping out, spence” and he can’t have that so he pushes it all back in and grinds a finger deep inside of her
he doesn’t want to pump them too fast and risk any of his cum spilling out of her, so he just buries his finger as deep as he can
he keeps at it until he’s hard again and he pumps load after load of his cum in her, determined for it to take
he makes sure that she cums as many times as he does, if not more, just to make sure his sperm transfers
“some people say it’s a myth but you’re gonna cum again for me baby, okay? just to be safe”
he fills her over and over again until she’s literally overflowing with it and there’s too much for it to all fit inside of her
he makes sure to try alll of the positions with her, he’s absolutely researched which ones are the most effective for fertility
his favorite is definitely propping both of her legs on his shoulders, nearly folding her in half
he’s absolutely mesmerized by the sight of her pretty pussy gushing with his cum and tries his best to push it back in, but there’s just too much of it
-
when she is pregnant and swollen with his child, every inch of her body changed because of him, he can’t keep his hands off of her
he’s enthralled, captivated, absolutely fascinated by her
he’s constantly rubbing her bump
he sucks marks over her stretch marks, so proud of himself for forever altering her body and skin
he sucks and licks on her sensitive tits
he loves fucking her with her on the edge of their bed, her laying down and him standing between her legs
he gets the perfect view of her protruding belly, and he can’t handle it
“fuck, baby, i knew you’d look so beautiful like this”
“thank you for carrying our baby”
“wish i could keep you pregnant forever”
her hormones make her so so needy for him, she constantly needs him inside of her, loves having his mouth all over her, she’s always on fire for him
“my beautiful wife, so full of me”
“you were made to look like this. you were made just for me”
“just looking at you like this turns me on so much, i get hard in public seeing what i did to you”
“you’re glowing, baby”
“as if the ring wasn’t proof enough that you’re taken, everyone can see that i’ve claimed you”
“i always thought you were the most beautiful girl in the world, but you’re even more beautiful like this, so perfect, so gorgeous”
and if her breasts start to leak before she gives birth? he’s absolutely mesmerized and can’t stop squeezing at them to watch her leak more
he’d follow the trails of milk with his tongue, moaning like he’s never tasted anything better, because he hasn’t
he’s almost even more entranced by the way his cum looks when it’s dripping out of her when she’s like this
the sight of her so so full of him has him literally moaning at just the sight
she jokingly reminds him that she’s already pregnant, he can’t do it again
and he already can’t wait to do it again, already looking forward to watching her grow and swell because of him again
-
after birth he’d be counting down the days until they can start trying again, desperate to see her so full and so round of him again
and the thought of her holding their child while another grows inside of her has him begging her to let him get her pregnant again
⋆.˚ The four times you shot your shot with Spencer Reid, and the one time it worked.
𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼
Spencer Reid x Fem! Reader
⋆.˚ ellie talks- entirely based on this one image I saw on pinterest yesterday and had to write something.
wc-875
cw- s1!Spencer, whole lotta fluff, basically you keep buying socks for Spencer until he gets that you have a crush on him.
⋆.˚Pair One- The Welcome Back Socks.
The bullpen was loud, buzzing with the collective relief of a closed case. But Spencer’s desk was a quiet island of clutter. It was his first day back after a brutal, sleepless week recovering from a concussion, and he looked incredibly fragile sitting beneath the harsh fluorescent lights.
You walked over, clutching a small, neatly wrapped paper bag. “Hey,” you said softly. “Welcome back.”
Spencer looked up. His brown eyes blinking behind a strand of hair that had fallen into his face. “Oh. Thank you. Statistically, the transition back to high-stress cognitive environments post-concussion is most successful when-”
“Spencer,” You interrupted gently, sliding the bag onto his desk. “I got you a little ‘glad you didn’t die’ present.”
He opened the bag with precise, careful movements. Inside was a pair of thick, luxurious wool socks, patterned with tiny, anatomically correct brains and stacks of books.
“They’re… wool.” He murmured, staring at them as if they were a rare manuscript.
“They have brains on them,” you pointed out, smiling as you tucked a strand of hair behind your ear and folded your arms, leaning your thigh against his desk. “Thought they might keep your feet warm in the archives. It gets drafty down there.”
“Actually, thermoregulation is vital for cognitive performance,” Spencer said, his face lighting up with that brilliant, boyish enthusiasm that always made your chest ache. “The sheep wool has natural crimps that create pockets of still air, which-”
“You’re welcome, Spencer,” you laughed, patting his shoulder as you stood. You let your hand linger for just a second too long, hoping he’d look at you, and see the affection in your eyes.
He just beamed at the wool brains.
Shot one, completely missed.
⋆.˚Pair Two- The Birthday Socks.
For Spencer’s birthday, the team threw a small, chaotic party in the breakroom. After the cake was cut, and JJ and Penelope were busy teasing Morgan, you nudged Spencer’s elbow and nodded toward the quiet hallway. He followed you, curious.
“Here,” you said, slipping a small gift box into his hands. “Happy birthday, Spence.”
He unwrapped it to find vintage style socks, featuring retro, 1960’s space invaders and a blue police box. You’d spent three weeks sourcing them online. Along with it was a card that read: For the guy who’s entirely out of this world. I’m glad we share a planet.
Spencer gasped. “Are these… the original 1963 BBC licensed colour palette? The dye consistency on these is incredibly rare. They stopped using this specific thread count in the mid-seventies because of textile manufacturing shifts in-”
“Do you like them?” You asked, stepping closer in the quiet hallway. You looked up at him through your eyelashes, your heart a frantic tap dance against your ribs.
“I love them,” he said softly, his voice dropping a register as he looked down at you. For a fleeting, breathless second, you thought he might actually get it. He reached out, gently grasping your wrist. “How did you find these? The probability of locating an intact pair from this batch is less than three percent.”
You sighed, a fond, helpless smile breaking across your face. “I have my ways. Happy birthday, Spencer.”
Shot two, close, but still entirely platonic in his brilliant, stubborn mind.
⋆.˚Pair Three- The Mid-Flight Constellations.
It was 3:00 AM on the BAU jet. The cabin was dark, save for the single reading light casting a warm glow over Spencer’s face. He was shivering slightly, his long legs pulled up to his chest as he tried to read a dusty volume on medieval folklore.
You unbuckled, quietly padding over to his seat. You sat in the space next to him, your thigh pressing against his as you lifted your feet to rest against the table in front of you. “The jet’s heating system relies on bleed air from the engines,” Spencer mumbled, his teeth actually clicking. “It’s notoriously uneven. I forgot my heavy boots.”
“Lucky for you, I’m a mind reader.” You pulled a pair of ultra-plush, navy blue cabin socks from your bag. They were printed with the silver-threaded constellations of the Northern Hemisphere. “I picked them up from that store opposite the hotel. Put them on.”
Spencer stared at them as he reached out, taking the soft fabric into his hands. “Are these… Ursa Major? And Cassiopeia?” He ran a thumb over the constellations. “These are compression-blend cabin socks. They improve venous return and reduce the risk of deep vein thrombosis during long flights.”
“I bought them because they looked like the night sky,” you mumbled, “And because I don’t like seeing you cold.”
He slipped them on immediately, letting out a soft sigh of relief as his feet warmed up, before looking at you, his eyes incredibly dark and soft in the dim light of the cabin. “Thank you, this is incredibly thoughtful. You always seem to know exactly what I need.”
You stared at his mouth, waiting for the penny to drop. Instead, Spencer smiled warmly, wrapping his hand around yours and squeezing gently. “You should get some sleep. Sleep deprivation impairs the prefrontal cortex.”
You squeezed your eyes shut.
Shot three, deflated.
⋆.˚Pair Four- The Good Luck Socks.
Spencer was pacing the bullpen like a caged animal. He had to testify in a high profile federal case in two hours, and his anxiety was peaking. He was reciting the chemical composition of court approved paper stock to anyone who would listen.
You walked up to his desk and slid a pair of socks over his stack of files. They were deliberately mismatched, one bright yellow with coffee cups, the other teal with Albert Einstein’s face.
“What’s this?” his eyebrows furrowed, picking them up.
“Good luck charm,” you said, straightening his crooked tie. Your fingers brushed his collarbone, and you felt his pulse spike under your touch. You held his gaze, refusing to look away. “You’re going to be brilliant today. Just like Einstein. And you’ll be properly caffeinated. Wear them.”
Spencer gripped the socks like they were a life vest. “Mismatched socks are statistically proven to break tension in formal environments by introducing a mild element of absurdity.” He mumbled underneath his breath. “You want me to be grounded.”
“I want you to know I’m always in your corner, Spence.” You said. Your voice thick with unspoken meaning. “No matter what.”
He swallowed hard, nodding slowly. “Thank you.”
He wore them to court, delivered a flawless testimony, and later told you the tactile sensation of the reinforced heels kept him from hyperventilating. He thought you were the greatest best friend in the world.
Shot four, a swing and a miss.
⋆.˚Pair Five- The Valentine’s Day Socks.
It was Valentine’s Day, and you had decided this was it. The final, desperate attempt before swallowing the rejection and making an attempt to move on. Before Spencer arrived at his desk, you left a small, beautifully wrapped package. Inside was a pair of bright red socks, patterned with highly accurate, detailed anatomical hearts, complete with pulmonary arteries and veins. Next to them, you placed a card, signed with a ridiculous pun you found by googling ‘nerdy valentines day puns’ the previous night.
Are you made of copper and tellurium? Because you’re Cu-Te!
When Spencer arrived, you watched from the breakroom as he opened the box. His face went entirely pale, then bright red. He read the card once. Twice. Three times. And then his brain completely stalled. You watched him frantically tap his fingers on his desk, his eyes darting around. He clutched the anatomical heart socks, stared at the card for a moment before stuffing it into his satchel as if it were a live grenade. He pulled the socks on, but he didn’t move. He didn’t come and find you, he just stared blankly at his computer screen.
Your heart sank. Shot five. A disaster.
An hour later, Spencer was still staring at his screen, wearing the bright red heart socks, looking like he was trying to solve a differential equation using only his eyes.
Morgan strolled by, a fresh cup of coffee in hand. He stopped, his gaze dropping to Spencer’s ankles. “Nice socks, kid,” he commented, leaning against the edge of the desk. “A little bold for a Tuesday, no?”
Spencer blinked, pulling his eyes away from his monitor. He looked down at his ankles. “Actually, the anatomical representation of the left ventricle is surprisingly accurate for a novelty cotton blend. They were a gift.”
Morgan’s eyebrows shot up. He slowly set his coffee cup down as he glanced over to you in the breakroom, washing your cup. “On Valentine’s Day?” He asked, turning back to Spencer.
“Yes,” Spencer cleared his throat, suddenly finding a paperclip on his desk very interesting. “She also gave me a card, with a… a cute little science pun.”
“And what did you say?”
“Nothing,” Spencer admitted, clenching his jaw and furrowing his eyebrows. “I didn’t want to misinterpret it. It could be a friendly gift. Statistically, seventy percent of non-romantic acquaintances exchange gifts on holidays to reinforce social cohesion, she’s a very empathetic person.”
“Reid.” Morgan cut him off, deadpan. “I didn’t get socks. Hotch didn’t get socks. Garcia didn’t get socks.” He paused long enough for Spencer to look at him. “She’s been buying you custom socks for six months.”
Spencer froze. His pen slipped from his fingers, clattering onto the keyboard. “What?”
“The brains? Space invaders? The stargazing ones?” Morgan laughed, shaking his head with a fond, exasperated grin. “Pretty boy, she isn’t trying to keep your feet warm. She’s trying to sweep you off them. She’s crazy about you. Go.”
Spencer’s eyes went wide. The entire puzzle of the last six months suddenly clicked together in his head. The lingering touches, the soft looks, the incredibly thoughtful, highly specific gifts. He hadn’t been receiving friendly gestures. He had been receiving a love letter, piece by piece. “Oh my god,” he gasped, his chair flying backwards as he scrambled to his feet. “I’m an idiot.”
“We’ve been waiting for you to realise that,” Morgan shouted after him as Spencer sprinted toward the breakroom.
You were standing by the coffee maker, staring at the drip of the liquid into your cup when the door burst open. Spencer stood in the doorway, chest heaving, his hair wild, and wearing the ridiculous red anatomical heart socks with his dress shoes.
“Spence-”
“I’m incredibly stupid,” he blurted out, taking three long strides to close the distance between you. “Well, objectively, my IQ is 187, but emotionally, in this specific department, I am operating at a severe deficit. I thought you were just being nice and then I thought I was projecting my own wishes onto your actions because I’ve wanted to ask you to dinner long before the socks.”
Your breath hitched. “You.. you have?”
“Yes! Practically since the day you started working here but I was terrified of making things awkward, and then Morgan pointed out that you were trying to sweep me off my feet, which is a highly effective idiom since you literally bought me footwear, and-”
You cut off his frantic rambling by reaching up, grabbing the lapels of his cardigan, and pulling him down into a kiss.
He went stiff for a fraction of a second before he let out a soft, shaky sigh. His hands found your waist, pulling you flush against him as he kissed you back with a sweet, desperate intensity that made your knees go weak.
When he finally pulled back, his cheeks were flushed, and a brilliant, breathtaking smile was spreading across his face. “So,” he cleared his throat. “Dinner?”
“Uh-huh.” You hummed, your hand sliding round to the back of his neck to pull his mouth back against yours, his fingers tangling in your hair as he cupped your face, laughing gently against your mouth without breaking the kiss as Morgan whistled from the bullpen.
your haunting spencer's mind, and his team can't stand watching him mope around, so they make him go to you, and he does, and after that, you don't think he'll ever leave.
genre, tags and CWs: no use of y/n, smut (finally), fluff, oral (f and m receiving), titjob, choking, slight sub!spencer and dom!reader, edging, ruined orgasm, unprotected PinV, a sliver of dumbification.
word count:: 10k
a/n: hi guys, i really struggled to finish this part, theres a little blurb ill eventually post as an extended ending, but for now, this is it, please reblog and comment! likes are always appreciated, but personally comments are the best (im rlly insecure abt my writing lol) enjoy!
He stands at the glass doors a full thirty seconds after her taillights disappear. Then he turns. He walks back through the lobby, takes the elevator up, steps into the bullpen. The fluorescent lights buzz. Phones ring. Life goes on. He sits at his desk. Pulls up a file. Stares at it.
"Reid." He looks up. Prentiss is standing over him, arms crossed. Morgan leans against the doorframe behind her, coffee in hand. "You're moping," She says.
"I'm working." He snaps back, dismissive.
"You've been looking at the same page for seven minutes." She tilts her head. "It's blank." Morgan takes a sip of his coffee. "Kid, you've got it bad."
Reid's ears go red. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Prentiss and Morgan exchange a look. A full conversation passes between them in that glance. Prentiss sighs. She walks over, puts a hand on his shoulder. "Go to her apartment, Spencer."
"What?"
"Confess. Tell her you like her. Do something." She squeezes once. "You've read the statistics on regret. You know which one you'll carry longer; the thing you did, or the thing you didn't." He opens his mouth. Closes it. Morgan raises his coffee in a toast. "Go get her, genius."
Spencer's voice comes out smaller than he intended. "She's so experienced. I don't think I'm the kind of guy that she would feel attracted to…" Morgan sets his coffee down. Slow. Deliberate. "Reid. Listen to me carefully." He looks up. “She spent the last forty-eight hours trusting you with her life. She texted you at two in the morning about Sylvia Plath. She knitted you a sweater." Morgan ticks each point off on his fingers. "A sweater, Reid. She knitted you the entire thing, Kid. That definitely means she feels something for you, don't be stupid." Emily adds, softer: "I've interviewed hundreds of witnesses. I've seen what gratitude looks like, and I've seen what something more looks like. The way she looked at you in the break room?" She shakes her head. "That wasn't gratitude."
Spencer's hands are still. His heart beats a little faster. "She told me she'd miss me," he says quietly. Morgan and Prentiss exchange another look. "And?" Morgan says. "What'd you say?"
"I said I'd miss her too."
"And then you watched her walk out to a car and came back up here to stare at a blank screen." Derek picks his coffee back up. "So here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna stand up. You're gonna grab your coat. And you're gonna go to Tribeca and tell her how you feel before she spends the whole night thinking you only see her as a witness." Reid hesitates. Emily leans in. "Spencer. Go."
He stands up. The chair scrapes against the floor. He grabs his coat from the back of his chair, the one you knitted for him — navy and maroon stripes, soft from wear, and shrugs it on. — It fits perfectly. He looks at Morgan. Looks at Prentiss. "Okay," he says. "I'm going."
"Good," Emily says.
He walks to the elevator. Rides it down. Steps out into the cold night air. The address is already in his phone. He gets flowers in the nearest place he can find. He flags a cab, gives the driver the address, and spends the ride staring out the window, rehearsing words and discarding them. I like you. I think about you more than I should. I don't know what this is, but I want to find out.
Too much. Not enough.
The cab pulls up. He pays, steps out, and looks up at the building. Warm light glows from a fourth-floor window. He takes a breath. Then he walks inside, climbs the stairs, and stands in front of her door. The yellow crime scene tape is gone. Just a door now. A number. A peephole.
He raises his hand. Pauses. Knocks.
The knock comes before you can second-guess it.
Two sharp raps.
You look up from your laptop. The cursor blinks at the end of a sentence. You saved your place. Then you cross the room in socked feet, reach the door, and check the peephole. Your breath catches.
Spencer.
You open the door. He's standing in the dim hallway light, his hair slightly disheveled from the wind, the sweater you knitted him visible under his open coat. And in one hand, a bouquet of flowers. Nothing extravagant. Not roses or hothouse lilies. Just a simple bundle of wildflowers — dried lavender, white chrysanthemums, sprigs of eucalyptus tied with twine. The kind you might find at a bodega on the corner. The kind someone picked because they were thinking of you, not because they were following a script.
He shifts his weight. "Hi."
"Hi." You glance at the flowers. "Those for me?"
He looks down at them like he'd almost forgotten. "Oh. Yes." He holds them out, slightly awkward. "I passed a shop on the way. I didn't—I mean, I wanted to bring something. And then I saw these and thought—" He stops. Takes a breath. "They reminded me of you. Not the obvious kind. The kind you have to look at twice to see how beautiful they are." The words hang in the air. His ears are red. You look at him standing there in the dim hallway, flowers extended, ears red, and something in your chest cracks open — warm and unguarded.
"You look cold," you say. "Get inside." He steps through the doorway, and you close the door behind him. Your apartment wraps around you both, the warm lamplight, the faint smell of lavender and old paper, the laptop glowing on the desk. Home. He looks around, taking it in. The bookshelves stuffed with worn paperbacks. The half-finished scarf draped over the armchair. The mug on the counter. A life, in small details. "The flowers really are beautiful, Spencer." You take them from his hand, your fingers brushing his. "Let me find a vase." You turn toward the kitchen, and he follows a step, then stops. Stands there in the middle of your living room, hands in his coat pockets, looking at your space like it's a landscape he wants to memorize. You fill a mason jar with water, arrange the wildflowers, set them on the windowsill. When you turn back, he's still standing there.
"I couldn't stop thinking about you," he says. "After you left." The words land soft. Unrehearsed. "Is that why you came all the way here?" He meets your eyes. "Yes." The word sits between you, simple, unadorned. He doesn't qualify it, doesn't soften it with a joke or a subject change. Just lets it stand. You wait. He takes a breath.
“I—" He stops. Runs a hand through his hair. "I'm not good at this. I know how to profile a suspect. I know how to recite the Fibonacci sequence. I know the chemical composition of almost anything you could name. But I don't know how to say what I'm feeling without sounding like I'm reading from a textbook." He looks down at his hands. Then back up. "I came here because I didn't want to wake up tomorrow and wish I had. I came here because when you walked out those glass doors, I felt like I'd forgotten to say something important. And I didn't even know what it was until I was standing in the lobby, and you were gone." He takes a step closer. Close enough that you can see the faint freckles across his nose, the slight tremor in his hands. "I think I'm falling for you." His voice is barely above a whisper. "And I didn't want to be a coward about it."
You step toward him. Reach out. Your hand finds his — warm, a little unsteady — and you close your fingers around it. "Sit down," you say softly. "Let's talk." You lead him to the small couch by the window. He sits. You sit beside him, close enough that your knees almost touch, and you don't let go of his hand. He's looking at you like he's bracing for something. Like he's not sure what comes next. "I'm glad you came," you say. "I mean it." His shoulders drop a fraction. "But I need you to know something." You hold his gaze. "I'm not—I don't want to be a case study. I don't want to be someone you're fascinated by because of what happened. I've been interesting to men before, and it never ends well."
"I know." His voice is quiet. Certain. "That's not what this is."
"How do you know?"
He's quiet for a moment. Then he says, "Because I didn't stop thinking about you before the case. I stopped thinking about you as a witness the night you texted me about Clarice Lispector. And I knew it wasn't professional anymore when I caught myself hoping you'd text again."
Your chest tightens. The words fall out of you like stones from a pocket. Heavy. Clumsy. Unadorned. "I just want you to be sure about this." Your voice is steady, but your grip on his hand tightens. "You're educated. You're a doctor. You have a good job. You're a respected man." A pause. "I'm a foster care kid. I have no education. I'm wounded. I let disgusting men touch me and tell me I look like their daughters." The last word catches in your throat. You force it out anyway. "I'm a whore, Spencer. That's what I am. That's what I've been."
The silence that follows is thick. You can feel your own heartbeat in your fingertips. He doesn't pull his hand away. When he speaks, his voice is quiet. Not shocked. Not pitying. Just... careful. Like he's handling something fragile. He says your name like it's the only word that matters. "I know what you do for work. I've known since the first file I read." He shifts closer. His thumb brushes across your knuckles. "Do you want to know what I see when I look at you? Someone who survived a system that wasn't designed to help her. Someone who's smarter than half the agents in my unit. Someone who knitted me a sweater because she noticed I was cold on a stakeout." His voice wavers, just barely. "Someone who writes, and reads Plath, and remembers the names of women the rest of the world forgot." He meets your eyes. "I don't care what men paid you to pretend. I care about who you are when you're not pretending." His hand is warm around yours. Steady.
"And if I'm scared of what happens when you realize I'm not worth it?" The words come out quiet. Fragile. You're not looking at him anymore, you're looking at your hands, at his thumb still tracing slow circles across your knuckles. His hand stills.
"Angel." He says, and you hold back a grin, surprised by the new petname. "Look at me." You do. His eyes are wet. Not crying, not yet, but bright with something unguarded.
"I've been underestimated my whole life," he says. "People look at me and see a freak with a high IQ who can't read a room. I know what it's like to be seen as a collection of parts instead of a person." His voice catches. "And I know what it's like to be terrified that someone will wake up one day and realize they made a mistake choosing you." He swallows. "But I also know that I'm standing in your apartment at eleven o'clock at night because I couldn't imagine being anywhere else. And that's not going to change tomorrow. Or the day after." He lifts your hand, presses it gently against his chest. You can feel his heartbeat under your palm — fast, steady, real. "I'm not going to wake up and realize you're not worth it. I already know you are."
You pull your hand back gently, just enough to hold it in your lap. Your voice is quieter now. "But what about other people? When they find out that you're with a woman like me?" You meet his eyes. "And I'll have to quit. There's no way you'd want to date me while I'm still letting them touch me." The words sit in the space between you. Honest. Unflinching.
Spencer is quiet for a moment. Then he says, "I don't care what other people think about who I choose to be with." He says it like it's a fact. Like it's as obvious as the color of the walls. "I work in a field where I've been called weird, strange, a freak, since I was twelve years old. I've learned that other people's opinions are not a reliable metric for anything." He pauses. "And, if you want to quit, that's your choice. But I'm not going to ask you to give up your income, your safety, your independence, and then pretend that's romantic. That's not a fair thing to ask of someone." He looks at you. Steady. "Whatever you need, whatever timeline you need, I can wait. I'd rather wait than rush you into something that makes you uncomfortable."
You pull your hand back, wrap your arms around yourself like you're trying to hold something together. "Are you sure?" you whisper. "Like, other men, they're disgusting, Spencer. They call me names. They make me do bad stuff. They touch me and I feel so dirty at the end of—" Your throat closes. You can't finish. The silence stretches. You stare at a spot on the floor, waiting for him to realize. Waiting for the shift in his expression, the careful distance, the gentle letdown. The: “You're so brave, but I don't think I can—”
"Scoot over." You look up. He's shrugging off his coat. Not running. Not recoiling. Just folding it neatly, setting it on the arm of the couch, and sitting down beside you. Not across from you. Beside you. "I can't pretend to understand what that feels like," he says quietly. "I've never had someone treat me like I was less than human because of what I do for a living. I've been called weird, strange, a freak, but not like that. Not with that kind of cruelty." He doesn't reach for you. He just sits there, close enough that you can feel the warmth of him. "But I can tell you this: nothing you did with them was your fault. You survived. That's what you did. You survived." He turns to look at you. "And I'm not going anywhere."
You let out a breath you didn't know you were holding. Slowly, carefully, you lean into him. Your head finds the curve of his shoulder, the wool of the sweater soft against your cheek. "I don't know what to do with someone who's kind," you say. He doesn't stiffen. Doesn't pull away. After a moment, his hand comes up, tentative, giving you time to move if you want to, and when you don't, it rests gently on your arm.
"You don't have to do anything," he says quietly. "You just have to let it happen."
You close your eyes. His heartbeat is steady beneath your ear. The city hums outside. The apartment is warm.
"I'm scared," you admit. "Of what this means. Of what happens when the novelty wears off and you realize I'm just a girl with too much baggage and a complicated job."
"I'm scared too."
You open your eyes. Lift your head just enough to look at him.
"Of what?"
He meets your gaze. "Of waking up tomorrow and realizing I imagined this. That you don't—" He stops. Swallows. "That you'll decide I'm not worth the risk."
You look at him. Really look. The slight furrow of his brow. The way his eyes search yours, hopeful and terrified in equal measure.
"I'm going to quit." The words come out steady. Sure. "I'll figure out the money. But I can't keep doing that work anymore."
Spencer's eyes search yours. "Angel—"
"I know. It's a lot. Rent, savings, a whole life built around..." You trail off. Then you shake your head. "I've been saving for years. I have enough to float for a while. And I can find something else. Wait tables. Work at a bookstore. I don't care what it is." You hold his gaze. "I don't want to be touched by men who don't see me anymore. I don't want to come home and scrub myself raw in the shower because I feel like I'm wearing someone else's skin." Your voice wavers, just barely. "I want to be someone I can live with."
The room is quiet. The radiator ticks. A car passes on the street below. His hand finds yours again. He doesn't say anything for a long moment. Your voice drops to something raw, unguarded. "I want to be clean for you. I want to be what you deserve."
His breath catches, almost imperceptibly. For a long moment he doesn't speak. Then he shifts, turning toward you fully, and his hand comes up to rest gently against your cheek. "Angel." His voice is soft, almost breaking. "You don't have to earn me. You don't have to become something else for me to want you." His thumb brushes across your cheekbone. "I want you. The you who reads Plath at two in the morning. The you who knitted me a sweater without realizing it. The you who sat across from a killer's brother and told him the truth because you believed it was the only way." His eyes search yours. "That's who I'm falling for. Not some version of you that's scrubbed clean of everything you've survived." He lets the words settle. "But if you want to quit because you want to, because you want to wake up and feel like yourself, then I'll be here. For every step." He drops his hand, but his eyes stay on yours. Warm. Steady. Unflinching.
A small smile touches your lips. "You really are something, Spencer Reid."
He blinks. A faint flush climbs his neck. "Is that… good? Or bad?"
"It's good." You let the smile linger. "It's really good." The silence that follows isn't heavy anymore. It's the kind that settles around you like a blanket, soft and warm. He looks at you, and there's something new in his expression. Not uncertainty. Not hope, exactly. Something quieter. Something settled. "What happens now?" you ask.
He considers it. "Now? I think we watch a movie. Or you read me something from that folder of first chapters. Or we sit here until we fall asleep." He pauses. "Whatever you're comfortable with."
Your chest aches, but it's a good ache. The kind that means you're feeling something after a long time of not letting yourself. The smile fades from your face. You pull back just slightly, enough to look at him fully. Your hands twist together in your lap.
"This is stupid, I know. But I just have to get it off my chest." You force yourself to meet his eyes. "You don't want me just for the sex, do you?"
The question hangs in the air. Bare. Unashamed. Spencer's expression doesn't shift into shock or offense. Instead, it softens, like he's watching you hand him something fragile and he's afraid to breathe too hard. "No," he says. Quiet. Certain. "I don't want you just for sex." You wait. He doesn't rush to fill the silence. "I've never—" He stops. Starts again. "I've never been with anyone. Physically. I don't have a frame of reference for what that part of a relationship looks like. And I'm not saying that to make you feel obligated. I'm saying it so you know that when I say I want you, I mean you." He taps his chest, over his heart. "Here. Not just... physically." He holds your gaze. "If we never had sex, I'd still want to wake up to your texts. I'd still want to know what you're writing. I'd still want to sit on this couch and watch you read." His voice drops. "I want you, Angel. All of you. Not just your body."
You let out a long, slow breath. Then you lean back into him, settle your head against his shoulder, and let your eyes close. "Okay. I'm done being afraid for tonight."
He doesn't say anything. He just shifts slightly, finding a comfortable angle, and his arm settles around you. His hand rests on your arm, light and warm. The radiator ticks. The city hums. The wildflowers on the windowsill cast thin shadows in the lamplight. Minutes pass. Or maybe an hour. Time goes soft around the edges. At some point, you feel his cheek rest against the top of your head. His breathing is steady. His heartbeat slow and sure beneath your ear.
"I should probably go," he says quietly. Not moving. "Let you sleep." You don't open your eyes.
"Or you could stay," you say. "And I could make you breakfast tomorrow." The silence that follows is full of possibility. You lift your head. Look at him. The words come out before you can second-guess them. "Stay." You pause. "In the bed. With me."
His eyes widen, just slightly. His ears go red. But he doesn't pull away. "I—" He clears his throat. "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure." You hold his gaze. "I'm not asking for anything else. I just, I don't want to be alone tonight. And I don't want you to leave."
He looks at you for a long moment. Then he nods. "Okay."
You stand. Offer him your hand. He takes it, and you lead him through the small apartment to your bedroom, the door open, a lamp glowing on the nightstand, your duvet rumpled from last night's restless sleep. You don't turn on the overhead light. The lamp is enough. He hesitates at the foot of the bed. You let go of his hand, pull back the covers on one side, then the other. You crawl in, settle against the pillows. He stands there for a moment longer. Then he sits on the edge of the bed, unlaces his shoes, sets them aside. He shrugs off his coat. Lies down on top of the covers, on his side, facing you.
The space between you is small. You can feel the warmth of him, smell the faint traces of cold air still caught in his sweater. "I don't know what I'm doing," he admits quietly. "But I want to be here." You reach out. Your hand finds his under the covers. "Then stay," you whisper. "That's enough." He squeezes your hand. The lamp glows. And slowly, in the quiet dark, you feel yourself begin to unclench.
You close your eyes. The lamp still glows, soft and amber, but you don't reach to turn it off. His hand is still in yours, fingers loosely threaded, like he's afraid to let go. You feel his breathing slow, the rise and fall of his chest finding a rhythm. The city murmurs outside. Somewhere, a siren fades into the distance. None of it touches you here. You don't know when sleep comes. It steals in quietly, between one breath and the next, pulling you under into something deep and dreamless. The last thing you register is the warmth of his hand, still holding yours.
Morning light filters through the curtains, pale and gray. You wake slowly, heavy-limbed and warm, tangled in your duvet.
He's still there.
On his side, facing you. His hand has slipped from yours sometime in the night, but he's close, close enough that you can see the curve of his lashes, the way his lips part slightly as he breathes. The sweater is bunched under his cheek. He looks younger like this. Unguarded. You lie still, watching him. The city sounds filter in, a truck backing up, a bird somewhere. The radiator clicks on. A moment like this. Simple. Real. You ease your hand from his, slow and careful, not wanting to wake him.
He shifts slightly, murmurs something unintelligible, but doesn't open his eyes. His hand searches for yours for a moment, then settles on the pillow where you were. You slip out of bed, feet finding the cold floor. The apartment is quiet, soft with gray morning light. You pad to the kitchen, pull your favorite mug from the cabinet, and start the coffee. The machine hisses and drips. You lean against the counter, arms crossed, watching the dark liquid fill the carafe. Through the bedroom doorway, you can see the shape of him under the duvet, the spill of dark hair against your pillow.
He stayed.
You pour two mugs. Black for you. You pause, then open the fridge, there’s milk, a half-empty carton. You don't know how he takes his coffee. The smallness of not knowing feels intimate, somehow. A detail waiting to be learned. You're still standing there, mug warming your hands, when you hear the bed creak behind you.. The soft rustle of sheets. You reach for the sugar bowl without turning around. Spoon it into his mug — one, two — and stir. The spoon clinks against the ceramic.
"You're still here," you say, and your voice comes out rougher than you meant it to. Soft. Full of sleep and something tender. Behind you, his voice is gravelly with waking. "I said I would be."
You pick up both mugs, turn, and find him standing in the bedroom doorway, sweater rumpled, hair a disaster, eyes still heavy with sleep. He's looking at you like he's still not quite sure this is real. You cross to him, hold out his mug. "Black. Two sugars. I guessed." He takes it. His fingers brush yours. He looks down at the coffee, then back at you. "It's perfect."
You take a sip of your coffee. Let the warmth settle in your chest. Then you look at him over the rim of your mug. "I'm thinking of leaving New York."
His hand pauses mid-raise, mug halfway to his lips. He lowers it slowly. "Leaving?"
"Yeah." You shift your weight, leaning against the counter. "Starting fresh somewhere smaller. Where nobody knows me. Where I'm not the woman who—" You stop. Start again. "Where I can be someone new."
He's quiet. Processing. You watch his mind turn behind his eyes. "Have you thought about where?" he asks.
"Not really. Somewhere with trees. A town where you can walk down the main street and people wave at you. Maybe a bookstore that needs a clerk." You shrug. "Somewhere I can afford on a bookstore salary."
He looks at his coffee. Then back at you. "When?"
You let out a breath. "I don't know. A month. Two. Whenever I can pack up my life and figure out where I'm going." The kitchen feels very small. Very quiet. You wait for him to say something, maybre pull back, maybe ask what this means for the two of you, maybe point out all the practical reasons this doesn't make sense.
Instead, he says, "Can I visit?"
"You'd want to?" The words come out soft. Surprised. Like the thought hadn't occurred to you, that he might follow.
He sets his mug down on the counter. His hands are free now, and he uses one to rub the back of his neck, a nervous habit. "Yes," he says. "I'd want to." He looks at you. "I don't know what this is yet. What we are. But I know I don't want it to end because you move to a different zip code."
You stare at him. The coffee mug is warm in your hands, grounding.
"Quantico is in Virginia," he continues. "There are towns within driving distance. Places with trees. Main streets. Bookstores." A pause. "We could figure out a distance that works. If you wanted."
"You'd drive to see me?"
"I'd take the train. I'd fly. I'd learn to drive stick if that's what it took." He says it simply, like it's obvious. "I meant what I said last night. I'm not going anywhere."
"What about Quantico?" The question comes out before you can overthink it. You hold your mug with both hands, watching him. "Do you think I'd fit in? Maybe some bookstore needs help over there."
Spencer's eyebrows lift. He considers it, not dismissively, but like he's turning the idea over in his mind, testing its weight. "Quantico," he repeats. "It's small. About six hundred people. A main street with a diner, a hardware store, a library that's surprisingly well-funded for its size." He pauses. "I don't know about a bookstore. But there are a few in the surrounding towns. Dumfries. Occoquan." He looks at you, and there's something careful in his expression, like he's trying not to seem too hopeful. "It's close to DC. Close to the Academy. Close to—" He stops. "Close to me."
You let that settle. "I've never lived anywhere small," you say. "Always cities. Crowds. Places where you can disappear."
"Quantico's the opposite. Everyone knows everyone. You'd be the new person for about a week, and then you'd just be... you."
A laugh escapes you, surprising you with its ease. "It'll be good to live closer to you. Someone's gotta make you food. You survive on photosynthesis or something."
His ears go pink. He looks down at his coffee, then back up at you, and there's something soft in his expression. "It's not photosynthesis. I eat. I just sometimes forget."
"Forget to eat?" You raise an eyebrow. "Spencer. That's not a thing people do."
"Most people don't have my IQ. My brain prioritizes cognitive function over interoceptive signals." He says it like it's a perfectly reasonable explanation.
You take a sip of your coffee, watching him over the rim. "So what you're saying is, you need someone to remind you that food exists."
"I—" He stops. Considers. "...Yes. That would be helpful."
The admission hangs in the air. Simple. Honest. You set your mug down. Cross the small distance between you. You're close enough to see the faint stubble along his jaw, the way his Adam's apple moves when he swallows.
"Okay," you say. "Then I'll remind you."
He looks at you like you've just handed him something he didn't know he was allowed to want. Spencer is quiet for a moment. He picks up his coffee, takes a sip, sets it down again. His fingers trace the rim of the mug. "Angel." He says the name like he's testing it. Like he's still getting used to the fact that he gets to say it at all.
"Yeah?"
"I know this is early. And I know there are a thousand things we still need to figure out. Where you'll live. What you'll do. How this works with my schedule, and your past, and—" He stops. Takes a breath. "But I also know that I don't want to spend the next few weeks wondering if I'm allowed to call you mine."
You feel your heart skip.
He meets your eyes. "Will you be my girlfriend?" The words hang in the air between you, it's simple, earnest, terrified. He's standing there in your kitchen, in the sweater you knitted him, holding a mug of coffee you made him, having just spent the night in your bed without a single expectation. And he's asking you, like it's a privilege he's hoping to earn. The coffee is warm in your hands. The morning light is soft through the window. And for the first time in a long time, you feel like you're exactly where you're supposed to be.
A slow smile spreads across your face. You take a deliberate sip of your coffee, letting the silence stretch. "Can I think about it?" you ask, your voice light. "I want to watch you squirm for at least another thirty seconds."
His expression flickers, uncertainty, then realization, then a kind of embarrassed relief. He rubs the back of his neck. "That's—okay. That's fair. I walked into that one."
"Mhm." You take another sip. "You did."
He shifts his weight. Clears his throat. Looks at the ceiling, then the floor, then back at you. You watch him calculate, second-guess, recalculate.
"Twenty seconds," you say.
He huffs a quiet laugh. Shakes his head. "You're enjoying this."
"Enormously."
He looks at you, and despite the flush on his ears, he's smiling. A real one. Soft and unguarded.
"Ten seconds."
"Angel—"
"Five."
He steps closer. Close enough to reach out if he wanted to.
"Time's up."
You set your mug down, close the small distance between you, and look up at him.
"Yes," you say. "I'll be your girlfriend, Spencer."
He smiles, letting out a breath. “You’re evil, you know that?” You laugh softly, gesturing him to get up, and hug you, and he does, embracing your body in a warm, gentle hug, one that says that it’s all going to be okay.
“You know, I think this is way too early, but at this point I don’t really care anymore” You blurt it out way too fast, all in one breath. “I love you.” He takes your hand, pressing a kiss to your palm, and his eyes never leave yours.
"I love you too," he says. "I've been trying not to say it because I thought it would complicate things. But you've never been simple. You're the most complicated person I've ever met, and I don't want simple."
"Show me," you say. "Make love to me."
The words settle between you, and for a moment he just looks at you. That unreadable expression cracking open into something raw and unguarded. His thumb traces your jaw, featherlight, and his voice comes out rough. "Are you sure?" he asks, and the question isn't doubt. It's Spencer, cataloguing every variable before he acts, checking for signs of shock, of coercion, of you running on adrenaline and fear. "Yesterday, you've been through—"
"I know what I've been through." You reach up, fingers finding the nape of his neck, pulling him gently toward you. "I also know what I want. I want you, Spencer. Not because I'm scared. Because I love you, and I've been wanting to say that and mean it for weeks."
He exhales, a shaky sound that's almost a laugh, and his forehead drops to yours. "Okay," he breathes. "Okay. Just— tell me if anything hurts. I mean it."
His hands come to the hem of your shirt, hesitating. He waits, there's a question in his eyes. You answer by lifting your arms, and he peels the shirt off you with a reverence that makes your chest ache. His fingers are gentle when they touch your side, ghosting over the soft flushed skin. He leans in and presses his lips to your neck, soft and reverent, a promise. "Beautiful," he says against your skin. "Every part of you."
Your hands find his shirt, push it up and over his head. You touch his face, then trace the line of his collarbone, the fine tremor running through him under your fingertips. "I'm going to take care of you," you say, and it comes out steadier than you feel. "And then you're going to take care of me. Deal?"
You let the words settle and give him nothing but a nod — a small, trusting surrender. He reads it in your eyes, and something in his shoulders loosens, like he'd been braced for you to change your mind.
"Okay," he breathes. "Okay."
He takes his time. His hands find your hips first, thumbs pressing gentle circles into the bone there, and he leans in to kiss you again — unhurried, deep, like he's memorizing the shape of your mouth. When he pulls back, his gaze travels down your body, and there's no hunger in it. Just awe. The kind of look you'd give something you'd waited a long time to hold.
His lips find your collarbone, then the one at your shoulders, soft presses of his mouth over each place, like he's trying to convince himself this is real. His hands map your skin as he goes — the curve of your waist, the dip of your spine, the fine tremor that runs through you when his thumb grazes the side of your breast.
He pauses there, looking up at you, asking without words. You breathe out a yes, and he lowers his mouth to your sternum, tongue tracing a slow line down the center of your chest.
The sun shines through the window, a bird chirps right outside. He takes you in like he has all the time in the world, and maybe tonight he does.
His fingers hook into the waistband of your pants, and he looks at you once more, a question in the tilt of his brow. He waits for your nod before he draws them down, and the fabric whispers over your thighs, pooling at your knees.
"Beautiful," he says again, hushed, and his hands settle on your thighs, thumbs stroking the inside of them, working higher with agonizing patience.
His mouth follows, and when his lips finally find you — open, warm, reverent — you gasp, one hand flying to his hair, the other bracing on his shoulder. He hums against you, a low sound of approval, and settles in like he plans to stay for a while.
His name leaves your lips on a broken exhale — Spencer — half gasp, half prayer, the sound of it catching in the small living room. He pauses, mouth still pressed to your inner thigh, and looks up at you from between your legs. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide, lips slick and parted, and the sight of him there — breathless, rumpled, wrecked for you — makes your chest ache.
"Yeah?" he asks, voice rough. "Good?"
You can only nod, throat too tight for words. His mouth curls into something soft and devastating, and he lowers his head again, slower this time. His tongue traces you open, flat and warm, and he groans against you when he finds how wet you are, the sound vibrates through you, making your hips tilt up of their own accord.
His hands slide under your thighs, hooking them over his shoulders, and the angle changes, opens you wider to him. He eats you like he's studying, his mouth is attentive, precise, learning the exact rhythm that makes your breath hitch, the spot that makes your fingers twist in his hair. When he finds it, he lingers, circling, and the pressure builds low and bright behind your belly button.
"Mmm," he hums against you, and the vibration ripples through your clit. "There. There you are."
His thumb joins his tongue, slick and sure, and his other hand splays across your stomach, holding you steady as your hips start to move against his mouth. He doesn't rush. He keeps the pace slow, relentless, patient — like he could stay here for hours, like there's nowhere else in the world he'd rather be.
Your hand tightens in his hair. Your back arches off the floor. His name falls from your lips again, higher this time, and he answers with a low, pleased sound that he presses right into you. You tug his hair, gently, but firm enough that he lifts his head, lips glistening, eyes hazy with want. A question flickers across his face, and you answer it by shifting onto your knees in front of him, your hands finding the waistband of his jeans.
"Where are you going?" he asks, voice rough, and you don't answer. You just pop the button, drag the zipper down, and his cock springs free — flushed, thick, already slick at the tip. The sight of it makes your mouth water.
"Nowhere," you say. "Just switching places." You take him in your hands first, both of them, and he hisses through his teeth at the contact, hips twitching forward. Then you press him against your chest, sliding the head of him between your breasts, and the sound he makes is something between a groan and a question.
"Angel—" He cuts himself off as you push your breasts together around him, slow, dragging his length through the slick heat of your skin. "God."
Your fingers find your own slickness, still wet from his mouth, and you smear it along his shaft before pressing him back between your breasts, this time with more glide. He throbs against your sternum, his hand coming to the back of your head, fingers threading into your hair — not pulling, just holding, like he needs the anchor.
"You're killing me," he breathes, and his hips start to move, shallow, testing strokes that push him higher, closer to your chin with each pass. You meet his rhythm, rising onto your knees a little, tilting your chest up, letting him fuck the valley of your tits with increasing confidence. The wet sound of skin sliding against skin fills the low-lit room, punctuated by his ragged breaths and the soft grunt he lets out when you tighten your arms around him.
"Look at you," he says, thumb brushing the corner of your mouth. "So beautiful. So good to me."
You look up at him — past the rise and fall of your own chest, past the slick gleam of him sliding between your breasts — and meet his eyes. They're dark, blown wide, locked on yours with a kind of helpless wonder. His rhythm stutters, just slightly, at the sight of you watching him.
And then, on the next upward pass, when the head of him reaches the crest of your chest, you let your tongue catch the tip. The taste of him is salt and heat, a slick smear of pre-cum on your tongue. His whole body jerks — a sharp, punched-out groan escaping his lips, his hand tightening in your hair, not pulling, just clinging.
"Christ," he breathes, the word cracking halfway through. "Angel, you—" He doesn't finish. You do it again, slower this time, letting your tongue curl around the head as it passes, tasting him properly before he sinks back between your breasts. His hips push forward, chasing it, and the wet slide of him against your skin picks up a new rhythm, hungrier, less careful.
"That's it," he gasps, thumb stroking your cheekbone. "God, that's it. You have no idea what you do to me." His breathing turns ragged. The sound of him sliding through your slick, squeezed grip fills the room — wet, rhythmic, obscene in the best way. He's close, you can feel it in the way his thighs tremble, in the thickening pulse of him against your tongue. But he holds himself back, just barely, watching you with something raw and unguarded in his face. "Do you want—" He swallows. "I'm close. Tell me where you want me."
You stop.
No warning, no wind-down, your hands simply go still around him, your tongue retreating, your arms loosening their press. He's left mid-thrust, buried shallowly between your breasts, frozen in place like a record that just lost power.
"Angel?" His voice comes out high, cracked. "Angel, why did you—"
You don't answer. You just hold him there, feeling him throb against your sternum, achingly hard, the head of him slick and flushed just below your chin. His hips twitch forward once, a desperate, involuntary little push, and you pull back just enough that the tip slides free of your skin, leaving him stranded in the cool air.
A sound escapes him, a strained, almost wounded noise, halfway between a groan and a whimper. His hand is still tangled in your hair, but he doesn't pull, doesn't push. He just grips, knuckles white, like you're the only thing keeping him upright.
"Please," he says, and the word is wrecked. "Angel, I was so close, please—"
You look up at him, slow, and let a smile play at the corner of your mouth. "I know," you say softly. "That's the point."
He stares at you, chest heaving, eyes blown wide and dark. A strand of hair sticks to his forehead. He looks utterly, beautifully ruined — and completely at your mercy.
"You're going to kill me," he breathes.
"Mmm." You shift your hips, letting your thighs brush his, feeling the heat of him through his jeans. "But what a way to go."
He makes another strangled sound, and his head falls forward, forehead pressing to yours. "Please," he repeats, barely a whisper. "Please touch me. I'll do anything. Anything you want."
Your hand slides down, slow, wrapping around the base of him again — not stroking, just holding, letting him feel the warmth of your palm. He shudders, a full-body tremor that runs through his whole frame.
"Anything?" you say.
"Yes," he says, immediate, desperate. "Yes. Anything."
"What do you want, Spencer?" you ask, your voice low and unhurried, your hand still wrapped around the base of him, he's warm, still, maddening. "Say it. Tell me exactly what you want."
He makes a sound like you've stolen the air from his lungs. His eyes flutter closed, then open again, and he looks at you like you're holding his whole world in your palm. Which, technically, you are.
"I want—" His voice cracks. He swallows, tries again. "I want your mouth. Please. I want to feel you take me in your mouth and I want to watch you do it and I want—" He breaks off with a shuddering breath, his hand tightening in your hair. "God, Angel, I want to come so badly I can't think straight. I've been thinking about this for weeks. About you. About your hands and your mouth and the sounds you'd make."
"And?"
"And I want to be good for you," he says, the words tumbling out, raw and unguarded. "I want to do whatever you ask. I want to earn it. Please."
The last word comes out wrecked, and the sight of him like this — brilliant, careful, endlessly patient Spencer Reid, reduced to a trembling, desperate mess in your hands — sends a thrill straight through you.
"Good boy," you say softly, and the sound he makes in response is almost a sob.
You lean in, slow, keeping your eyes on his. His breath catches. His hips twitch, a helpless, involuntary roll, and you let him watch you lower your head, let him feel the first hot brush of your breath against the slick head of him before your lips part—
The sharp trill of your phone cuts through the room like a blade.
The phone keeps trilling, a sharp, insistent buzz against the coffee table, but you don't look at it. You don't even blink. Your eyes stay locked on his as you lower your head and take him into your mouth.
The sound he makes is punched out of him — a strangled, broken groan that cuts off mid-breath. His hips jerk, a helpless reflex, and his hand tightens in your hair, knuckles white against your scalp. He doesn't push. He just holds on, trembling, as you take him slow, inch by inch, your tongue pressing flat along the underside of him.
"That's—" He swallows, voice wrecked. "Oh god, Angel, that's—"
The phone rings again, muffled by the wet heat of your mouth, and you hum around him in answer. The vibration ripples through him and his whole body seizes, a sharp gasp tearing out of him.
"Fuck," he breathes, the word falling out of him like he's never said it before. "You're going to make me—" You pull off just long enough to breathe, your hand replacing your mouth, stroking slow and firm. The phone rings a third time. Somewhere in the apartment, a message tone chimes. "Let it ring," you say, and your voice is rough, slick. "I'm busy."
He lets out a sound that's half laugh, half sob, and his forehead falls against yours. "The BAU is never going to let me live this down."
"Then don't tell them." You take him back into your mouth, deeper this time, your nose brushing the coarse hair at his base, and whatever he was about to say dissolves into a shuddering moan. His head falls back, his throat bobbing as he swallows, and you feel the pulse of him against your tongue, he's close, so close.
The phone finally stops ringing. The silence that follows is thick, wet, full of his ragged breathing and the soft, rhythmic sounds of your mouth working him.
"Angel," he gasps, and the name is a plea, a prayer, a warning. "I'm— I can't hold—"
You feel him pulsing against your tongue, right at the edge, his whole body strung tight as a wire, and you slow down.
Not stop. Never stop. Just less. Your mouth slides up, letting the head of him drag along your tongue until it slips free with a wet pop, and you replace it with your hand, stroking slow and loose, barely enough friction to matter.
He makes a sound like you've broken something inside him. His hips chase your fist, desperate and blind, and you let him — one, two shallow thrusts — before you tighten your grip at the base, holding him still.
"Angel," he gasps, and his voice is wrecked, cracking at the edges. "Please. Please, I was so close—"
"I know, baby." You press a kiss to the inside of his thigh, slow. "That's why I stopped." His head falls back. A sound escapes him, half groan, half whimper, and you watch his throat work as he swallows, trying to find words.
"Please," he tries again, and the word comes out rough, scraped raw. "Please, I'll do anything. I'll— I'll recite pi to a hundred digits. I'll read you every book in my apartment. I'll—" His voice breaks. "I'll be so good for you, Angel, I promise, just please let me come."
"Anything?" you ask, and your hand starts moving again, a slow, maddening, movement, your thumb catching the head on every upward stroke. "Say it properly. Tell me what you're begging for."
He shudders, a full-body tremor that runs through his thighs. "I'm begging you to let me come," he says, and the words tumble out like water through a broken dam. "I'm begging you to take me in your mouth and not stop until I'm finished. I'm begging you to— to make me feel like I'm the only thing in the world that matters, because you already do, you already make me feel that way, and I need—" His voice cracks. "I need you. Please." The last word is barely a whisper, and his eyes are wet when they meet yours, and he's trembling, and he's beautiful.
You pull away completely, your hand lifting from him, leaving him hard and slick and utterly untouched in the cool air. He makes a sound — a wounded, desperate noise — and his hips roll forward, chasing contact that isn't there anymore.
"Please," he gasps. "Please, Angel, I was right there—"
"I know." Your voice is low, steady. You settle back on your knees, watching him; the flush across his chest, the way his stomach muscles clench and release, the desperate, glassy look in his eyes. "But you asked me to make you feel like you're the only thing that matters. So listen to me, Spencer."
His breath hitches. His hands grip the couch cushion behind him, knuckles white.
"You're going to come for me," you say, soft and certain. "Not because I'm touching you. Because I'm watching you. Because I want it. Because you've been so good for me tonight — so patient, so careful, so perfect — and I want to see what you look like when you let go."
A shudder rolls through him, his whole body trembling like a struck wire. His eyes are locked on yours, wide and desperate and wet at the corners.
"You don't have to touch yourself," you continue, your voice dropping lower, wrapping around him. "You just have to let go. Let me see it. Come for me, Spencer."
His mouth falls open. A broken sound escapes him — half groan, half sob — and then his back arches off the couch, his hips jerking upward, and he comes with a strangled cry of your name. Thick ropes of it spill across his stomach, his chest, his trembling thighs, and you watch every second of it, holding his gaze until the last shudder passes through him.
He slumps against the couch, chest heaving, utterly wrecked, a sheen of sweat on his skin. His eyes find yours, dazed and soft.
"Angel," he whispers, like it's the only word he remembers. "Come here. Please."
You don't climb into his lap right away. Instead, you lean over him, slow, and press your mouth to his stomach — right where the first rope of him landed, still warm and slick. He jerks beneath you, a sharp inhale hissing through his teeth.
"Angel," he breathes, but it's not a protest. It's a question he's too spent to finish.
You answer it with your tongue. A slow, flat stroke through the mess on his skin, tasting him — salt and heat, a faint bitterness that's purely him. His stomach clenches under your mouth, and his hand finds your hair, not pulling, just resting there, trembling. You take your time. Lazy passes of your lips across his chest, following the path he spilled, cleaning every stripe. His skin is hot and damp beneath you, his heartbeat hammering under your tongue when you pause over his sternum. A soft, broken sound escapes him, half moan, half laugh, the kind that catches in his throat.
"That's—" He swallows. "That's a lot of— I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"
You lift your head, and the look on his face stops you — dazed, soft, utterly undone. His eyes are glassy, his lips parted, his hair glued to his forehead. He looks like a man who's forgotten his own name.
"Don't be sorry," you say. "I wanted to taste you."
Something in his expression cracks open, and his thumb traces your jaw, featherlight. "You're going to ruin me," he says. "I think you already have."
You smile, and lower your mouth back to his skin, finishing the work. When you reach the last smeared trail at the hollow of his hip, you let your lips linger, feeling the twitch of his spent body under your mouth, the way his breath still comes uneven.
"Come here," he whispers, and this time he reaches for you, tugging gently until you're sprawled across his chest, his arms wrapping around you, his lips pressing to the top of your head. His heart thuds under your ear, steadying. He holds you like he's afraid to let go, and for a long moment, neither of you moves.
"Now," you say against the warm skin of his chest, the word muffled but clear. "You've had your turn. You've got to fuck me now."
He goes still beneath you, then lets out a breath that sounds just like a faint laugh. "I just came so hard I saw static," he says, but his hands are already sliding down your back, finding the curve of your hips. "Give me a second."
"I've given you plenty of seconds." You push yourself up, straddling him, and the look in his eyes when you settle over him makes your chest ache. "I've been wet since your mouth was on me, Spencer. I've been patient. I've been good."
"Christ." His hands tighten on your hips, thumbs pressing into the bone. "You have. You've been so good."
He moves before you can push further, a roll of his hips, a shift of his weight, and suddenly you're on your back on the couch, him braced above you, his forearms caging your head. His forehead is sweaty, his hair a mess, and he's looking down at you like you're the only thing in the world worth seeing.
"I've got you," he says, low, and dips his head to kiss you. Deep, slow, a promise. His knee nudges your thighs apart, and the heat of him settles against you, still slick with his spend, and you feel the first twitch of him stirring again against your hip.
"See?" you breathe against his mouth. "Told you."
His laugh is soft, wrecked. "You're going to be the death of me."
His hand slides down between you, fingers finding you slick and ready, and he groans at what he finds. "God, Angel. You're soaked." He strokes you slowly, two fingers parting you, and your hips lift to meet him.
"I told you," you manage, breath catching as he circles your clit. "Now stop teasing and—"
He pushes inside you in one smooth motion, and the word dies in your throat.
"Look at me," you whisper, the words barely carrying over the sound of your own breathing. "I want to see you."
He does. His eyes find yours — dark, blown wide, still soft at the edges from what you did to him minutes ago — and he holds your gaze as he sinks into you, slow, inch by inch, letting you feel every part of him. The stretch of it makes your breath hitch, your fingers curling into the couch cushion beneath you.
"There," he breathes, and the word is thick. "There you are."
He bottoms out and stills, braced above you, the weight of him pressing you into the cushions. His jaw is tight, a fine tremor running through his arms, and you can see him fighting for control — that careful, cataloguing mind of his, trying to hold on.
"Don't," you say, and your voice comes out rougher than you meant. "Don't think. Just feel me."
A sound escapes him, low and broken, and he moves. The first thrust is deep, dragging against you in a way that makes your eyes roll. His forehead drops to yours, and he keeps looking at you, the whole time, through every stroke, like he's afraid you'll disappear if he blinks. The rhythm builds, wet and rhythmic, the sound of him moving inside you filling the low-lit room. His hand slides beneath your knee, hitching your leg higher over his hip, changing the angle, and the new depth of it punches a gasp out of you.
"God, Angel," he groans, the words spilling against your mouth. "You feel— I can't—"
"Don't stop," you breathe. "Don't you dare stop."
He doesn't. His pace turns hungrier, less careful, his restraint cracking at the edges. His thumb finds your clit, slick and rough, working you in time with his thrusts, and the pressure behind your belly button coils bright and hot.
"Look at me," he echoes, and his voice is wrecked, desperate, beautiful. "I want to see you when you come."
Your hand slides up the column of his throat before you think it through, your palm flat against his pulse, fingers curling around the sides, just resting there. His eyes go wide, a flicker of something sharp and bright passing through them.
"Angel?" His voice comes out tight, strangled, and he doesn't pull away.
Your fingers tighten, just a little. Not hard. Just enough to let him feel it, feel you, the pressure of your hand around his throat, a promise. His thrusts stutter, his rhythm breaking apart, and a sound escapes him, it's low, wrecked, just like it was punched out of his chest.
"God," he breathes. "God, that's—"
Your grip firms as he moves, the muscles of his neck working against your palm, his pulse hammering under your fingers. You feel every swallow he tries to make, every gasp he can't quite catch. His eyes stay locked on yours, dark and wet and completely unguarded.
"Keep going," you say, and your voice is barely a whisper. "Don't stop."
He doesn't. His hips find the rhythm again, deeper now, harder, and each thrust pushes him into your hand, his throat pressing against your palm like he's offering it to you. His jaw is slack, his lips parted, and he looks ruined and beautiful and utterly yours.
"You like that," you say, not a question.
"Yeah," he gets out, the word scraping past your grip. "Yeah, I— Angel, I—"
His breathing turns ragged, shortened by your fingers, and you can feel him swelling inside you, closer with every stroke. Your thumb brushes the line of his jaw, then presses, just slightly, against the hollow of his throat, and he shudders above you, a full-body tremor that makes his next thrust go deep and sloppy.
"Please," he gasps, and the word is barely audible, cracked at the edges. "Please, I'm so close, please don't stop—"
Your hand tightens one last time, holding him there, and he comes with a broken cry of your name, his body shuddering through it as you keep your grip steady, feeling every pulse of him through your fingers. You don't let go. Not right away. Your hand stays wrapped around his throat, feeling the pulse hammer there, fast, wild, slowly settling back into a rhythm. His eyes are still locked on yours, glassy and dark, his chest heaving under your palm where his weight presses you into the couch.
He's still inside you, softening, and neither of you moves to change that.
"Angel," he gets out, and the word comes rough, scraped raw. He swallows against your fingers, and you feel it, the bob of his throat under your palm, the way he doesn't flinch, doesn't pull back.
You hold him there a moment longer, watching him come down. The flush across his chest. The flushed cheeks. The strand of hair stuck to his forehead. The way his hands, still braced on either side of your head, are trembling — not from fear. From everything.
"Okay," you say softly, and your grip loosens, fingers trailing down the column of his throat, over his collarbone, settling flat against his heart. "I've got you."
He exhales like he's been holding it for years. His forehead drops to yours, and he stays there, breathing you in, his whole body slack above you. "Marry me," he whispers, and then makes a sound that's half laugh, half sob. "Sorry. That's— I don't know where that came from. I think you broke me. In a good way. In the best way."
You laugh, quiet and wet, and your arms come up around his neck, pulling him down into you. He goes, folding into your embrace, his face buried against your shoulder, his weight warm and solid and real. The phone on the table glows with its missed calls. The sunlight steams through the window. The clock on your wall ticks the minutes away, and he holds you like he never wants to let go.
"Spencer," you say into his hair, "the BAU called four times."
"Mmm." He doesn't move. "They can wait."
You untangle from him slowly, the cool air of the apartment finding the places where his body had been pressed against yours. Spencer makes a soft sound of protest but lets you go, his hand trailing down your arm as you reach for the phone on the coffee table.
Four missed calls. Three from Hotch. One from Garcia. A voicemail.
You press play, and Garcia's voice fills the room, tinny and bright despite the hour. "Hey, you two. Just checking in — the unsub's talking. He's not saying much, but he asked about you. By name. We've got him locked up tight, so try to rest, okay? Call me tomorrow when you're up. Love you both. Bye." The message ends. The silence that follows is thick with everything unsaid.
"He asked about me," you say, and your voice comes out smaller than you meant it to.
Spencer sits up, reaching for you, his hand finding your knee. "He's in a cell. He can't reach you. He can't ever reach you again." You nod, but the words hang in the air, your mind going back to Naomi, to Julia, to the diary. "Hey." Spencer's hand moves to your face, turning you gently toward him. His eyes are tired but steady. "You're here. I'm here. He's not. That's all that matters tonight."
You look at him and something in your chest loosens. "Okay," you whisper. "Okay." He pulls you back down against him, his arms wrapping around you, his lips pressing to your hair. The phone screen dims and goes dark. You let yourself be pulled back against him, and the fight drains out of you all at once. Spencer's arms tighten around you, his lips pressing into your hair, and he says something too low to catch, a shape of sound that feels like a promise.
You don't mean to fall asleep again. You're just suddenly there — the warm weight of him, the steady thud of his heart under your ear, the distant hum of the city beyond the window. The last thing you register is his hand, slow and rhythmic, stroking your back, and the smell of him — antiseptic and soap and something purely his.
things escalate, the unsub shows at your door, you’re his next target. luckily, spencer is there with you, and you have the whole bau at your side, eager to help you.
genre, tags and CWs: no use of y/n, fluff, angst(?), suspense (?), reader steps up to workkkkkk, death threats, manipulation, mentions of murder (ofc), lots and lots of unraveling investigation, innacurate geography again, mutual pining, eventual smut.
word count: 16k……..
A/N: this is so freaking long i had to turn it into a trilogy, i promise the smut is coming next part, ill make it worth the wait. same warnings, i tried to fix most of the mistakes, but if they’re still there, just pretend you didn’t see it lol!!
Greenwich, Connecticut — 4:33 PM
The Fitzwilliam estate sits behind wrought-iron gates and a quarter-mile of private drive, all rolling lawn and old-growth oaks. The main house is Georgian brick, three stories, with black shutters and a portico that could swallow a car. It looks like the kind of place where ambassadors retire and debutantes have their coming-out parties. Reid stands in the master bedroom, hands in his coat pockets, watching a forensic tech work a small floor safe in the back of the closet. The room is elegant; A four-poster bed, antique armoire, a watercolor of the English countryside above the fireplace. No signs of struggle. No signs of a second life at all. Morgan leans against the doorframe. "Anything?"
"Combination lock. Seven digits." The tech glances up. "Could be a date. Phone number. Could take a while." Hotch's voice carries from the hallway. "Prentiss, check the study for any ledgers or appointment books. Rossi, the guest wing. Look for anything that suggests long-term occupancy."
Reid's phone buzzes. He pulls it out.
You (4:24 PM): do you have enough to arrest him?
He reads it twice. Types his reply, then puts the phone away.
Morgan raises an eyebrow. "Everything okay?"
"Fine." He smiles, then pulls himself from the safe and crosses the wide, echoing hallway to the study. The room is paneled in dark walnut, floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with leather-bound volumes — history, law, a complete set of Burke's Peerage. A mahogany desk sits at the far end, neat and organized, and Prentiss is bent over it, flipping through a leather-bound ledger. She looks up as he enters. "Anything?"
"Seven-digit safe. They're working on it." Spencer moves closer, eyes scanning the spines. "What about this?"
"Appointment calendar. Two years' worth." Emily turns the ledger toward him, tapping a page. "Every other Thursday, marked in pencil. No location noted, but the dates line up with Naomi Evans's schedule and Julia Williams's." He leans in. The handwriting is clean, precise. 3:15 beside each date. A time, not an address. "Anything else?" Prentiss flips further back. "Same pattern going back four years. And—" She pulls out a slim leather journal from under the ledger. "This was locked in the bottom drawer. Personal diary."
Spencer takes it carefully, opening to a page near the middle. The handwriting shifts, it’s looser, the pages are marked, as if he wrote with a lot more force this time. A single passage catches his eye.
She asked about my wife. I told her the truth, that I love Eleanor. She smiled and said she understood. They always understand, in the beginning.
He reads it again. Then the next entry.
I bought the ring today. Not for Eleanor. For the next one. I'll leave it beside her so everyone knows she was loved.
Reid pulls out his phone, the diary still open in his other hand. He hits Garcia's contact.
She picks up on the first ring. "Oh, look who it is! The boy genius, emerging from the Connecticut wilderness to grace me with a phone call."
"Garcia. I need you to run something."
"You always need me to run something. The question is whether you deserve my help, given that you have been ghosting me on a very important matter."
Spencer frowns. "What matter?"
"The matter of a certain woman who has been occupying your text thread at frankly ungodly hours. I have sources, Spencer. I have logs. You think I don't notice when my favorite genius starts sending paragraphs at 3 AM to a mysterious number?"
Emily looks up from the ledger, one eyebrow raised.
Spencer’s ears go red. "That's— that's not relevant to the case, Garcia."
"Oh, it's extremely relevant to the case, because it tells me you have feelings and you're not sharing them with the team therapist like a well-adjusted adult."
"Garcia."
"I'm just saying! She's pretty. She's smart. She texts you about knitting and literature and you go all soft-eyed—"
"We are not having this conversation."
"You're having it right now, baby genius. You called me."
Reid pinches the bridge of his nose. Prentiss hides a smile behind the ledger. He sighs, a sound that carries the weight of the last three days. "Garcia. I'll tell you about it later. I promise."
There's a pause on the other end. When she speaks again, the teasing edge has softened into something gentler. "Fine. I'm holding you to that. Now, what did you actually call about?"
He glances at the diary in his hand. The pages are worn, the ink sepia-dark in the low study light. "I need you to cross-reference the name Theodore Fitzwilliam, Sixth Earl of Whitmore, against any property records, shell companies, or aliases tied to the hotels on our map. The Langham, the Pierre, the St. Regis, the Ritz-Carlton, the Greenwich Hotel."
"Already on it, sweet pea. The second Hotch sent me the warrant, I started digging. Give me ten minutes and I'll have more than you wanted to know."
"And Garcia—" Spencer hesitates. "The diary. It reads like a confession. He wrote about buying a ring. About leaving it beside the body so 'everyone knew she was loved.'" Silence. Then, quietly: "I'll fast-track the property search. You focus on that book."
He hangs up. Emily watches him with an unreadable expression. "A confession?"
"Of sorts." Spencer sets the diary on the desk, open to the entry he was reading. "He doesn't name names. But he describes the ritual." Prentiss reads the passage. Her jaw tightens immediately. "We need to get this to Hotch. Now."
"I want to photograph every page first," Spencer says, already pulling his phone out. "Evidence chain. If something happens to the original on the way to Quantico—" Emily nods. "Smart. I'll keep an eye on the door."
He lays the diary flat on the desk and works through it methodically. Page by page. The first entries are mundane — meeting times, expenses, a note about a tailor in Savile Row. But as he moves deeper, the tone shifts. The handwriting tightens.
March 12. She wore red. I told her it reminded me of the roses at Whitmore Hall. She laughed. I knew then it would be soon.
April 3. The ring is heavier than I expected. I practice holding it in my palm. Eleanor asked what I was thinking about. I told her: us. It wasn't a lie.
He photographs each spread. The leather creaks as the pages are turned. Some entries are crossed out, rewritten. He edited himself, Reid realizes. He chose his words carefully even in private. When Spencer reaches the last written page, he pauses.
June 9. I saw her today. The one from the Pierre, the girl with the soft hair and the sad eyes. She was buying fruit at a market in SoHo. She didn't see me. I stood across the street for ten minutes, watching her weigh oranges in her hands. She looked happy. I wanted to tell her she shouldn't be.
Spencer’s blood goes cold. The girl with the soft hair and the sad eyes.
You.
He closes the diary. The leather creaks softly in his lean hands. Forty-seven photographs, timestamped and saved. The last image sits in his camera roll — the girl with the soft hair and the sad eyes — and he forces himself to hold it together.
"We really need to get this to Hotch." Spencer’s voice comes out even. "And we need to warn her."
Prentiss is already moving. "I'll find him. You call her." She's out the study door before he can argue. He doesn’t. He pulls up your contact and presses call before he can overthink it.
It rings once. Twice. Thrice.
Pick up.
Four rings.
Please pick up.
A click. Your voice, uncertain: "Hello?"
He breathes out your name in relief and doesn’t waste his time, he doesn’t soften it. He doesn’t ease in. "Theodore Fitzwilliam kept a diary. In it, he describes watching you in SoHo. Buying fruit. He stood across the street and watched you for ten minutes." Silence on the line. You can hear your own breathing. "I need you to listen to me carefully. He's been observing you outside of bookings. That escalates his risk profile significantly. I'm going to arrange protective detsail—"
"I don't want protective detail." Your voice is quiet but steady. "I told you that already."
"He wrote about you. By description, but clearly enough that I knew it was you the moment I read it. He says you looked happy. He says he wanted to tell you that you shouldn't be."
The words hang in the air. You exhale, slow and deliberate.
"Where are you right now?" he asks.
"Home. On my couch. There's a half-finished sweater next to me."
"Good. Stay there. Don't open the door for anyone you don't know. I'm coming to you."
He hangs up before you can argue. Emily is already at the study door, phone in hand. "Hotch is authorizing protection. I'll coordinate with Martinez."
Spencer’s already moving past her, the diary tucked under his arm, heart hammering a rhythm he refuses to name. He’s halfway to the front door when he stops, phone already in hand. He pulls up Garcia's contact and hits call as he strides across the marble foyer.
"Miss me already?" she answers.
"Garcia. I need you to pull up the exterior cameras for her building in Manhattan. Traffic cams, building security, anything with a line of sight on her front door and fire escape."
"You're spying on your crush? Spencer, that's—"
"She's in danger. Fitzwilliam wrote about watching her in SoHo. I'm en route to her apartment now, but I need eyes on her location until I get there."
The playfulness drops from her voice. "Address?"
You give it to her. Keys click in the background.
"Pulling up now... got a street-level cam on the corner. Give me sixty seconds to find the building's internal system."
He pushes through the front door of the estate, past the forensic van, toward the sedan parked in the drive. Prentiss calls something after him and he waves without even turning.
"Building lobby cam is online," Garcia says. "No unusual activity. Elevator bank is clear. Her floor corridor is quiet."
"Keep watching. Call me if anything changes."
"Already locked in, baby genius. Go."
Spencer ends the call with Garcia and slides into the sedan, engine already turning over before the door's fully shut. The estate gates opens ahead of him, slow as molasses, and he’s through them before they're halfway there.
The drive to Manhattan is a blur of highway and tunnel, brake lights and merging traffic. The GPS clocks forty-two minutes. He makes it in thirty-one. He pulls up outside your building, a modest pre-war walk-up in a quiet stretch of Tribeca. The street is calm. A delivery truck idles at the corner. A woman walks her dog past the front steps. Nothing unusual. Spencer kills the engine and is out of the car before it's fully stopped. The lobby door is unlocked. He takes the stairs two at a time, heart pounding a rhythm he refuses to name. Third floor. Your door is at the end of the hall, painted a faded blue, a small welcome mat with a cat on it.
He knock. Two sharp raps.
"Hey. It's Reid." He stands in the dim hallway, hand half-raised to knock again.
The thought is strange and warm and terrifying all at once. You hear his breathing through the wood, quick, like he ran the stairs. You hadn't expected him to actually come. A text, maybe. A call. A police cruiser parked outside your building.
Not him. Not standing in your hallway in person.
The door doesn't open. The seconds stretch. Then he hears it, soft footsteps, a pause, and the click of a lock.
The door swings open.
You stand in the frame, barefoot, wearing an oversized cardigan over shorts. Your hair is pulled back loosely, a few strands falling across your face. You looks tired, like you’be been holding it together by a thread. For a moment, neither of you speaks.
"He wrote about me?" you ask quietly. "Yeah." Spencer keeps his voice low. "He did." You step back, holding the door open. "Come in."
He does. The apartment feels smaller with him in it — not in a bad way, just different. He stops in the center of the living room, hands at his sides, looking at your books, your tea, your half-finished sweater like he's trying to memorize the space. "How did you get here so fast?"
"I drove." He just stands there, hands at his sides. "Garcia is monitoring the cameras on your building. No unusual activity so far. But I wanted to be here." You cross your arms, looking at him with an expression he can't quite read. "You didn't have to come all the way out here just to babysit me."
"I know." He meets your eyes. "I came anyway.".
The words sit between you. You look away first, at the sweater on the couch, the soft grey and cream yarn. "Do you want tea? I was about to make a fresh pot."
You push off from the door and pad into the kitchen, filling the kettle without asking if he actually wants tea. He didn't say no. That's close enough. The kitchen is small, and you can feel him behind you, standing awkwardly in the living room, not quite sure where to land. You pull down two mugs, drop a bag of green tea in each, and wait for the water to boil. Behind you, the apartment is quiet. You hear him shift his weight. Then a soft sound, something like fabric being lifted. You glance over your shoulder.
He's holding the sweater. The one you finished this afternoon. It's draped over his hands, navy and maroon, soft in the low light. He's not looking at you. He's looking at the sweater, then at the couch, then back at the sweater. Measuring. He says your name, his voice is careful. "This is—" He holds it up. It's long. The sleeves would fall past your fingertips if you tried to wear it. "It's too big for you." The kettle clicks off. Steam rises. You keep your back to him, hands on the counter. "I know," you say quietly. You turn from the kettle, the mugs of steaming tea forgotten on the counter.
"It's for you. If you want it."
The words hang in the air between you. He's still holding the sweater, hands loose around the shoulders, like he's afraid to crease it. His expression shifts, something unreadable crossing his features before he schools it back to neutral. "For me?" His voice comes out slightly higher than usual. He clears his throat. "I mean, you made this. Today. While I was in Greenwich."
"I didn't plan it." You wrap your arms around yourself. "I just started knitting and didn't stop until it was done. And then I realized who I'd made it for." He looks down at the sweater in his hands. The soft maroon stripes. The navy panels. The careful seams. When he looks back up, there's something raw in his eyes, quickly hidden.
"I—" He stops. Starts again. "No one's ever made me anything before." The words land somewhere deep in your chest. You don't know what to say to that, so you say nothing. Just cross the room, take the sweater gently from his hands, and hold it up against his shoulders.
"It'll fit," you say quietly. "I measured it, at least I tried to, in my own way.” He goes very still. The words tumble out of you in a rush, like water breaking through a dam.
"I'm sorry if that's a lot. I just— I made it, I wasn't really thinking, I guess you were just in my mind and I don't want you to think anything wrong of me. I know a man like you would never want to be seen with such a dirty woman like I am and I—"
He says your name quietly, but it cuts through the spiral. You stop, mouth open, heart hammering. He's still holding the sweater, one hand pressed to the navy-colored yarn like he's grounding himself in it. "Stop." His voice is soft, but firm. "Just— stop for a second."
You press your lips together. Your eyes sting.
He takes a step closer. Then another. He's close enough that you can see the flecks of gold in his irises, the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw. "I'm going to say something," he says carefully, "and I need you to hear it. Not deflect. Not apologize. Just hear it." You nod, barely.
"You're not dirty." He says it like it's a fact, like he's citing a theorem. "You're a woman who did what she had to do to survive. And you're kind, and you're smart, and you text me at 3 AM about Clarice Lispector, and you made me a sweater." He pauses. "A man like me would be really lucky to be seen with you."
The tears spill over. You don't try to stop them. You wipe your eyes with the back of your hand. The tears keep coming, but quieter now. You sniff, once, and meet his eyes. "Try it on. Please."
He looks down at the sweater in his hands, then back at you. For a moment you think he might argue — deflect, minimize, do something academic and distancing. Instead, he shrugs off his coat and pulls the sweater over his head. It settles over his shoulders like it was made for him. Which it was. The maroon stripes catch the light. The sleeves end just past his wrists. The hem falls clean at his hips. He looks down at himself, runs a hand along the sleeve. When he looks up, his expression is open in a way you haven't seen before.
"It fits."
You let out a breath you didn't realize you were holding. "Yeah. It does." He stands there in your apartment, wearing something you made, and neither of you speaks. The tea cools on the counter. The city hums outside your window. The sweater looks right on him. Natural. Like it belongs. He touches the collar. "The stitch pattern, is this seed stitch?"
You blink, dumbfounded. "You know knitting?"
"I know a lot of things." A small, almost-shy smile. "I read a book on textile manufacturing once. Seed stitch, stockinette, ribbing. I know the theory."
"Keep it. I made it for you."
The words settle between you. He looks down at the sweater again, runs his palm along the sleeve like he's still processing the reality of it. When he looks up, something in his expression has shifted, something softer, less guarded.
"I will." His voice is quiet. "I'll wear it." The silence stretches for a bit. The kettle's long gone cold but neither of you moves toward the kitchen. "This is—" He starts, stops, tries again. "I don't have a lot of people who do things for me. Not like this. Not without wanting something in return." You tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. "I don't want anything from you, Spencer. I just—" You glance at the sweater, at him, at the floor. "I wanted you to be warm." He's quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is rough at the edges. "I am." His hand traces the sleeve again, slow, like he's memorizing the texture. He opens his mouth to say something, but he’s interrupted.
A knock at the door.
You both freeze. Your eyes meet his. That knock isn't anyone checking in. It isn't a delivery. Every instinct you've honed in this city prickles at the back of your neck. Reid holds up a hand, signaling you to stay still. He moves silently toward the door, steps light, and peers through the peephole. His body goes rigid.
He turns to you, face pale, and mouths three words: Don't. Open. The door.
Then the knocking comes again. And a voice — low, English, smooth as polished wood.
"I know you're in there. I saw the light. I just want to talk."
Theodore Fitzwilliam.
You step around Spencer before he can stop you, pressing yourself against the door. Your voice comes out steadier than you feel. "Who is it?" A pause. Then that voice again, warm, polite, familiar from a dozen hotel rooms.
"It's Edward. From the Pierre. I hope I'm not interrupting, I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd take a chance. I know it's irregular." Edward. Not Theodore. Not the Earl of Whitmore. A false name, smooth as silk. You feel Spencer’s hand close gently around your wrist, pulling you back from the door. He shakes his head, eyes urgent. Outside, Fitzwilliam waits. You hear him shift his weight, the soft creak of the floorboards. "Hey?" His voice is still pleasant, still patient. "Are you going to let me in?"
"I don't take clients in my house." Your voice carries through the wood, steady, calm. "I thought you knew that." He pauses. You can almost hear him considering his response. "You're right. Of course. I apologize— I overstepped." A warm, self-deprecating chuckle. "I suppose I just wanted to see you. It's been a while." You don't answer. You turn your head, slow, and meet Spencer’s eyes. Your face asks the question your voice can't: What do we do?
His jaw is tight. He holds up a finger — wait — then pulls out his phone, thumbs moving fast. A second later, yours buzzes in your pocket. You don't reach for it. Can't risk the sound.
Another knock. Softer this time. Almost tender.
"I know you're scared. I know the FBI has been asking questions. But I'm not here to hurt you. I just want to explain." His voice is gentle. Kind. The same voice that asked about your day, that poured your wine, that told you about his boat and his wife. The voice of a man who left rings beside dead women. You take a breath. Reid's hand is still on your wrist, warm and steady. "What do you want to explain?" you call through the door.
A pause. When he speaks again, his voice is softer. Almost vulnerable.
"Everything. The woman they found at the Langham, Naomi innit? I knew her. I cared about her. And then she was gone, and I couldn't—" A shaky exhale. "I couldn't save her. And now the FBI thinks I had something to do with it. With her death. With the other girl. They're tearing my home apart looking for proof of something I didn't do." He's good. You'll give him that. He sounds like a man on the edge of breaking. "I didn't know where else to go. You were always kind to me. You listened. You never judged. I thought—" A pause. "I thought maybe you'd be the one person who'd hear me out." Across the room, Spencer’s phone buzzes silently in his hand. He glances down, then holds it up for you to see.
Garcia (4:51 PM): Motion detected on your floor. Someone's in the stairwell. Two figures. I can't get a visual but they're not moving like cops.
Your blood runs cold. He's not alone.
Your eyes catch Spencer’s. You don't break the gaze. You lift your chin, just slightly, toward his phone. Call them. He understands immediately. He steps back, fingers moving over the screen, keeping his movements low and quiet.
You turn back to the door. Breathe. Find the voice you used in a hundred hotel rooms, the warm, professional, slightly distracted one. "I hear you, Edward." You soften your tone, let it tremble just a little. "I do. I can't imagine what this has been like for you."
"Then let me in." His voice is almost pleading now. "Please. Just — ten minutes. I'll tell you everything, and then I'll go. You'll never see me again." You glance at Spencer. He's on the phone now, speaking in near-silent murmurs, his free hand pressed flat against the wall. Still on hold. Still waiting. You need more time. "Ten minutes," you repeat, stalling. "Edward, you show up at my door unannounced, you want me to let you into my home, and you think ten minutes is going to make this right?"
A pause. Then, softer, almost hurt: "I thought you understood me." Something in his voice has shifted. The warmth is still there, but underneath it, a cold thread, thin as wire.
"I did understand you, Edward." Your voice softens, almost tender. "That's why this hurts." Silence. You press your ear close to the wood, listening for movement. A long, slow exhale on the other side.
"You always knew what to say." His voice is quiet now, almost sad. "I admired that about you. The way you could hold a room without raising your voice. The way you made a man feel like he was the only person in the world." He pauses. The floorboards creak as he shifts his weight. "That's why I came tonight. Not to hurt you, but to give you a chance." His tone hardens, just a fraction. "You've been talking to the FBI. I know you have. And I know you've told them things. But I also know you haven't told them everything."
Your blood goes cold. Beside you, Spencer’s fingers fly across his phone screen. He holds it up: Backup en route. 5 minutes.
Five minutes. You look at the door. At the man on the other side. At the man wearing your sweater, standing in your living room, trying to save your life. "Tell me what you think I haven't told them," you say, buying time. You catch Reid's eye and tilt your head toward the door. A single motion. He understands. He moves silently, his shoes barely whispering on the hardwood, and positions himself beside the frame, back pressed to the wall. His hand rests near his hip, where you know there's a holster. He meets your gaze. Steady. Ready.
You turn back to the door.
"Tell me what you think I haven't told them, Edward." Your voice is soft, curious. The voice you used for clients who wanted to feel heard. A long pause. When he speaks, his voice is lower. Something raw beneath the polish. "I think you haven't told them about the last time we met. The corner suite. The way you looked at me when I told you that I loved my wife." Your stomach drops. "You remember that night, don't you? You asked me why I cheated on her. And I told you— I told you the truth. That I loved Eleanor, and that was all. You smiled and said you understood.”
Spencer’s eyes are on you, sharp and questioning. You don't have an answer. You turn your head, slow, and meet his eyes. You lift your chin toward the door, then raise your eyebrows — a question you don't dare speak out loud.
Do you want me to open it?
His eyes widen. He shakes his head once, sharp and definitive. No. Then he holds up his phone. The screen glows in the dim apartment:
Garcia (4:53 PM): Backup is 10 minutes out. DO NOT ENGAGE.
You give him the smallest nod. Message received. You turn back to the door, heart pounding, and find your voice again. "Edward." Soft. Almost gentle. "I remember that night. I remember everything." A pause. You hear him breathe.
"Then you know I'm not a violent man." His voice is earnest, almost pleading. "I never raised a hand to you. I never raised my voice. I treated you with kindness. With respect."
"You did." Your throat tightens. "You were always gentle with me."
"I still am." A pause. "That's why I came tonight. To give you a choice. You can keep talking to the FBI, and I'll be forced to do something neither of us wants. Or you can open this door, and we can figure out a way forward together." The floorboards creak in the stairwell. Coming closer.
You straighten your spine, pulling your shoulders back. The fear is still there, coiled in your chest, but you push it down into the space you've always kept for that purpose. "You said you wanted to explain, Edward." Your voice is steady. "So explain." Another pause. You hear him breathe, slow and deliberate.
"I wanted to tell you about Naomi." His voice is quieter now. "The real story. Not what the FBI thinks."
"Then tell me."
"The night she died, I was with her." A long exhale. "I was in the hotel room. We argued. She wanted me to leave Eleanor. She said she'd go to the press, expose everything if I didn't. I told her I needed time." His voice cracks. "I left. And the next morning, she was dead."
Behind you, Reid's phone buzzes. He glances at it, then holds it up: Backup arriving. 30 seconds.
"Someone killed her after I left," Fitzwilliam continues. "Someone who knew about us. Someone who wanted to make it look like me." The stairwell creaks again. Closer now. You tense, listening past his voice to the sound of footsteps, more than one set, moving slow and deliberate. "I think it's the same person who killed Julia Williams. And I think—" He pauses. "I think they're coming for you next." Through the door, you hear it. A sound behind him — a muffled thud, a sharp intake of breath. Then Fitzwilliam's voice, suddenly strained:
"Run."
You press your eye to the cold metal of the peephole. The fisheye lens distorts the hallway, but you can see enough. Fitzwilliam is on his knees, hands raised. Behind him, two men in dark jackets have him pinned. One holds a gun to the back of his head. The other is already turning toward your door. Fitzwilliam's eyes meet yours through the peephole. There's no fear in them. No pleading.
He smiles.
Then the man beside him raises a fist and knocks, not the polite knock from before, but something harder. Official.
"FBI. Open up."
You pull back from the peephole, heart slamming against your ribs. Fitzwilliam smiled. He smiled at you through the door while a gun was pressed to his head. None of this is right. You grab Spencer’s arm and yank him toward the back of the apartment. "Fire escape," you hiss. "Now." He doesn't argue. Doesn't ask. He's moving with you, one hand going to his holster, the other catching the fire escape latch before you've even reached it. The window screeches open, cold air flooding in.
Behind you, the knocking turns to pounding. A voice, harder now: "Open the door! This is your last warning!" You swing a leg over the sill. The fire escape is old iron, bolted to the brick, three flights down to the alley. Below, a dumpster. A stray cat scattering. No backup in sight. Reid follows, landing light beside you, pulling the window shut behind him. The metal grate rattles as you both descend, footsteps clanging in the dark.
Above, you hear the door splinter open.
You're halfway down the second flight when Spencer’s phone is already at his ear, pressed tight, his other hand guiding you by the elbow past a railing that groans under your weight. "Morgan. It's Reid." His voice is low, urgent, barely carrying over the wind. "We're on the fire escape. Men at the door, they claimed to be FBI. They broke it down. Fitzwilliam was with them. He was on his knees, they had a gun to his head, but he smiled at herthrough the peephole. Something's wrong." He pauses, boots hitting the next platform. You're both moving fast, the metal trembling with every step. "I need you to check if any of our people were dispatched to her address in the last five minutes, even though I don’t think there were. If not, we have hostiles in her apartment wearing federal badges."
Another pause. Morgan's voice, tinny through the speaker.
"Stay on the line. I'll ask someone to check now."
You hit the ground. The alley is narrow, dark, reeking of wet cardboard and garbage. A single streetlamp flickers at the far end. You look up, your apartment window is dark, but you can see movement behind the glass, shadows passing back and forth. Spencer grabs your hand. "This way. We need to put distance between us and that building." You're both at the bottom of the fire escape, your sneakers hitting gravel. He tugs you forward, but you plant your feet. "Spencer." Your voice is low, urgent. "Do you have a weapon?" He stops. His hand drifts to his hip, there’s a shape beneath his jacket, barely visible in the dim alley light. "Standard issue. Fifteen rounds." He pauses. "I'm a better profiler than I am a shot." You don't know if that's modesty or accuracy. You don't have time to figure it out.
Above you, a window slams open. A voice, sharp and commanding: "They took the fire escape! Go! Cut them off at the alley mouth!"
Spencer’s hand finds yours again. "This way." He pulls you past the dumpster, past an overflowing recycling bin, toward a gap between two buildings so narrow you have to turn sideways to fit. Brick scrapes your shoulder. The smell of wet concrete and diesel fills your lungs. Behind you, boots hit the fire escape. You push through the gap and emerge onto a side street, quiet and dark.
"He smiled at me like he'd planned this." You hear your own voice, thin and distant. "Like he knew. Like he wanted me to see it."
Spencer looks at you, and for a moment, the mask slips, not the composed FBI agent, but the profiler, processing. Piecing together the fragments. "Fitzwilliam on his knees," he says slowly. "Controlled. Not afraid. He wanted you to witness his capture." His eyes find yours in the dim streetlight. "And then men claiming to be FBI arrive to pick you up. Men who knew exactly when to knock." He's connecting dots you hadn't even seen. "It was a trap. He led them here." His jaw tightens. "The question is whose trap, and who those men really belong to."
His phone vibrates. He glances down.
Morgan (4:57 PM): No units dispatched to your location. Those aren't our people. Get clear and stay dark. We're coming to you.
“He won’t escape, will he?” Your voice cracks on the last word. You hate it, you hate how small you sound, how exposed. But you can't help it. The image of Fitzwilliam's smile, the way his eyes found yours through the peephole like he knew you'd be watching, it’s carved into the back of your skull. "Please, Spencer." You realize you're still holding his sleeve, your knuckles white against the wool. "Tell me he won't. Tell me he doesn't just walk away from this." He looks at you. The streetlight catches the side of his face, the hollows under his cheekbones. "I can't promise you he won't slip through something," he says quietly. "He's wealthy. Connected. He has resources most people can't imagine." His hand covers yours, briefly, on his sleeve. "But I can promise you this. I won't stop. None of us will. We have a diary. We have a pattern. We have him on camera at the Langham. And now we know he's working with people who are willing to impersonate federal agents." A pause. "That's not a man who's going to walk away.” His phone vibrates again. He glances down.
Morgan (5:01 PM): One block east. Blue sedan. Moving to you now.
You let go of his sleeve. The wool slips through your fingers, and you take a step back, giving him room. "Okay." Your voice is steadier now. "You know what you're doing. I'll follow your lead." He blinks, like he wasn't expecting that. Something flickers across his face — surprise, maybe, or gratitude — before he masks it. He gives you a single nod, then turns, scanning the street with quick, efficient movements. "Morgan's one block east. We move fast, stay close to the buildings, keep to the shadows." He points toward a narrow gap between a laundromat and a bodega. "Through there. Comes out on Broome. He'll be waiting." He looks back at you, and for a moment, he's not Dr. Spencer Reid, genius profiler. He's just a man in a sweater you knitted, standing in a dark street, trying to keep you alive. "Stay behind me. If I tell you to run, you run. Don't look back. Don't wait for me." He holds your gaze, waiting for your answer.
You ask, quietly: "What's the plan after we meet him? What happens next?"
His focus doesn't waver. He's already mapping routes in that mind of his, already three moves ahead.
"Morgan's driving. We get in, we don't stop moving until we're at a secure location. Hotch will have already started coordinating a safe house by now." A pause. "Then we figure out what Fitzwilliam actually wants. Because that display at your door—" He shakes his head. "That was a performance. He wanted to be seen. Wanted you to see him taken. There's a reason for that." He glances down the alley, then back at you. "We'll regroup, debrief, and compare what we know with what Fitzwilliam's diary says. Somewhere along the way, he made a mistake. Left a clue. We find it, we find him."
A car engine rounds the corner, low and steady. Headlights sweep the opposite wall, the blue sedan. Morgan.
"Ready?" Spencer asks. You nod once. "Ready." He moves, and you follow. The blue sedan pulls up to the curb, and the back door swings open before it's fully stopped. Morgan's face appears in the front seat, sharp, alert, scanning the street behind you.
"Get in. Now."
You slide into the back, Spencer’s right behind you, the door slamming shut before either of you has fully settled. Morgan's already pulling away, tires gripping asphalt, the sedan eating up the street. "Anyone on your tail?" His eyes flick to the rearview, checking. "Not yet," Spencer says. "But they know we went out the fire escape. They'll be sweeping the block." Morgan mutters something under his breath, takes a hard left, then another. The streets blur past, the dark storefronts, a bodega with its neon sign buzzing, a man walking his dog who doesn't even glance up. Normal. The world going on like you didn't just watch a man smile while a gun was pressed to his skull.
Morgan's phone is mounted on the dash. It buzzes.
Hotch (5:03 PM): Safe house secured. Sending coordinates. Prentiss and Rossi are en route.
Morgan glances at the message, then at you in the rearview. "You okay back there?" The question hangs in the air. You're not sure how to answer it. You say it to the back of Morgan's head, but your voice is hollow. "He smiled at me through the door, Morgan. Like it was a game." His eyes find you in the rearview. The easy confidence he usually carries is gone, replaced by something harder. He takes a turn, slow and deliberate, before answering. "A man like that, he's been playing games his whole life. Born into money, titled, never told no." His knuckles flex on the wheel. "He's not used to people slipping through his fingers. That smile? That was him telling you he's not worried. That he's got moves you haven't seen yet."
"He had a gun to his head," you say. "And he smiled."
"Because he knew those men. Because he arranged it." Morgan's jaw tightens. "The question is whether they're his private security, his family's connections, or something else entirely."
Spencer shifts beside you. The sweater brushes your arm. "Something else," he says quietly. "If they were his men, he wouldn't have needed the FBI cover story. He would've just taken her. The fact that they pretended to be federal agents means someone is trying to control the narrative. Make it look official." Morgan's phone buzzes again. Hotch's coordinates flash on the screen. "Then we figure out who they are from somewhere safe." He glances back at you. "You still with us?" You look down at your hands. They're trembling, fine, shallow tremors you can't seem to stop. You wrap your arms around yourself, press them into your ribs like that might steady them. It doesn't. Morgan waits. The car hums beneath you, streetlights sliding across the interior in amber streaks. "I'm here," you manage. It comes out smaller than you meant.
The sedan slows as Morgan takes another turn, pulling into a narrow street lined with brick buildings. Warehouses, maybe. Loading docks. Not the kind of place anyone would look twice at. He pulls into a bay between two buildings, kills the engine. The sudden silence is thick. Through the windshield, you see a steel door set into the brick, a single light above it buzzing faintly. "Safe house," Morgan says, unbuckling. "Prentiss and Rossi are already inside. Hotch is on his way." He turns to look at you, full face now, no rearview. "You walk in there, you're not alone. You got the whole team behind you."
Spencer opens his door, cold air flooding in. He waits, looking back at you. You nod. The motion feels mechanical, but it's enough. You unbuckle, push the door open, and step out into the cold night air. The steel door in front of you is plain, unmarked, designed to be overlooked. Spencer falls into step beside you as Morgan leads the way, knocking twice, then once, then twice again. The door swings open.
Emily is on the other side. She takes you in with a quick, professional sweep, checking for blood, for injuries, for the thousand tiny signs of trauma she's been trained to read. "You okay?" she asks. Not pressing. Just offering the question, leaving room for whatever answer you have. You step inside. The safe house is sparse, there’s concrete floors, a couple of worn couches, a small kitchen with a fluorescent light humming overhead. Rossi is at the counter, a cup of coffee in his hand. He gives you a nod, silent, acknowledging. The door clicks shut behind you. Bolted. Locked.
For the first time in what feels like hours, you can breathe. You find a corner. A concrete wall, a worn armchair that's seen better decades. You sink into it, and the moment your body stops moving, something in your chest gives way. Your hands are still shaking. You press them flat against your thighs, feel the denim beneath your palms, try to anchor yourself to something real. The fluorescent light hums overhead. Someone's moving in the kitchen, Rossi, pouring a second cup. Morgan's voice, low, on the phone in the next room. You don't cry. You're not sure you have the energy for it. You just sit, staring at the crack in the opposite wall, letting the silence settle around you like dust. A soft sound. Spencer lowers himself onto the arm of the chair beside you. Not crowding. Just present. He doesn't say anything. Doesn't tell you it's going to be okay, doesn't offer hollow reassurance. He just sits there, the wool of the sweater brushing your shoulder, a quiet anchor in the room. The minutes pass. The hum of the light. The distant murmur of voices. Your breathing, slowly, unevenly, finding its rhythm again. You turn your head. He's still there, a silhouette against the pale wall, the sweater hanging loose on his frame. "Tell me something," you say. Your voice is rough, like you haven't used it in hours. "Anything. Distract me."
He blinks. For a second, he looks caught off guard, like he wasn't expecting to be asked for anything, let alone conversation. Then his brow furrows, the way it does when he's sorting through the endless catalogue of his mind. "Did you know," he starts, slowly, "that the average person has about 60,000 thoughts per day? And that approximately 80% of them are negative, or at least repetitive. It's a cognitive bias called the negativity bias — we're wired to dwell on threats and unpleasant experiences because, evolutionarily, our survival depended on it." He pauses. Glances at you, like he's checking if this is working. "But there's also research suggesting that novelty can interrupt that cycle. New information, new stimuli, it forces your brain to redirect resources away from the rumination loop." Another pause. "That's why I'm telling you this. It's not just random trivia, it’s also my coping mechanism."
Some seconds of silence stretch.
"I mean, it is also random trivia. But it serves a purpose." You smile, getting more comfortable in the chair. “Keep going, I liked it.”
A flicker of something crosses his face. Encouragement, maybe. Relief that he's helping. "Alright." He shifts slightly on the armrest, getting comfortable. "Do you know why we associate knitting with grandmothers and cozy fireplaces when it was originally a strictly male profession? In sixteenth-century Europe, knitting guilds were exclusively male. Women weren't allowed to join. The first knitting machine was invented in 1589 by William Lee, an English clergyman, and he tried to get Queen Elizabeth I to grant him a patent. She refused, she said the machine would take work away from the poor." You glance down at your hands. They've stopped shaking, you realize. Somewhere between his voice and the trivia, the tremors faded. "She told him," Spencer continues, "to 'consider what the invention would do to the poor.' Lee moved to France, died in obscurity. His machine eventually became the framework for the modern textile industry." He pauses. "So, in a way, your sweater is the descendant of a failed Elizabethan patent and a profession that once excluded you." He says it with a faint, almost shy curve at the corner of his mouth. Like he's offering you a gift, wrapped in facts and history and the careful architecture of his mind.
Your fingers find the loose thread before you're fully aware of what you're doing. A small thing, barely visible — a strand of maroon wool working itself free near the cuff. You smooth it down, press it flat against his arm, and the gesture feels more intimate than it should. He goes quiet. You don't look up at him, but you feel the shift in his posture, the way he stills, like he's afraid to move and break whatever this is. "It's a good sweater," he says, after a moment. His voice is softer now. Less lecture, more... something else. "The tension is consistent. Even stitches. You clearly know what you're doing." You huff a breath, almost a laugh. "I've been knitting since I was twelve. First thing I ever made was a scarf that was somehow both too short and too wide. I wore it anyway for three winters."
"Because you made it."
You look up at him. "Because I made it." He holds your gaze. The fluorescent light hums. Somewhere in the other room, Morgan's voice rises and falls on the phone. But here, in this corner, time feels like it's slowed. Spencer clears his throat. "I've never had anything like that. Something someone made for me." He sighs. "Thank you. I don't think I said it properly earlier."
You look away.
The corner of the room suddenly becomes very interesting, the crack in the plaster, the way the light catches the dust motes floating in the air. Anything but his face, the earnestness in his voice, the way he said thank you like it cost him something. The silence stretches. Not uncomfortable, but full. Laden with something neither of you has a name for.
Rossi's voice cuts through, low and unhurried from the kitchenette: "Hotch is five minutes out. They found fibers in Fitzwilliam's car matching the rug from Naomi’s apartment."
The words land like stones in still water. Reality seeping back in. Emily appears at the edge of your vision, leaning against the doorframe. She looks at you, then at Spencer, then back at you. There's something knowing in her expression, but she doesn't comment. "There's food, if you want it," she says. "Nothing fancy. Rossi makes a mean grilled cheese." You shake your head before the offer's fully left her mouth. "I'm not hungry." Prentiss doesn't push. She just gives a small nod, the way someone does when they understand that insistence would only make it worse. She disappears back into the kitchen area, and you hear the low murmur of her voice joining Rossi's.
The corner holds you. The armchair holds you. You pull your knees up, wrap your arms around them, and stare at the crack in the wall. Spencer hasn't moved. He's still there, on the arm of the chair, a quiet presence at the edge of your vision. He doesn't fill the silence with more facts, more distractions. He just is.
Minutes pass. The lock on the door clicks. Hotch steps in, coat collar turned up against the cold, a manila folder tucked under his arm. He takes in the room with a single sweep: Rossi at the counter, Prentiss by the window, Morgan emerging from the back room, and you, curled in the corner with Reid at your side.
He doesn't comment. Just sets the folder on the table and flips it open. "We've got a positive ID on the men who posed as FBI. Off-duty NYPD. Paid detail, routed through a shell corporation." He looks up. "One of them lawyered up within the hour. The other gave us a name: Julian Fitzwilliam. Theodore's younger brother."
You're still in the corner, arms wrapped around your knees, but something in your chest hardens. You look up at Hotch, at the folder open on the table, at the evidence spread out like a hand of cards. "His brother." Your voice comes out stronger than you expected. "That means there's a connection. A paper trail. Accounts, properties, alibis." You pause. "You need to catch him. Please. Don't let him slip away through his family's money and his title and his smile. Don't let him become another unsolved case that gets filed away and forgotten." Hotch holds your gaze. There's no pity in his expression, no soft reassurance. Just a calm, measured assessment.
"We have a team executing a warrant on the Greenwich estate as we speak. Another at Fitzwilliam's city residence. We're tracking his known associates, freezing accounts linked to the shell corporation, and cross-referencing every property under the Fitzwilliam family trust." He flips a page in the folder. "If he's still in the country, we'll find him within the next twelve hours."
"And if he's not?"
Hotch's jaw tightens. "Then we make sure there's nowhere left for him to run."
You push yourself upright, just slightly, enough to see the folder from where you sit. The edge of it catches the light, pages spilling out.
"What else did the diary say about me?"
Hotch's expression doesn't change, but there's a beat of hesitation. A fraction of a second where he weighs something. Then he reaches into the folder and pulls out a photocopied page, slides it across the table toward you. You don't move to take it. It lies there, face-up, the handwriting elegant and measured. Looping cursive, the ink pressed deep into the paper.
She watches everything. That's what makes her dangerous. Most of them don't see the details, my cufflinks, the crest, the way I hold my glass. But she does. She sees me the way no one has in years.
I find myself wanting to be seen by her.
I find myself wanting her to see all of it.
The script continues, but the next line has been redacted. Thick black marker, a rectangle of ink.
She's going to be the last one.
The room is very quiet.
Spencer's voice, low: "That was on the page after the description of Naomi’s murder." Your hand moves before you tell it to. Reaches out. Slides the photocopy across the table until it's right in front of you.
She's going to be the last one.
You read it again. The words don't change. They sit there, elegant and damning, in that looping cursive. "The last one." Your voice is barely a whisper. "He meant me." You look up at Hotch. "Who redacted that line?"
"The bureau's legal team," he says. "The line after it contained specific details about the method, they sealed it to prevent copycats and preserve the integrity of the investigation."
"But you read it."
A pause. "Yes."
"So you know how he planned to do it."
Hotch holds your gaze. "I do."
He doesn't elaborate. He doesn't need to. The weight of what he's not saying fills the room like smoke. Morgan shifts by the door. "Hey." His voice is careful, measured. "You're in the safest place you can be right now. We've got eyes on every port, every airport, every car registered to the Fitzwilliam family. He's not getting to you."
You look back down at the page. At the redacted block. At your name, implied but never written, sitting in the white space between his words.
The last one.
You let the words sit. They hang in the air like smoke, curling around the edges of the room, settling into your chest.
The last one.
You look up from the page. "What do I do now?" It's not a rhetorical question. You're not asking for reassurance or comfort. You're asking because you need a direction, a task, something to move toward other than sitting in a corner waiting for a man with a family crest to find you. Hotch studies you for a moment. Whatever he sees, it makes him reach into the folder again, pulling out a smaller photograph. He slides it across the table. It's a man. Late twenties, maybe. Dark hair, sharp features, a suit that costs more than your rent. Standing on a dock somewhere, sunlight catching the water behind him. He's laughing at something off-camera, carefree and unguarded.
"Julian Fitzwilliam," Hotch says. "Theodore's younger brother. He's the one who hired the off-duty officers. We picked him up an hour ago at JFK with a one-way ticket to Zurich." Rossi sets down his coffee. "He's not talking. Got a lawyer from his father's firm on speed dial. But he's scared. You can see it in the booking footage."
"He's your way in," you say. Not a question.
Hotch nods. "We need to flip him. Get him to turn on his brother before Theodore's lawyers bury us in injunctions and jurisdictional appeals." You sit back. The armchair creaks beneath you. "You're telling me this for a reason. What is it?" Hotch doesn't look away. That's the thing about him, he never flinches, never deflects. When he speaks, it's measured, each word chosen with care. "Julian Fitzwilliam lawyered up before we even finished reading him his rights. He's not going to talk to us." A pause. "But he might talk to you."
The room tightens. Rossi sets down his coffee. Morgan straightens by the door.
"Let me be clear," Hotch continues. "I'm not asking you to do anything dangerous. You'd be in an interview room at federal plaza, with agents on the other side of the glass. But Julian is twenty-four years old. He's scared. He's in over his head. And according to his phone records, he spent the last three days trying to contact Theodore, all calls unanswered." Prentiss speaks from the window. "He's a disposable asset. His brother left him holding the bag. If there's anyone who might understand what that feels like, it's you."
The words land. You think of Naomi, of Julia. Of all the women who trusted men who promised them something more. Of a twenty-four-year-old kid on a dock in Zurich, laughing, not knowing he'd be left behind the same way. "I'll do it. Let me talk to him." The words come out before you can second-guess them. Before the fear can catch up and clamp around your throat. You say them, and they hang in the air, and somehow they feel true.
Hotch doesn't react. Not visibly. But there's a shift in the room. Rossi picks up his coffee again, Morgan's shoulders drop a fraction of an inch. Prentiss gives you a look that might be respect.
"Alright," Hotch says. "We'll have you at federal plaza by eight tomorrow morning. You'll be in an observation room first, watch the interview through the glass, get a feel for him. If it feels right, you go in."
"And if it doesn't?"
"Then you don't. No pressure. No obligation." He closes the folder. "You're not an agent. You're a witness. A civilian. You have every right to say no at any point." He says it like he means it. Like he wants you to know that this isn't an order, isn't a manipulation. Just an offer, laid out plain.
Morgan clears his throat. "There's a bed in the back room. Nothing fancy, but it's clean. You should get some rest before tomorrow." You don't feel tired. But your bones ache with a weariness that has nothing to do with sleep.
"Thank you." You hold Hotch's gaze. "I'll be ready." He gives a single nod. No further ceremony. He's already pulling out his phone, probably coordinating with the team at federal plaza, setting the pieces in motion. Morgan gestures toward the back room. "C'mon. I'll show you where you're crashing."
The room is small, a twin bed with a thin mattress, a nightstand with a lamp, a window that looks out onto a brick wall. Basic, but safe. Morgan lingers in the doorway.
"Door locks from the inside. Reid's gonna be on the couch right outside. If you need anything—"
"I know."
He holds your gaze for a second, then nods and pulls the door shut. The lock clicks into place. You sit on the edge of the bed. The sheets smell like detergent, nothing else. Clean. Anonymous. You lie back, still fully dressed, and stare at the ceiling.
Morning comes faster than you expect. Gray light filters through the window. A soft knock at the door. "Good morning." Spencer's voice, low. "Hotch is here. We leave in twenty." You sit up. Your neck is stiff from sleeping in a weird position, but something in your chest feels different. Steadier. You open the door. He’s is there, wearing the sweater. He hands you a coffee.
"Black. One sugar." You take it. Your fingers brush his.
Federal plaza is a forty-minute drive. You spend it watching the city wake up, the coffee warming your hands, knowing that in a few hours, you'll be sitting across from a man who might help you catch the one who wants you dead.
"Tell me about Julian. What do I need to know before I go in?"
Reid's quiet for a moment, organizing his thoughts. The car hums beneath you, streetlights fading into the gray morning.
"Julian Fitzwilliam, twenty-four. Second son, which in aristocratic families means he inherited nothing and answers to everyone. His father is Lord Alistair Fitzwilliam, Ninth Earl of Whitmore. Julian's been described by staff as 'nervous,' 'eager to please,' and 'easily led.'" Reid glances at you. "He graduated from Oxford with a degree in art history, spent the last two years managing the family's London properties. No criminal record. No history of violence."
"Sounds like the perfect patsy."
"Exactly." Spencer's fingers tap against his thigh. "Phone records show Theodore called him seven times in the week before Celeste's murder. Each call under three minutes. We think he was giving instructions. Julian made the arrangements, the off-duty officers, the cover story, the car." A pause. "But he's not the one who killed anyone."
"So he knows he's expendable."
"He's starting to figure it out." He looks at you. "That's why he might talk to you. You're evidence that his brother is a killer. You're proof that Julian backed the wrong horse."
"How do I get him to trust me?"
Spencer considers this longer than your other questions. His fingers tap a syncopated rhythm against his thigh as the car hums through midtown traffic. "Trust is about perceived common ground. Shared vulnerability." He turns toward you. "Julian has been surrounded by people who have power over him his entire life. His father. His brother. The family lawyers now. He's never been the one in control."
"So I give him control."
"Not exactly. You make him feel like he has it." Reid's brow furrows. "The difference is subtle but important. You're not going to manipulate him. He's been manipulated enough. You're going to be the first person in this entire process who treats him like a person making a choice, not a loose end to be tied up." The car slows. Federal plaza rises ahead, gray and imposing. "He wants to be seen," Spencer says quietly. "The same way you did. The same way Naomi did. That's what Theodore offered both of you, the illusion of being truly seen." A pause. "Be real with him. That's how you get him to trust you."
Morgan pulls up to the secure entrance. The glass doors reflect the overcast sky. You take a breath. The air is cold and tastes like exhaust and wet concrete. You step out of the car. The building rises in front of you — glass and steel, federal insignia above the doors. People in suits walk past with the brisk efficiency of people who belong here. You don't. But you're here anyway. Morgan leads the way through security. Badge, metal detector, guard who nods at him like they've done this a hundred times. Spencer stays close, a step behind you, the weight of his presence steadying. The elevator hums as it rises. Fourth floor. The hallway is beige and fluorescent, lined with doors that all look the same. Morgan stops at one, buzzes in.
The observation room is small. A one-way mirror. A table with two chairs on the other side. A microphone and speakers on this side, turned low. And on the other side of the glass, already seated, is Julian Fitzwilliam. He looks younger than his photograph. Dark hair disheveled, shirt wrinkled, no jacket. He's sitting with his hands on the table, fingers laced together, staring at them like they might hold answers. He's not crying, but his shoulders are tight, coiled, like a man waiting for a blow.
Morgan glances at you. "You want to watch for a bit?" You don't take your eyes off Julian through the glass. "What has he been told about me?" Morgan glances at Hotch, who's entered quietly behind you. He answers. "Nothing. We've kept your name out of the interviews, out of the paperwork he's seen. As far as Julian knows, you're a witness who spoke to his brother at the Pierre. He doesn't know about Naomi’s diary entry. He doesn't know you're the last one on Theodore's list."
"Good." The word comes out firmer than you expected."He's been sitting alone for about forty minutes," Prentiss adds from the corner. "We brought him in at 6 AM, read him his rights, left him with water. No interrogation yet. He's been alternating between staring at his hands and checking the door." You watch him through the glass. He picks at his cuticle now, a nervous, repetitive motion. He looks up at the door again. Swallows. "His lawyer arrived ten minutes ago," Hotch says. "They've been in consultation. The lawyer's name is Lucy White, corporate defense, high-end. She's already filed a motion to suppress the JFK arrest."
"He's not going to talk with her here."
"No. But she'll step out if he asks her to."
The room is quiet. Everyone's looking at you.
"I want to go in. Just me and him."
Hotch's jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. "His lawyer is in there. She's not going to leave just because you ask."
"Then don't ask." You turn to face him. "Tell her she can watch from here. That she'll have a direct line to the room. That nothing I say is confidential. But Julian and I talk alone." Hotch holds your gaze for a long moment. Then he nods once, pulling out his phone. A minute passes. Two. Through the glass, you watch Lucy stand, lean down to say something to Julian, he nods without looking up, and then she's gone, the door clicking shut behind her. Julian is alone now. Hotch looks at you. "The microphone will be on. If you need us to intervene, just say the word 'break.'" He pauses. "Take your time. There's no rush." The door to the interview room is down the hall. Gray metal. A small window with wire mesh. You can see Julian through it, still staring at his hands.
Morgan steps aside. Reid meets your eyes, gives a small, almost imperceptible nod. The hallway stretches ahead. The door waits. The metal handle is cold under your palm. You turn it, and the door swings open with a soft click. Julian looks up. He's younger than you expected up close. Twenty-four, but he looks eighteen—dark circles under his eyes, a tremor in his hands that he's trying to hide by gripping the edge of the table. His shirt is expensive but rumpled, the top button undone, tie missing. You step inside. The door closes behind you with a quiet thud. He doesn't speak. Just watches you cross the room, pull out the chair across from him, sit down. The table is laminate wood, scarred with the ghosts of countless interviews. You set your hands flat on it, palms down.
You introduce yourself, telling him your name.
He blinks. "I know." His voice is rough, unused. "They told me you were coming."
"Did they tell you why?"
A second passes. He shakes his head. Just once, small. You let the silence sit. Let him fill it if he wants to. The clock on the wall ticks. Somewhere beyond the glass, you know they're watching. But here, in this room, it's just the two of you.
"I'm not here to trick you, Julian."
He holds your gaze for a moment, then drops it back to his hands. A muscle in his jaw works. "That's what they all say." His voice is flat. "The agents. The lawyers. My father." He looks up. "Everyone says they're not trying to trick me. Then they ask me to sign something, or say something, or admit to something I didn't do."
"I'm not asking you to sign anything. I'm not recording this." You gesture at the glass. "They are, on the other side. But I'm not."
He stares at you. There's something raw in his expression, not exactly suspicion. More like confusion. Like he's trying to fit you into a category and can't.
"Then why are you here?"
It's the question you've been waiting for. The one that matters. You could tell him about Naomi. About the diary, the redacted line, the smile through the peephole. You could make him afraid of his brother, could use that fear to turn him. But Spencer's voice echoes in your head: Be real with him.
"Because I want to understand," you say. "How someone ends up in a room like this, waiting for a brother who isn't coming to get him out." You rest your hands on the table. The laminate is cool and scarred beneath your palms. "Your brother killed someone I knew." Julian's face does something complicated. The color drains, then rushes back. His hands stop fidgeting and go still, flat against the table like he's trying to ground himself the same way you are.
"Who?" The word comes out barely above a whisper.
"Naomi Evans." You watch him. "She was my friend." He closes his eyes. Just for a second. When he opens them, there's something wet at the edges, but he blinks it away. "I didn't know," he says. "I swear to God, I didn't know he was going to—" He cuts himself off, jaw tightening.
"But you knew something." He doesn't answer. His eyes drop to the table, to his hands, to anywhere but you. "Julian." You keep your voice even. "You hired the men who came to my apartment. You booked the car. You made the calls. You knew something."
A long silence. The clock ticks.
"He said he was being followed," Julian finally says, voice cracking. "He said someone was trying to extort him. That he needed protection, needed people he could trust. He said—" A shaky breath. "He said if I didn't help him, I'd be next." Your voice comes out quieter than you expected, but it holds. "Can you tell me everything?" You pause, swallowing. "Believe me, I'm just as scared as you are. I'm not an officer. I'm not FBI." A breath. "I'm just like the girls your brother killed. I'm an escort too."
Julian's eyes widen. Just a fraction, but it's there, the crack in his composure. He looks at you differently now, not as an interrogator or a victim or a pawn, but as someone real. Someone sitting across from him in a beige room, hands flat on a scarred table, admitting something that could ruin her.
He stares at you for a long moment. Then he laughs, it's a short, hollow sound, more exhale than humor. "He told me you were trying to trap him. That you were working with the police to fabricate evidence." Julian shakes his head. "He said you were dangerous. Calculating. That you'd say anything to put him away."
"I'm sure he did."
"He said you seduced him. That you were obsessed." Julian's voice drops. "But you're just... you're just a person."
"I'm just a person," you echo. "And I'm scared, Julian. I'm scared of what your brother is going to do next. I'm scared that if we don't stop him, someone else is going to die." You hold his gaze. "Help me stop him. Please." You smile softly at him, encouraging. "What did he promise you in return for your help?" Julian's fingers curl against the table. He doesn't answer right away. Instead, he looks past you, at the blank wall, at the ceiling, anywhere but your face.
"He said he'd make Father see me." The words come out thin. "I'm the second son. The spare. Everything goes to Theodore, the title, the estate, the respect. I've spent my whole life in his shadow, and Theodore knew it. He told me if I helped him handle this 'problem,' he'd put in a good word with Father. That I'd get a seat on the family trust. That I'd finally matter." He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "I'm twenty-four years old, and I still let my big brother promise me pocket change like I'm a child." He looks at you then, really looks at you. His eyes are wet, but he's not crying. Not yet. "What did he promise you?" Julian asks. "The night you met him. What did he offer?"
"Nothing." The word lands flat between you. "I was just work to him." Julian blinks. Like that answer didn't compute. "He talked to me for an hour at the bar," you continue. "Ordered me a drink I didn't ask for. Asked about my life, my dreams, my favorite books. Made me feel like I was the most fascinating person in the room." A pause. "And then he tipped me and left. Like I was a transaction he'd completed." Julian's hands have gone still on the table. "I spent weeks thinking about him," you say. "Wondering if I'd said something wrong. If I'd missed a signal, a chance. I thought I'd failed." You meet his eyes. "But he was just gathering information. Building a profile. Deciding if I was worth killing."
The word hangs in the air. Killing. You've said it out loud now, in this room, to this man.
"I'm sorry." Julian's voice cracks on the word. "I didn't know. I didn't—" He stops, presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. When he looks up, there's something new in his expression. Not fear. Not guilt. Something closer to resolve.
"He has a property. Upstate. A hunting lodge under a different name, not Fitzwilliam. Something else. He told me once that if he ever needed to disappear, that's where he'd go."
"Can you give me the address?"
Julian hesitates. His eyes flick to the mirror, then back to you. He's weighing something — loyalty, fear, self-preservation.
"If I give it to you, I need protection. Real protection. Not just a phone number and a promise." His voice is steadier now, like he's finally found something solid to hold onto. "My family will disown me for this. My father will—" He stops. Swallows. "I'll have nothing."
You hold his gaze. "You'll have your freedom. And you'll have the truth."
He stares at you for a long moment. Then he reaches into his pocket — slow, so the agents on the other side of the glass don't misinterpret it. He pulls out a pen, grabs a napkin from the table, leftover from the water they gave him, and writes something down. Slides it across to you.
Grey Birch Lodge, 147 Hollow Road, Kerhonkson, NY
"The name it's under is Watson," he says quietly. "Jonathan Watson. He bought it five years ago with cash from a trust our grandmother left him. No paper trail back to Fitzwilliam." He looks at you. "He'll have a plan. A way out. He's been preparing for this his whole life."
The napkin sits between you, ink bleeding slightly into the paper. An address. A name. A thread to pull. Your fingers rest on the napkin, the ink still wet at the edges. But you don't take it yet. Instead, you look at him, really look, past the rumpled shirt and the dark circles, past the fear and the guilt. "Is there anything else you haven't told me?" you ask. "And I don't mean about the case." A pause. "Anything you want to tell me. Even if it's small. Even if it doesn't matter." You hold his gaze. "I'll listen."
Julian's mouth parts slightly. He wasn't expecting that. He blinks, once, twice, and for a moment he looks so young it hurts. He looks down at his hands. When he speaks, his voice is different. Softer. "I used to paint." He almost laughs. "Haven't said that out loud in years. I studied art history at Oxford because it was the only thing my father approved of that I actually liked. But I used to paint. Landscapes, mostly. There was this spot near the estate, a cluster of old oaks by a creek. I'd go there and paint the light through the leaves." He traces a scar in the laminate with his thumb. "I haven't painted in two years. Theodore told me it was a waste of time. That I needed to focus on something useful." He looks up at you. "I don't even know why I'm telling you that."
"Because you needed someone to hear it."
He holds your gaze for a long moment. Then he nods, just once, and wipes at his eyes with the back of his hand.
"You should paint again, Julian. When this is over."
Julian's breath catches. He looks at you like you've said something in a language he thought was lost. "You really mean that."
"I do." You slide the napkin into your pocket, the address safe against your thigh. "You're not just the spare son. You're not just your brother's errand boy. You're someone who sees light through oak leaves." A pause. "Don't let him take that from you too."
He doesn't answer. But his jaw works, and his hands uncurl, and when he meets your eyes again, there's something less broken in them.
The door opens behind you. Lucy White steps in, sharp-eyed, a notebook in hand. She looks at Julian, then at you, then back at him. "We're done here," she says. It's not a question.
Julian looks at you. "Will I see you again?"
You stand, the napkin pressing against your leg. "I hope so. On the other side of this."
You walk out. The door clicks shut behind you, and the hallway is empty except for Spencer, leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets. He looks at you, questions in his eyes. The door clicks shut behind you. The hallway is quiet, fluorescent lights humming overhead. You lean against the wall beside him, and let out a breath you didn't realize you'd been holding. Your shoulders drop. Your hands, still pressed against your thighs, finally stop trembling. He doesn't say anything. He just stands there, shoulder near yours, presence steady. The sweater you made him is soft gray in the harsh light, and you notice he's not wearing his FBI jacket over it. Like he wanted it visible.
A door opens further down the hall. Hotch emerges, phone in hand, already moving. "We've got the address. Morgan's pulling up satellite imagery now. If Sterling's there, we'll have eyes on the lodge within the hour." He stops, looks at you. "You did good in there."
The words settle somewhere in your chest. Warm.
Hotch's phone buzzes. He glances at it. "Rossi's coordinating with the state police. We're moving." He looks between you and Reid. "You two alright?"
You push off the wall, steadying yourself. "Is there somewhere safe I can wait?"
Hotch considers you for a moment. "There's a safe room in the basement of this building. Bulletproof glass, reinforced door, direct line to the front desk. No one gets in without clearance from me or Morgan."
"Good. That's where I'll be."
Reid shifts beside you. "I'll—"
"No." You turn to face him. "You need to go. You're the one who can look at that satellite imagery and know what you're seeing. You're the one who can profile the lodge, figure out where he'd hide, how he'd run." A pause. "I'll be fine in a concrete box with a phone. Go do your job."
He looks at you like he wants to argue. But something in your expression must convince him, because he gives a small, reluctant nod.
"Keep your phone on you."
"I will."
Morgan appears at the end of the hall, jacket on, keys in hand. "Hotch. We leave in ten."
Hotch nods, then gestures for you to follow. "This way. I'll get you settled."
The safe room is exactly what he described, small, gray, and impenetrable. A chair, a desk, a phone, a monitor showing the hallway feed. You sit down, and the door closes with a heavy hydraulic hiss. The lock engages.
You're alone. Safe. For now.
The phone on the desk blinks. A direct line to the team's channel. You can hear the crackle of movement, orders being given, a car engine starting. Then Spencer's voice, low: "ETA to Kerhonkson is ninety minutes. I'll check in when we arrive."
The line clicks. Silence settles around you like a blanket. You sink into the chair. It's standard government-issueunforgiving, molded plastic, definitely not designed for comfort. You don't mind. Sleep isn't coming anyway. You close your eyes.
The room is silent. No humming, no distant voices, just the thick quiet of concrete and reinforced steel. You try to focus on the sound of your own breathing. In. Out. The rise and fall of your chest. But the silence has edges. Every creak of the building, every distant footstep from the hallway beyond the door, your brain snags on them, trying to place them, trying to decide if they're threats.
He smiled at me through the door.
You push the thought away. Breathe in. Breathe out. You're in a concrete box with a phone. They're going to find him.
You try to picture the lodge. Satellite images. A roof in the trees. Spencer's voice, low, feeding coordinates to Morgan. You try to imagine them moving through the woods, approaching the door, weapons drawn.
What if he's not there?
You open your eyes. The room hasn't changed. Gray walls. Gray desk. Phone blinking silently. You could call. Ask for an update. Or you could sit here, alone with your thoughts, and wait.
Ninety minutes later. Kerhonkson, NY.
The sedan winds through narrow roads lined with bare trees. Winter branches claw at a gray sky. Morgan drives, eyes fixed ahead. Spencer’s in the passenger seat, satellite images spread across his lap, the address burned into his memory. "Grey Birch Lodge," He says, mostly to himself. "Thirteen acres. He could have multiple exits, a vehicle cache, supplies for a extended stay."
"We'll find him." Morgan's voice is steady. "He's not expecting us."
They're not doing the typical approach. No sirens, no lights. Two unmarked cars, state police staged a mile down the road. Rossi and Prentiss are in the second vehicle behind.
The trees thin. A dirt road branches off the main route, a rusted sign half-hidden by overgrowth: PRIVATE ROAD — NO TRESPASSING.
Morgan kills the headlights. They roll forward in near-darkness. The lodge emerges through the trees. Two stories, stone and timber, smoke curling from a chimney. A black SUV parked out front.
"He's here."
They stop a quarter mile out. The quartet moves through the woods on foot, spread in a loose formation, breath fogging in the cold. The snow crunches under they’re shoes, but they’re careful, measured. Prentiss signals from the left flank. Rear door, she signs. No movement from inside. They take position. Morgan counts down on his fingers.
Three. Two. One.
The door goes down.
The man inside is not dressed for escape. He's sitting by the fire, a crystal glass in hand, a book open on his lap. He looks up as we flood the room, he’s calm, almost amused.
Theodore Fitzwilliam.
He sets down his glass. "I was wondering when you'd find this place."
Morgan reads him his rights. Spencer watches his face. No fear. No surprise. Just the faintest curve at the corner of his mouth. The same smile you described. The one that says he planned this.
But as the cuffs click shut, Spencer notices something else. A flicker. A crack in the porcelain. He didn't plan for Julian to talk. He didn't plan for her.
He pulls out his phone. Types a message.
Reid (6:14 PM): We have him. He's in custody. You're safe.
He hits send and follows the rest of the team out into the snow.
The phone buzzes against the desk. You grab it before the screen fully lights up. You read it twice. Three times. The words don't change. You set the phone down, press your palms flat against the cool metal desk, and breathe. A real breath this time, a deep, full breath, the one that reaches the bottom of your lungs.
The door hisses open a few minutes later. Emily stands in the frame, coat dusted with melting snow. "Figured you'd want to see him brought in." She gestures down the hall. "They're pulling up now."
The holding cells are in the basement. You watch through reinforced glass as Theodore Fitzwilliam is processed — fingerprints, mugshots, the cold machinery of justice grinding into motion. He looks smaller than you remember. Diminished by the fluorescent lights and the orange jumpsuit. He doesn't look up. Doesn't scan the observation window. He knows you're watching. He just doesn't care anymore.
You don't move from the glass.
They lead him down the corridor, two guards, one on each arm. Fitzwilliam walks with his head high, that same measured stride you remember from the bar, from the doorway of your apartment. He passes the observation window without turning his head. Without slowing. You watch his back recede. The orange fabric of the jumpsuit disappears around a corner. A door clangs shut. The lock engages.
He's in a cage.
You let out a breath. Your reflection stares back at you from the glass, you’re pale, hollow-eyed, but still standing.
Prentiss appears at your side. She doesn't say anything. Just stands there, arms crossed, watching the empty corridor with you. After a long moment, she speaks. "Rossi's already talking to the DA. With Julian's testimony, the physical evidence from the lodge, and the diary, they're looking at multiple counts of first-degree murder. He's not getting out."
You nod. Your throat is tight.
"He wanted me to be afraid," you say quietly. "He wanted me to know he was coming for me. That's why he showed up at my door."
Emily is quiet. Then: "He wanted you to be afraid. But you're still here." She lets that sit. Then she pushes off the wall. "Reid's upstairs. He asked me to tell you he's in the break room if you want to see him."
You turn from the glass.
The break room is at the end of the hall, it’s small, fluorescent, smelling of old — and bad — coffee and microwaved leftovers. You push the door open.
Spencer is sitting at a table, elbows on the surface, a cup of untouched tea cooling in front of him. He's leaning forward like he's still reading something, but the table is empty. Just his hands, his breath, the silence of a man who's been running all day and has finally stopped. He looks up when you enter. His eyes find yours, and something in his posture shifts, he relaxes, like a knot pulled loose. "Hey," he says. Quiet.
You cross the room. The chair scrapes against the linoleum as you sit down across from him.
"Hey."
Neither of you speaks for a moment. The tea steams faintly between you. Somewhere in the building, a phone rings and goes unanswered.
He looks at you. "Are you okay?"
It's such a simple question. Such an impossible one. But he asks it like he really wants to know the answer, not just the polite version. "I think so." You hold his gaze. "I think I will be."
He nods slowly, like he's testing the words. "That's—that's good. That's really good."
The way the words leave his mouth, soft, careful, like it actually matters to him, makes something settle in your chest. "You should drink your tea," you say, nodding at the cup.
He looks down at it, almost surprised. "Oh. Right." He picks it up, takes a sip, and makes a face. "It's cold."
A laugh escapes you. It's small, rusty from disuse, but real. "Of course it is. You've been sitting there staring at it for—" You glance at the clock on the wall. "Probably an hour."
"Forty-three minutes, actually." A faint flush rises to his cheeks. "But I was thinking."
"About what?"
He sets the cup down. His fingers trace the rim. "About what you said. In your texts. About writing." He looks up. "Have you ever thought about actually starting? The novel, I mean."
The question catches you off guard. You've told yourself that story so many times — someday, when things are settled, when I have time, when I'm safe — that it's become a kind of lullaby. A dream you hold close but never examine too closely, afraid it might dissolve.
"I have a folder," you say. "Full of notes. First chapters I never finish." You trace a scratch on the tabletop. "I get about twenty pages in, and I start second-guessing everything. The voice isn't right. The pacing is off. Who am I to write a novel anyway?" You look up. "So I start something new. Convince myself this time will be different."
He is quiet for a moment. Then he says, "That sounds like fear, not lack of ability."
You blink. "What?"
"Statistically, most first drafts are abandoned because of self-doubt, not because the writer lacks skill." He says it matter-of-factly, but his voice is gentle. "The fact that you keep starting means you have something to say. You just haven't trusted yourself to say it yet." The fluorescent hum fills the space between you. "What would you write about," he asks, "if you weren't afraid?"
The question lands somewhere deep. You think about the stories you've carried: the girls in foster care, the women you've known in this city, the ones who disappeared into men's lives and were never seen again. Naomi. Julia. The ones who didn't get caught.
"About people who get overlooked," you say slowly. "Women who exist in the margins. Who survive anyway."
He looks at you like you've just handed him something precious.
"That's the first time I've said that out loud."
Spencer's expression softens. He doesn't look away. "It's a good thing to say."
Your throat tightens. You look down at your hands on the table. "I've been carrying it for so long. The idea of it. Like a—a stone in my pocket. I don't even remember when I started. It's just always been there."
"Maybe it's time to take it out of your pocket."
You look up. His eyes are earnest, brown and warm in the flat fluorescent light. "What if I fail?"
"Then you fail." He says it simply. "And you start again. That's how it works." A pause. "I've had papers rejected. Theories I spent months on, dismantled in peer review. It doesn't mean I stop."
The comparison makes you smile. "It's a little different. Your work saves lives."
"So could yours." He says it without hesitation. "Stories save lives. You told me you read Le Guin and Butler and Plath. Didn't they save yours?"
You open your mouth. Close it.
Yes. Yes, they did.
Reid looks at you, and for a moment he doesn't speak. Then a small, quiet smile touches his mouth.
"When this is all over, will you read the first thing I write?"
"Yes." He says it like it's obvious. Like there was never any other answer. "I'd like that."
You feel something warm spread through your chest. You look down at the table, at your hands, at the cold tea between you. "Okay," you say. "Then I'll write it." The words hang in the air. A promise. A thread pulling you forward into something new.
Emily appears in the doorway. She knocks twice on the frame, a soft courtesy. "There's a car waiting to take you home whenever you're ready. And I've put in a request for a protective detail for the next few days. Just in case."
You nod. "Thank you."
She looks between you and Reid, a hint of something knowing in her expression. "Take your time. Car's not going anywhere." She disappears. The door swings shut.
The room feels smaller than it did a minute ago. Or maybe it's just that the quiet is deeper now, weighted with the shape of what comes next.
"Walk me out?" Spencer stands. Pushes his chair in. "Yeah. Of course."
You walk side by side down the corridor, past the holding cells, past the bullpen where agents are still typing reports and making calls. A few of them glance up as you pass, not with suspicion, but with recognition. You're the one who helped. The one who sat in the room with Julian. The one who sent them to Kerhonkson.
Morgan is by the elevator, coffee in hand. He gives you a nod as you approach. "Get some rest, doll face. You've earned it."
"Thanks, Morgan."
The elevator doors open. You step inside. Spencer follows. The doors close, and you're alone with him in the small, humming space. The numbers tick down.
"What happens now?" you ask. "For me, I mean. Do I need to testify?"
"Eventually. There'll be a trial. But the DA will walk you through it. You'll have a victim advocate assigned to you." He pauses. "And I'll be there. If you want."
The elevator reaches the lobby. The doors slide open. Outside, through the glass doors, you can see the street. Streetlights. A car idling at the curb. The world going on like none of this happened. You stop at the glass doors. The city glows beyond them, cold and indifferent, but you don't step through yet. You turn to face him. "I'll miss you, you know." Your voice comes out softer than you meant it to. "You're an amazing friend, and person overall, I mean."
A beat. You let out a breath.
"Thank you. For everything."
Spencer stands there in the fluorescent lobby light, hands at his sides, looking at you like he's trying to memorize the moment. His jaw works for a second, like he's testing words and discarding them. "You're welcome," he says finally. Quiet. Earnest. "And for what it's worth, I'll miss you too."
The words settle between you. Simple. Real.
He clears his throat. "I have your number. So I can send you updates. About the case. And also to check in. If you want."
"I'd like that."
You let the silence be felt for a second. A car horn sounds somewhere out on the street.
He shifts his weight. "Get some rest.”
"You too, Spencer."
His name on your tongue feels different now. Familiar. Like something you're allowed to keep.
You push through the glass doors. The cold hits you immediately, sharp and clean, a slap of winter air that clears your lungs. You pull your coat tighter and step onto the sidewalk. The city spreads out before you: taxis gliding past, a couple laughing on the corner, steam rising from a grate. Normal life, humming along.
The car is idling at the curb. Black sedan, government plates. The driver nods as you approach and opens the rear door. You look back once. Through the glass, Spencer is still standing there, hands in his pockets, watching you go. He raises a hand, a small wave, tentative.
You raise yours.
Then you get in the car. The door shuts with a solid thunk. The heater hums. The driver pulls away from the curb, and the FBI field office shrinks in the side mirror until it's just another building in a block of buildings.
The drive to Tribeca takes twenty minutes. You watch the city pass — the lit windows, the bridges, the river glimpsed between buildings. Your apartment building appears. The driver pulls up.
"Need me to walk you up, ma'am?"
"No. I'm okay."
You climb the stairs to your floor. The hallway is quiet. Your door is still sealed with yellow crime scene tape, but Prentiss told you they'd cleared it. You duck under the tape, fit the key in the lock, and step inside.
Everything is exactly as you left it. The book facedown on the armchair. The half-empty mug on the counter. The city lights through the window. Your apartment. Your space. Your life, waiting for you to step back into it.
You stand in the middle of your apartment for a long moment, coat still on, keys in your hand.
Then you set the keys down. You shrug off your coat. You walk to the small desk by the window, the one piled with library books and half-empty notebooks, and you sit. The laptop is cold. You flip it open. The screen glows to life. You open a blank document. The cursor blinks at you. Steady. Patient. Waiting. Your fingers hover over the keys. The city hums beyond the glass. A siren wails somewhere, fades.
You think about Naomi. About Julia. About the girls who never got to tell their own stories. You think about what you said in the break room. Women who exist in the margins. Who survive anyway.
You start typing.
There are things we don't tell the men who pay for our time.
The sentence stares back at you. Honest. Unflinching. You read it again. It's not perfect. It might not even be good. But it's yours.
You keep going.
The words come haltingly at first, then faster, like water finding its current. The cursor races across the screen, sentences stacking, paragraphs taking shape. A woman appears on the page — not you, not exactly, but someone who carries the same weight. Someone who knows what it's like to be seen without being known.
The city darkens outside. Your fingers keep moving.
when high-end escorts start showing up dead in hotel rooms, the bau goes to nyc to investigate, and a crucial witness starts getting a little too close with spencer. the problem? she’s an escort too.
genre, tags and CWs: no use of Y/N, a little bit of angst(?), some mentions of sexual stuff, a little bit of fluff, lots of investigation and police procedures, murder, mentions of literature, reader is kinda insecure, no physical description of reader besides having long hair, texting between you and spencer, some innacurate usa geography (i don’t live there). reader knits and crochets, eventual smut (i think that’s all, let me know if that’s more.)
word count: 8.5k (sorry)
A/N: hi everyone, super sorry for the long wait, i was figuring out how to post and make this cute, i’m sorry but this is extremely long and i got very carried away, i hope you guys like it, i tried to fix most of the mistakes but if there’s still anything please spare me a bit, english is my third language, so… part 2 will be out soon!!
The city that never sleeps has a peculiar way of swallowing its dead.
Your phone buzzes for the third time this morning, a news alert. You don't need to read it, you saw it an hour ago on the morning feed, scrolling bleary-eyed over cold coffee. Naomi Evans. Twenty-seven. Found in a hotel room, strangled, dressed in her regular “work clothes”, and by her side, a wedding ring in a little velvet box. Naomi didn't wear a ring, you'd know, you were friends, you worked the same industry; luxury hotels, private dinners, the kind of men who write checks that clear before the sheets are cold. Naomi was your friend, or as close to one as two women in this line of work can be.
You look around your studio. It's small, clean, and deliberately modest. A fatigue-green couch you found at a thrift, books stacked on milk crates, plants by the windowsill, lavender hanging upside down your window to dry, crochet blankets over the sofa and the bed, nothing flashy. Nobody that stepped into your apartment would guess what you do for a living, nobody that saw you on the streets would either.
Naomi had been with a new client, she mentioned him twice — once with that particular giddiness you'd learned to recognize in yourself and every other girl in this life. The kind that comes from a client who blurs the line, who stays past the hour, who texts in the morning, who promises things you know he’ll never keep. “He's different!” she'd said the last time you grabbed drinks, a bar in SoHo, her laughing behind her glass. “He told me he's going to leave her.” You nodded, smiled, you told her that they always say that, that it didn’t work like that. Now she's dead, and a wedding ring is in an evidence bag somewhere, and you know her better than the cops ever will. You know what hotel she preferred, the alias she used, the stupid shit she'd laugh about when she'd had too much champagne. You know the shape of the men she went to bed with.
Hours pass, you can’t take her out of your mind. You keep ravishing your mind for memories that could help the police, you need to have something, and you did; she had a booking two nights before she died, she told you about it, the same client that she liked so much. Tall, silver-haired, always wore cufflinks with a family crest. “He's the one”, she whispered. The memory settles in your chest like cold water. Tall. Silver-haired. Cufflinks with a family crest. You don't know his name. Naomi was cagey about names, you both were, you had to be. But you know the hotel she worked out of when she wanted to be discreet: The Langham on Fifth. You know her favorite color, you know what she would dress to go out with you when you two just wanted to feel like normal girls without all the pressure on your shoulders, you know how her voice would get softer, her eyes glimmering with hope, when she talked about that man, and you knew how your stomach would turn when you saw her that way.
You're still staring at the ceiling when a knock comes at your door.
"Ma'am? We're with the FBI. We'd like to ask you a few questions about Naomi Evans." The voice comes through the door before you can even get up. You pull the door open, stepping aside. "Come in."
Two figures step past you into the apartment. The one who spoke first is a woman. She's pretty, dark hair, sharp eyes, the kind of quiet authority that fills a room without effort. She scans your space once, cataloging the crochet blankets, the stacked books, the clean counters. The man behind her is taller, lankier, with hair that looks like he's been running his hands through it. You can’t help but wonder if the FBI is hiring people based on their looks now. His gaze lands on your bookshelf immediately and softens with interest.
"I'm Agent Emily Prentiss," the woman says, showing her badge. "This is Dr. Spencer Reid. We're with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit." Reid offers a brief nod, already tilting to read a spine. The Left Hand of Darkness. "You have good taste," he says, almost to himself. Prentiss's eyes return to you. "We're running down everyone Naomi was close with. Her phone logs show you two talked frequently." A pause. "When's the last time you saw her?"
You sigh, closing your door and moving to the kitchen (two steps from the couch, the whole apartment is that size), you can’t do this now, not without coffee. “Before we start, would you want something to drink?" You try to be polite. “Coffee? Tea? Water?” You offer. “Coffee would be great, actually," Prentiss says, settling onto the edge of your couch with the ease of someone used to making herself comfortable in strangers' homes. Reid tears himself away from your bookshelf. "Tea, if it’s not too much trouble. Otherwise coffee's fine." He takes the armchair, pulling out a small notebook that looks like it's been folded and unfolded a hundred times.
You fill the kettle, watching as the water starts to boil. It makes you want to put your hand inside, feel the warmth, feel something, anything at all. You snap out of your thoughts, the coffee's already made, a half-pot from this morning, still warm, you pour Prentiss a mug, black, and drop a bag of black tea into another for Reid. "When's the last time you saw her?" Prentiss asks again, wrapping her hands around the mug. You lean against the counter, coffee in hand. The ceramic is warm through the sleeve "Last week. We got drinks in SoHo." You pause. "She told me she was seeing someone, it was regular. She was really excited about him, told me he was going to leave his wife for her."
Both agents go still. The shift is subtle, but you catch it. Reid's pen hovers over his notebook. Prentiss's eyes sharpen. "Did she mention his name?" Prentiss asks. "She never said his name," you say, wrapping your fingers around the warm mug. "But she mentioned the Langham. Said he always booked the same suite." Prentiss's eyes meet Reid's — a brief, loaded exchange that tells you this means something to them. Reid scribbles in his notebook. "When was this?" Prentiss asks. "A few days before she died. She called me after their last date." You pause, turning the coffee mug in your hands. "She sounded way happier, said that she thought he would propose.” You think back. The call had come late—past midnight. Naomi's voice had that hushed quality, like she didn't want to be overheard. I told her I was happy for her, and to call me if she needed anything. She said she would." You let the silence linger for a second. "That was the last time I heard her voice." You lean forward, setting your mug down on the counter. "There's something else. The cufflinks. He wore a family crest." Reid's pen stops. Prentiss's attention narrows, her head tilting slightly. "Naomi mentioned them more than once," you continue. "She thought they were romantic, said they made him look distinguished. Old money. Silver, with some kind of engraved emblem. She didn't know what it meant, but she said she'd seen them up close enough to draw them." Prentiss exchanges another look with Reid. This one's longer. "Do you remember anything else about the crest?" She asks, her voice measured. "Colors? Shapes? Animals?"
"A bird, maybe." You open your eyes. "Or a lion. Something upright. I'm sorry, I only saw them once, when she showed me a photo. She was obsessed with them."
"Can we pull up some family crest databases?" Reid asks Prentiss, already half-rising. "If it's a legitimate noble or merchant crest, we could narrow down the family name." She nods slowly, then turns back to you. "We'll need you to look at some images. Help us identify it." She pauses. "And Miss, we appreciate you talking to us." Reid's already pulling out his phone, scrolling through something. "I can pull up a database of registered family crests. If we can narrow down the bird or lion motif, cross-reference it with New York-based families with significant wealth..."
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Emily says, but there's a flicker of something like approval in her tone. She turns back to you. "You said she showed you a photo of the cufflinks. Do you still have it? Any text exchanges, saved images?" You think back. Naomi had sent you a picture, you remember that now. It was a mirror selfie, arm outstretched, his hand visible on her waist, the cufflink catching the light. "Maybe," you say. "She sent me a photo a few weeks ago. I don’t think I've deleted it." Spencer's head snaps up. "Can we see it?" You push off from the counter, crossing to the small desk wedged near the window. Your laptop sits there, a beat-up silver thing with a cracked corner and stickers layered over the lid, there’s a faded daisy, a Brooklyn Public Library barcode, a Panic At The Disco! logo old peeling sticker. You flip it open, the screen lighting up to your desktop: a photo of a cat you don't own, saved because it made you laugh. "Give me a second," you say, clicking into your messages. "We mostly texted, it was surface-level stuff, regular banter. But the photo…" You scroll, there’s grocery lists, some stupid memes, a new dress she bought, and then… "Here." You turn the laptop toward them. The photo is a mirror selfie, she's in a champagne silk robe, her hair loose, her smile soft. Behind her, a man's hand rests on her waist. The cufflink catches the light, just as you remembered, silver, ornate. A crest in the center: a winged figure, maybe a griffin, standing upright with a sword raised in one claw. Reid leans in immediately, eyes sharp. "That's rare, not a generic design at all." He's already pulling out his phone again. "It’s a specific heraldic crest. The griffin rampant with a sword."
You stare at the photo a moment longer before speaking. "She told me he was married, that he treated her like a princess, that he would leave his wife for her." Your voice is flat, careful, calculated, even. "I told her it doesn't work like that." You pause, sighing. "Once these guys know us as whores, that's all we'll ever be to them." The word lands in the room, plain and unadorned. You don't flinch at it. Neither does Emily, she's definitely heard worse, you can tell. Spencer's pen pauses, but his face doesn't change. He's looking at you, not with pity, but with the focused attention of someone who's taking you seriously. "I hate it," you say, quieter now. "But I know what I am."
The silence stretches long enough to be uncomfortable.
Prentiss breaks it first. "What you are is a woman who's trying to help her friend." She holds your gaze. "And that’s more than enough. Most of the girls in your line of work wouldn’t have trusted us enough to say a word, and you did.” Reid clears his throat. "The griffin crest is a good lead. If we can match it to a family name, we might be able to pull financial records, property holdings." He flips a page in his notebook. "Did Naomi ever mention specific locations? A summer house, a family estate, a private club?" "There's a private dinner club in Midtown," you say. "She said he took her there." Emily's eyebrows lift. "Do you know the name?" You shake your head. "She was cagey about it. Said it was member-only, the kind of place where you need an invitation to know it exists. The only thing I remember is that she mentioned a fireplace there.” Spencer's fingers are already flying across his phone. "There are a handful of private clubs in Midtown that fit that description.” He starts listing names, you try to recognize them, but nothing comes to mind. "Most of them require membership by invitation or sponsorship. If our unsub is a member of one, it would explain how he maintains a veneer of respectability." "Would they give you a list of members?" you ask. Prentiss's smile is thin. "They wouldn't give us a list without a warrant. And we don't have enough for a warrant yet."
"But if you had a name—" your voice falters, knowing that this guy is so settled in high society makes your hope that he’s caught drop to a very low number. "We'd have a place to start." She studies you. "Did your friend even mention any names?’
"No name. But I know what hotel suite he booked. That might be on a registry." Emily's eyes glint with something like renewed focus. "Which hotel?"
"The Langham on Fifth. He always booked the same suite, the Imperial, I think she called it. Top floor, corner view." You cross your arms, leaning back against the counter. "She told me once that he had a standing reservation. Every other Thursday, like clockwork." Spencer's already typing. "A standing reservation under a false name, or his real one?" You shrug. "She never said. But if it's the same suite, same night, every two weeks, someone at the front desk has to know his face. Hotels like that, they remember the ones who tip well." Prentiss nods slowly. "It's a lead. A good one." She pulls out her phone, glancing at the time. "I can have a uniform check the registry, see if any name matches the crest we're pulling. But we need to be careful, if he's connected, tipping him off could bury the evidence."
Emily offers a small, genuine smile, the first crack in her professional composure since she walked in. "Good." She stands, pulling a card from her coat pocket and setting it on your counter. "My direct line. If you remember anything else, anything at all, you can call me, day and night." Spencer closes his notebook, tucking it back into his jacket. "I'll start cross-referencing the crest with registered family heraldry. If we get a match, I'll have a name by the end of day." He pauses by your bookshelf, fingers brushing the spine of a worn paperback. "You might want to hold onto that photo. Don't share it with anyone, including the police." Prentiss gives him a look. "Reid."
"Just being thorough." He shrugs, unapologetic. "If this man is as connected as the evidence suggests, local precinct leaks are a real concern." Emily turns back to you, her expression settling into something more serious. She glances around your apartment, at the quiet modesty of it, the deliberate distance you've kept between your life and your work. "Stay low. Don't tell anyone we talked. And if he contacts you somehow, if he even knows your name, you call me immediately." The weight of what you've stepped into settles over the room like dusk. You nod. "Of course. Whatever helps." Prentiss's smile is brief but warm. She starts heading for the door, Reid trailing behind her with a final glance at your bookshelf. "Stay safe."
The door clicks shut.
In the hallway, the fluorescent lights buzz overhead. Spencer's already pulling out his phone, scrolling through the image you showed them. Emily waits until they're halfway down the stairs before she speaks. "She's sharp." He nods without looking up. "Observant. Good recall of details. The crest identification alone, most witnesses wouldn't remember a cufflink from a photo they saw weeks ago."
"She's also beautiful," Prentiss says, her tone light. Almost offhand. Reid's thumb pauses mid-scroll. "I- what does that have to do with anything?" Prentiss reaches the landing and turns, one eyebrow arched. "Nothing. Just an observation." She resumes walking. "You seemed interested in her books."
"They're good books." His voice is a half-octave higher than usual. "Le Guin. Butler. She has Parable of the Sower. That's not exactly airport reading."
"So she's well-read and beautiful." Spencer stops at the building's front door, holding it open for her with pointedly exaggerated politeness. "Are you profiling me, Agent Prentiss?"
"I'm observing, Dr. Reid." She steps past him into the late-morning light. "There's a difference." Prentiss pauses. Something shifts in her expression. "It's a shame," she says quietly. Reid looks up. "What is?"
"A woman that smart, that clearly well-read, having to subject herself to that life." Prentiss shakes her head. "The clients. The danger. The way the world looks at her." She walks through the door, letting the late-morning light spill in. "She deserves better." Spencer follows her out onto the sidewalk, tucking his phone away. "The life he's offering, her friend's client, it's a pattern. Charm, promises, isolation, then.." He stops himself. "Then death." Prentiss finishes the thought. She looks up at her window, visible from the street. "She's not just a witness, Reid. She's a target. If he finds out she talked to us…" "Then we make sure he doesn't." His voice is firm. "We find him first."
The next night, you're working.
The Pierre on Fifth. A client who's been booking you for six months, married, lonely, doesn't want conversation. He leaves by ten, as always, pressing an envelope into your hand at the door. You're fixing your hair in the suite bathroom when you hear it. Commotion. Raised voices. Curiosity gets the best of you, You step into the hallway. A door's open three suites down. Hotel security is barking into a radio. And there, emerging from the chaos with a familiar economy of motion, is Agent Prentiss, Doctor Reid’s behind her, badges out, faces set in grim recognition. Their eyes land on you. The world narrows to a point. Your bare feet meet the hallway carpet as you step out of the suite. Emily spots you first, she has a flicker of recognition crossing her face before she masks it. Spencer’s head turns, following her gaze. And then you see the rest of them.
A tall man in a dark suit stands near the open door, speaking in low tones with hotel security. His face is all sharp angles and authority, Hotch. Beside him, a man built like he could break someone with his hands, moving with the coiled energy of someone who's always watching the exits. Morgan. And farther down the hall, an older man in a leather jacket kneels by the body, his expression unreadable. Rossi. A woman lies on the floor, sprawled at an angle that tells you everything, she’s blonde, young, you think you might have seen her before. And beside her — stomach drops — a small velvet box lies open, a wedding ring catching the light. Spencer reaches you first, he calls your name, his voice is low, urgent. "What are you doing here?"
"I had a booking. Sixth floor." You meet his eyes. Reid's face goes through several micro-expressions: surprise, concern, calculation, before settling into something carefully neutral. Behind him, you see Emily’s head snap toward you. She excuses herself from Hotch and crosses the hallway in quick, measured steps. "Hey." Her voice is tight. "You were working here tonight?" You put your hair behind your ears, and Spencer notices your hands trembling. "Client checks out by ten. I was fixing my hair when I heard the commotion." You gesture vaguely toward the suite behind you. "I didn't know… I just heard a lot of voices." Morgan appears at Prentiss's shoulder, assessing you with dark, sharp eyes. "You know her?" he asks her, low. "Naomi Evans's friend. We interviewed her yesterday." Prentiss doesn't look away from you. "Same night, same hotel. I don’t think that's a coincidence." Hotch approaches, his presence carrying a quiet weight that silences the hallway. He looks at you like he’s measuring, not unkind. "Ma'am," he says, "we're going to need to talk to you. Now." Down the hall, Rossi rises from beside the body, his leather jacket creaking. He catches your eye and holds it for a long moment before turning to Hotch. "Same signature. Ring box. Strangulation. She's fresh, maybe an hour."
An hour. While you were three suites away, with a man who pays you to pretend he exists. Your voice comes out smaller than you want it to. "Haven't I told you enough?" The words hang in the fluorescent light. You feel the tears coming before you can stop them, a hot, sudden pressure behind your eyes that spills over before you can turn away. "I can't take this anymore." Your voice cracks. You press the heel of your palm against your mouth, muffling a sob. "Are we just- is this just going to keep happening? Are they just going to keep showing up dead?" Prentiss steps forward, her hand hovering near your elbow, not touching, but there. Spencer looks stricken, his notebook hanging forgotten at his side. "I told you everything," you manage, the tears coming freely now, shame and grief braiding together. "I told you about the cufflinks, the hotel, the crest, everything and she's still dead. Another girl. Another ring." You look at them, at all of them, Hotch's controlled stillness, Morgan's clenched jaw, Rossi watching you with the weight of decades. "What's the point? What's the point of any of it if they just keep dying?" The silence that follows is thick enough to choke on.
Morgan's voice cuts through the silence, low and steady. "You're not alone in this." You look up at him through the tears. He's "We’re only here now because you were willing to give us valuable information, we have a pattern now, we’re not trying to scrape our way through the leads.” He holds your gaze, a hint of carefulness behind his eyes. "We can help you, really, if you need time.” Rossi straightens from beside the body, wiping his hands on a handkerchief. "He's right. This isn't on you, You. This is on the man leaving these rings." Prentiss steps closer, her hand finally settling on your shoulder, a warm, grounding weight. "We're going to find him. But we need you to let us do our job. And maybe let us get you a coffee while we do it." Hotch gives a short nod toward the stairwell. "There's a break room on the second floor. We can talk there, away from this."
The hallway feels too bright, too cold, too full of ghosts. But Morgan's words have steadied something in your chest. You wipe at your face with the back of your hand, but the tears keep coming, quieter now. "I need to work," you say, your voice barely above a whisper. "But I don't feel like I can do this anymore." You look down at your hands, the same ones that fix your hair before a client arrives, the same ones that count cash in hotel bathrooms. "I'm so afraid it'll be me next." The words hang in the air. Spencer shifts on his feet, hands tucked into his pockets, looking like he wants to say something but doesn't know what. Prentiss's hand stays on your shoulder, steady. Rossi breaks the silence first. He steps away from the body, wiping his hands on a handkerchief, and walks over to you. His voice is rougher than you expected, older, worn in by years of scenes like this one. "You're afraid because you're smart." He tucks the handkerchief away. "Fear keeps you alive. But it doesn't have to keep you frozen." Morgan crosses his arms. "You don't have to go back out there tonight. We can have someone drive you home."
"Or," Emily adds, her tone careful, "you could come down to the field office. Sit with us while we work. You don't have to talk. You don't have to do anything. But you don't have to be alone."
"I can't afford to miss a night. Rent's due." The words land plain and unadorned, there's not much you can do, it's just a fact.
Derek exchanges a look with Prentiss. Something passes between them, something like a silent conversation you're not privy to. Then he reaches into his jacket, pulls out his wallet, and extracts a card. "Call this number tomorrow." He holds it out to you. "It's a victims' advocacy fund. They provide emergency financial assistance to witnesses cooperating with federal investigations." He pauses. "Tell them Derek Morgan referred you. They'll expedite it." You stare at the card. Your hand doesn't move. Emily gently takes it from Morgan and presses it into your palm, folding your fingers over it. "It's not charity, it’s support for people helping us catch a killer. You’re not any less for accepting help.” Rossi watches from a few feet away, arms crossed. "And in the meantime, consider this a work night that got cut short. Go home. Sleep. We'll call you tomorrow." Hotch's voice cuts in, practical and grounding. "We'll have an officer walk you to your apartment. Just to be safe."
Spencer steps forward, hesitant. "The advocacy fund also covers counseling, if you need it." He adds quickly, "Not that you have to. But it's available." The card is warm in your hand. The hallway is quiet except for the distant murmur of hotel staff and the soft crackle of a radio. You sigh, feeling your dress start to itch, your hands trembling, your eyelids twitching in nervous ticks. “I really need to go home." Prentiss's mouth tightens, but she doesn't argue. Morgan looks like he wants to, but a glance from Hotch holds him back. "If anything happens to me," you add, meeting each of their eyes in turn, "I'll call you." The weight of your choice sits in the space between you and them. A uniformed officer appears at the end of the hall, and Hotch gestures him over. "Officer Roberts will walk you to your apartment," Hotch says. "He'll stay outside until morning. Just in case."You nod. The officer is young, his face is serious, but you can sense how uneasy he feels behind it all.
Reid steps forward, pulling a card from his pocket. It's different from Emily’s, handwritten on the back, a phone number in neat script. "My personal cell," he says, quieter than before. "If you can't sleep. If you think of something. If you just need someone to talk to." You take it. Pocket it without looking.You smile softly at him. Prentiss holds your gaze a moment longer. "We'll call you tomorrow. Stay safe.." You turn and follow Officer Roberts toward the stairwell. Behind you, the BAU team's voices resume. As you leave, the stairs swallow the sound.
Your apartment is dark when you key in. The officer takes a post by the building entrance. Inside, the familiar smells of lavender and coffee greet you. The card from the advocacy fund sits on your counter beside Reid's number. You sink onto the edge of your couch, the springs creaking beneath you. The card with Spencer’s number it’s between your fingers, staring at you. You pick up your phone. Type. Delete. Type again. Your thumb hovers over send. Then you stop thinking and let it go.
you (11:47 PM): hey. it's me. i know it's late. i just, i hate that i have to do this. i hate that this is my life. i grew up in foster care, no one taught me how to be anything else. i used to dream about writing books. going to college. having a family. normal shit. but who's gonna want me after this? no man wants to marry a whore.
You stare at the screen for a long time, chest tight, regretting it already. You're about to toss the phone aside when three dots appear.
Spencer Reid (11:49 PM): Hey. I'm glad you texted.
Another pause. Three dots again.
Spencer Reid (11:50 PM): The first thing you said to me was that you know what you are. But I don't think you do. You're a woman who risked her safety to help a friend. Who noticed details no one else did. Who gave us our only lead in a case that would have gone cold.
Spencer Reid (11:51 PM): You survived foster care. You're still here. You're still fighting.
Spencer Reid (11:52 PM): And for what it's worth, the right man wouldn't care about what you've done to survive. He'd care about who you are.
You type slowly, the glow of your phone the only light in the room.
You (11:56 PM): i don't believe you. but thanks for saying it.
You watch the three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
Spencer Reid (11:58 PM): That's fair. You don't have to believe me. But for what it's worth; I don't say things I don't mean. It's a problem, actually. Makes small talk difficult.
Spencer Reid (11:59 PM): I grew up in Las Vegas. My father left when he found out my mom was sick, and I think I took care of her more than she took care of me. I know what it's like to feel like the world has already decided what you're worth.
You stare at the screen. You didn't expect that.
Spencer Reid (12:00 AM): You mentioned writing books. What kind of books?
The question catches you off guard. It's so normal. So human. Like you're just two people talking at midnight instead of a witness and an FBI agent connected by a string of dead women. A breath escapes you; half laugh, half disbelief. But something about the quiet of your apartment, the late hour, the fact that he asked, loosens the knot in your chest.
You (12:03 AM): it's dumb. it’s about this woman who goes back to the house where she grew up after her mother dies, expecting to clear it out, but the place ends up forcing her to confront everything she’s been trying to outrun. idk, i think is really about memory, grief, identity. it’s quiet and very introspective, i can’t manage a lot of characters at the same time, and as she sorts through the house, she’s also trying to figure out who she is beyond everything she’s inherited. i don’t know how to end it though..
You (12:04 AM): maybe because i don't know how to end that story for myself either.
You watch the dots appear immediately this time.
Spencer Reid (12:05 AM): That's not dumb. It reminds me more of a psychological literary novel than anything else. The house almost sounds like a character in its own right. Gaston Bachelard wrote that "the house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace." Memory has a way of attaching itself to places, and sometimes we don't realize we're grieving a version of ourselves until we walk back into the rooms that made us.
You stare at the paragraph, then type a response slowly.
You (12:08 AM): you really just quoted a french philosopher at me over text at midnight.
Spencer Reid (12:08 AM): I told you. I have a problem with small talk.
A laugh escapes you, real, unexpected, cracking through the grief. You cover your mouth with your hand, surprised at yourself.
You (12:10 AM): okay dr reid. fair enough. so what are you reading right now?
You (12:11 AM): or are you not allowed to have hobbies when your job is chasing serial killers
You curl deeper into the couch, pulling your knees up. The phone glows in the dark. Outside, the city hums. The officer is somewhere downstairs.
Three dots appear immediately.
Spencer Reid (12:12 AM): I'm rereading "The Anthropologist" by Leonard Cohen. It's a small book, more of an extended essay, really. He writes about the nature of longing and how we try to fill the spaces inside ourselves with work, with love, with meaning.
Spencer Reid (12:13 AM): And I do have hobbies. I go to the shooting range. I solve Rubik's cubes when I'm thinking. I watch old B-movies. But yes, mostly I read.
You read it twice. The Leonard Cohen thing catches you off guard. You didn't expect an FBI profiler to be quoting a poet-songwriter at midnight, but Spencer is different, you've come to notice that.
You (12:15 AM): longing and filling spaces. that's heavy for a tuesday night.
You (12:16 AM): do you ever read things that aren't about the human condition? like, just a fun book?
The banter sits warm in your chest for a moment, but the image of the blonde girl in the hallway flickers back: the velvet box, the ring, the stillness of her body.
You (12:18 AM): hey. the fitzwilliam name. and the new girl. have you guys found anything yet?
You (12:19 AM): sorry. i know you're probably not supposed to tell me. i just, i can't stop seeing her.
Three dots appear. Pause. Disappear. You're about to set the phone down when they return.
Spencer Reid (12:21 AM): I can't give you details. But I can tell you we're running the Fitzwilliam name through property records, business registrations, and any known aliases. If he's in New York, he's left a paper trail somewhere.
Spencer Reid (12:22 AM): The new victim's name is Julia Williams. Twenty-four. She was an escort too, working out of the Pierre. Same M.O. No wallet, no phone found at the scene. The ring was the only thing left behind.
You read the name. Julia Williams. Twenty-four. Someone's daughter. Someone's friend. Maybe someone who had a novel she never finished too.
You stare at the screen.. Twenty-four. The name prickles at the back of your memory. You scroll through your mental catalog of faces, hotel rooms, clients who wanted two at once. And then it hits you, a warm spring night, a suite at the Mandarin Oriental. A client who paid triple to have you both.
You (12:26 AM): julia. i knew her.
You (12:27 AM): someone booked us together for a threesome once. about six months ago.
You (12:28 AM): she was quiet. sweet. she chain-smoked on the balcony after and told me she was saving up for nursing school.
The three dots appear but take longer than before.
Spencer Reid (12:30 AM): That's… I'm sorry.
Spencer Reid (12:31 AM): Can you remember anything about the client who booked you both? Any details at all?
You close your eyes, pulling the night forward. The suite. The champagne. The client, he was older, distinguished, silver hair. He'd been polite, almost gentlemanly. The kind of control that some men wore like cologne.
You (12:33 AM): silver hair. tall. wore cufflinks. i didn't see them clearly that night but…
You (12:33 AM): he could be the same man. i don't know for sure.
You (12:34 AM): but he knew how to make two women feel like the only people in the room.
The dots disappear. The night feels heavier.
The confession about Julia sits heavy in the digital space between you. You stare at the ceiling for a long moment, then pick up the phone again.
You (12:36 AM): i'm sorry for deflecting, but i wanted to talk about the books.
You (12:37 AM): there's this author. brazilian. her name is clarice lispector.
You (12:38 AM): she wrote about the small moments. the ones that don't seem like anything until you look closer. a woman standing at a window. a cockroach dying (?). the space between two people who don't know how to reach each other.
You (12:39 AM): i wanted to write things like that. maybe a mix of her and sylvia plath. the quiet and the scream.
Three dots appear, then disappear, then appear again.. Then:
Spencer Reid (12:41 AM): Lispector's "The Hour of the Star" is one of the most remarkable novels I've ever read.
Spencer Reid (12:42 AM): You're the first person I've met who's brought her up in conversation.
Spencer Reid (12:42 AM): You should write that book, really.
Your throat tightens. You type, delete, type again.
You (12:43 AM): maybe someday.
You (12:44 AM): if i live that long.
You type, delete, and finally send:
You (12:46 AM): i'll try to sleep. i'm sorry for bothering you, for venting like that. i just couldn't be alone with my thoughts.
You nearly put the phone down, but three dots appear immediately.
Spencer Reid (12:47 AM): You're not bothering me. That's what the number is for.
Spencer Reid (12:48 AM): Get some rest. I'll be here if you need to talk again.
You stare at the words for a long moment. Then you set the phone face-down on the nightstand, pull the blanket up to your chin, and close your eyes.
In Spencer’s hotel room, the last of your texts sit on his phone as he reads them again. He'd typed and deleted three responses before settling on the one he sent. Professional. Kind. Safe.
He'd stared at the ceiling for another hour after that. Thinking about Clarice Lispector. About a woman who reads Le Guin and wants to write like Plath. About the way her voice cracked in the hallway when she said “Are we just going to keep showing up dead?”
At 3:14 AM, his phone buzzed with the property records hit. He forwarded it to the team chat and sent her the update, it was brief, factual, professional courtesy, it’s what he told himself.
His phone sits dark on the hotel nightstand. He's been lying in bed for the better part of an hour, the ceiling tiles counting themselves above him. He replays the texts.
clarice lispector. i wanted to write things like that.
He'd felt something catch in his chest when he read it. The same feeling he gets when he finds a rare first edition in a used bookstore — recognition. The quiet thrill of discovering someone who sees the world the way you do. He thinks about the way she said “once these guys know us as whores, that's all we'll ever be to them.” No self-pity. Just a fact she'd accepted so thoroughly it had become part of her posture.
The right man wouldn't care about what you've done to survive.
He'd meant it when he typed it. That's the part that unsettles him. He'd meant it so completely that he'd stared at the words after sending them, startled by his own certainty. He doesn't know her. He's spoken to her twice, exchanged late-night texts about dead women and Brazilian authors. That's not enough to feel this — this pull, this concern, this urge to call and make sure she's actually sleeping. But here he is. 3:47 AM. Thinking about a woman with sad eyes and a half-finished novel. He turns on his side. Forces his eyes closed. But when he finally slept, he dreamt of rings and hotel hallways and a woman standing in a doorway, barefoot, crying.
Morning comes grey and indifferent. Your phone has a text from Spencer, sent at 3:14 AM.
Spencer Reid (3:14 AM): We found a property in Connecticut under the Fitzwilliam name. Estate in Greenwich. Hotch is getting a warrant now.
Spencer Reid (3:15 AM): I'll update you when I can.
Sunlight spills through your thin curtains. The officer is still outside, a shape in the doorway down below. The coffee maker stares at you from the counter, waiting.
You peel yourself off the bed, stretching and getting started with your morning routine. You brush your teeth, wash your face, do your hair, apply some light makeup and get dressed, until your phone buzzes. It’s him..
Spencer Reid (8:47 AM): Just got to Greenwich. The estate is gated, three acres, main house, guest cottage. Grounds team is sweeping the perimeter. I'll let you know if we find anything.
Spencer Reid (8:48 AM): Did you sleep?
Your thumbs move before you've fully decided what to say.
You (8:49 AM): barely. you?
You (8:50 AM): good luck at the estate.
You don't open your laptop. You don't check the news. You sit on the couch, pull out your yarn basket, and start knitting. The rhythm takes over. Loop, pull, twist. Loop, pull, twist. Your hands move on their own while your mind drifts somewhere distant, the hotel suites, silver cufflinks, a girl on a balcony chain-smoking and talking about nursing school. The yarn bleeds through your fingers, navy-blue and maroon, a pattern you started weeks ago without a plan. The afternoon light shifts across the floor.
Your phone buzzes once. Twice. You don't check it.
Hours pass. You finish the sleeve, then the other. You seam the shoulders, weave in the ends. It's only when you hold it up that you see what you've made. A sweater. Simple, soft. A man's size. Long enough for someone lanky, with sleeves that would reach past his wrists. You stare at it in your hands.
Oh.
Your face warms. You set the sweater down carefully on the arm of the couch, heart rabbiting against your ribs for no reason you're willing to name. Your phone glows from the coffee table. Three unread messages from Spencer Reid. You reach for the phone, the sweater still warm in your lap.
Spencer Reid (12:14 PM): The estate is empty. Furnished, maintained, but no one's lived here recently. The grounds team found tire tracks in the back drive, they were fresh. Whoever he is, he knew we were coming.
Spencer Reid (12:52 PM): We found a locked study. Forced entry. Inside: newspaper clippings. Local obituaries. A map of Manhattan with pins at the Pierre, the Langham, and three other hotels. He's been planning this longer than we thought.
Spencer Reid (1:47 PM): Hey. I know you're probably processing. Just, please, check in when you can. So I know you're okay.
The last message is two hours old. You look at the sweater folded on the couch. At your phone. At the grey afternoon light slanting through the window. You type and send before you can second-guess it.
You (3:52 PM): i'm okay. sorry, i was knitting. lost track of time.
You (3:53 PM): the other hotels. do you know which ones?
You hit send and set the phone down, heart doing an annoying little flutter that you firmly ignore. The sweater sits on the arm of the couch, soft and navy and maroon. You drag your eyes away from it. The phone buzzes almost immediately.
Spencer Reid (3:54 PM): The St. Regis. The Ritz-Carlton Central Park. And the Greenwich Hotel in Tribeca.
Spencer Reid (3:55 PM): He has a pattern. Every other Thursday. All high-end. All hotels with private entrances and staff trained to be discreet.
Spencer Reid (3:56 PM): Do you remember any other regulars? Anyone who booked you consistently at a specific hotel?
You stare at the question. Every other Thursday. High-end hotels. Private entrances. Your mind sifts through the calendar, the appointments, the repeat clients. There are a few who book regularly. A hedge fund manager who always takes the penthouse at the Mandarin. A tech executive who prefers the Four Seasons downtown. And one more.
A man, early sixties, silver hair. Always the Pierre. Always the same corner suite with the view of the park. The last Thursday of every month. In all this time, you didn’t even think that Naomi’s guy could have been seeing other girls too, even less if the other girl was you. You'd always thought of him as safe. He talked about his wife and his boat and never stayed past midnight. Your fingers move before your brain catches up.
You (3:57 PM): there's someone. regular at the pierre. last thursday of every month. corner suite, park view. early sixties, silver hair. he talks about his wife and his boat and he's never stayed past midnight.
You (3:58 PM): i never thought, idk… he seemed so normal. boring, even.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again. You grip the phone, waiting.
Spencer Reid (4:00 PM): Last Thursday of every month. That's consistent with Naomi's schedule at the Langham. It is a different hotel, but the timing it’s the same.
Spencer Reid (4:01 PM): Can you describe him? Anything specific. Build. Accent. Distinguishing features.
You close your eyes. The Pierre. The corner suite. The way he'd pour you a glass of wine and ask about your day like he actually cared.
You (4:03 PM): tall. broad shoulders but not heavy. english accent, upper class, like private school english. blue eyes. and he had a habit of touching his wedding ring when he talked about his wife.
You (4:04 PM): i never saw him angry. never even raised his voice. he was gentle.
You stare at the word. Gentle. The same word someone probably used to describe Naomi’s killer at a dinner party. Your thumbs hover over the keyboard, then move.
You (4:06 PM): do you think it could be him? the same man?
You (4:06 PM): i need to know.
The three dots appear instantly, then vanish. A full minute passes. You watch the cursor blink. When the reply comes, it's measured, careful in a way that feels practiced.
Spencer Reid (4:08 PM): The pattern fits. Same frequency. Same hotel tier. Same demographic, older, wealthy, English. We're running the Fitzwilliam crest through English peerage records now, but if this man also uses that crest...
Spencer Reid (4:09 PM): It could be him. But we need more than a description to be certain.
Spencer Reid (4:10 PM): I need you to think carefully. Did he ever mention his name? A nickname? Anything at all?
You search your memory. The corner suite. The wine. The way he'd ask about your day. But names were currency in your world, real ones were guarded, traded only when trust was earned. He'd been careful. You realize that now. You pause, thumb hovering over the keyboard. Something stirs in the back of your memory. A moment, small, almost forgotten. You're in the corner suite. He's pouring whiskey, talking about a sailing trip. His phone buzzes on the nightstand. He glances at it, smiles, a real smile, not the polite one, and mutters, almost to himself: "She calls me Teddy. No one else does."
He'd said it with such fondness you'd felt a small pang of something. Envy, maybe. That his wife loved him that much. You type slowly.
You (4:12 PM): teddy. his wife calls him teddy. he mentioned it once, said it like it meant something to him.
You (4:12 PM): i don't know if that helps. but it's the only name i ever heard.
The dots appear. Disappear. Then a long stretch of silence. Two minutes. Three. You're about to put the phone down when it buzzes again.
Spencer Reid (4:16 PM): Theodore Fitzwilliam. Sixth Earl of Whitmore. His wife's nickname for him, according to a 2003 Tatler profile, is Teddy.
You stare at the screen.
Spencer Reid (4:17 PM): You just gave us our suspect.
The phone is in your hands. The name hangs in the air between you and the screen: Theodore Fitzwilliam.
Your thumbs move before you decide they will.
You (4:19 PM): god, i let him touch me.
You (4:19 PM): every time. he'd pour the wine and ask about my day and i'd let him put his hands on me because he was gentle and he never made me feel like i was just
You stop. Delete the last line. Start again.
You (4:20 PM): i let him into the bed with me. for months. and now i find out he might have killed naomi. might have killed julia.
You (4:20 PM): what does that say about me?
You send it before you can think better of it. Your chest feels tight. The sweater is still on the arm of the couch, soft and grey and warm, and you want to throw it across the room. You want to hold it to your face. Three dots appear. Pause. Then:
Spencer Reid (4:22 PM): It says you were doing your job. It says he was good at hiding who he really was.
Spencer Reid (4:23 PM): It doesn't say anything about you. It says everything about him.
You stare at the words. Your eyes sting. You blink hard, once, twice, and look away. You read his message once. Twice. Your throat loosens, just a little.
You (4:24 PM): do you have enough to arrest him?
The dots appear quickly this time.
Spencer Reid (4:25 PM): Not yet. The tire tracks and the map are strong circumstantial evidence. The obituaries connect him to a pattern. But we don't have physical evidence tying him to the crime scenes yet. No DNA. No witnesses placing him at either hotel on the nights of the murders.
Spencer Reid (4:26 PM): We're pulling financial records now. If he paid for those suites with a card under his name, or if we can place him in the city on those dates, we can build a case.
Spencer Reid (4:27 PM): The warrant for the Greenwich property came through. Forensics is going through the house room by room. If there's something there, we'll find it.
You let out a breath you didn't realize you were holding. His name is Theodore Fitzwilliam. He's an earl. He kills women in hotel rooms and leaves wedding rings beside their bodies. And somewhere in Connecticut, FBI agents are tracking through his house like ants through a sugar bowl. Your eyes drift back to the sweater.. Your hand moves before you tell it to. The sweater is soft in your grasp, cashmere blend. You run your thumb along the seam you finished, the one that would fall at the shoulder of someone tall. Someone lanky. Someone with clever hands and an eidetic memory and kind hazel eyes. You fold it carefully. Once. Twice. Smooth the collar. It sits on your coffee table like an accusation. You could finish it. Sew the buttons on. Block it properly. Let it become a thing that exists in the world, finished and usable and his.
Or you could stuff it in the bottom of your closet and never look at it again.
Your phone glows. Another message from Spencer.
Spencer Reid (4:32 PM): Forensics found a hidden safe in the master bedroom closet at the Greenwich property. They're cracking it now.
Description: You’re spider-man’s closest thing to a friend since the world forgot his name. Helping him with gadgets, cleaning his wounds…all without him ever taking the mask off. His true identity has always been a barrier between you two, but what happens when he gets hit with the pollen, and not only him, but the creature lurking inside him fixates on the only person he gets to call home?
Tags/warnings: sex pollen smut, fem!reader, porn with plot, whiny desperate peter >>>, dry humping, piv, riding, oral fem!rec, fingering, dark!peter taking over for a bit, orgasm denial, prone bone, so much yearning, mask stays on…or does it?
Note: You have no idea how giddy it makes me to write him again. He had NO business looking that good in the movie so I had to get this out of my system. Enjoy 🤍
Masterlist
You've seen spiderman hurt many times. When you signed the lease of the first apartment you could afford as a recent graduate, you never thought that would become your new normal.
The first time it happened was completely accidental. He’d arrived at the building in the middle of the night, bruised, bleeding and too disoriented to realize that the window he’d come through was not his.
That night, the noise of a heavy body collapsing onto the floor woke you up. For one terrifying moment, you believed someone had broken into your apartment, only to switch on the lamp and find the city’s superhero groaning and pressing his hands to his side. His suit was torn there, and blood soaked through the ruined fabric onto your rug.
He barely lifted his head when he heard you gasp, the lens of his mask focusing on your figure standing there with wide eyes, wearing only an oversized shirt.
“Wrong window,” he choked, then tried to hold himself up but immediately collapsed again. “Dammit,” he cursed, waiting for you to freak out any second now.
You could have, but instead you rushed to him and knelt beside him.
“Oh my god, are you okay?” Your hands hovered helplessly over his body, trying to see how bad the damage was in the dark. “You need a hospital–”
“No!” He snapped, trying to turn away but failing miserably. “I’ll be fine, I heal quickly.”
“You still need to stop the bleeding,” you countered, folding your knees under your body so you could rest on your calves. “Listen, I can help you. I took some medical courses last year and I have a kit somewhere.”
You looked at him with pleading eyes. He’d saved the city so many times, the fucking world, it was the least you could do to give something back.
He considered his options for a second, and to be honest he didn’t have many. His body was betraying him, and he couldn’t even get up to fix it himself like usual.
The blood loss made him nod, and you wasted no time in getting up and finding said kit. The blood loss also made him drift in and out of consciousness as you tended to the wounds on his ribs as much as you could.
It did not make him less cautious of you though. When you noticed the rip on his mask over a nasty gash on his neck and reached for it, his hand closed around your wrist and even half conscious, his grip was strong.
“Please,” he whispered. Pleaded. “Keep it on.”
The fear in his voice made you promise you would. Even if you couldn’t get to that gash properly. Even when he fell asleep on your floor and didn’t wake up for six whole hours.
The next morning, he opened his eyes and found you sitting on your bed, still staring at him.
His hands patted his chest, and confirmed his arachnid powers had done its job and healed him mostly. But most importantly, his mask was still in place. With no warning from E.V of it being removed. He learned that you’d spent the night making sure he was still breathing without seeing his face.
That had been one year ago.
After thanking you profoundly for helping him, he’d repaired your window, apologized several times, and disappeared into the apartment next door. He then considered moving into another building, but the thought was brushed away very quickly when he remembered the balance in his bank account.
So he acted more careful instead. For a while, he only turned back home when your curtains were already closed, or he only left the apartment when you had already left for your job (because yes, he absolutely researched the hell out of you after that night.)
Then he moved to the attic of the building. Bigger space, no neighbors, no risks. No you. Or at least he thought.
Because some nights…some delirious nights he still found your window a few stories down, and the accidental visits became less accidental. When he was too badly injured to care for himself, he came to you, even after you confessed your degree had nothing to do with medicine.
When he noticed you understood about his equipment malfunctioning, he’d bring it for you to inspect. When he became too reckless with himself you talked his ear off about how being difficult to kill did not make him immortal.
Somewhere along the way, you became spiderman’s friend.
Spiderman was safer. With you, spiderman was the only part of him he could let you see. Because that was the thing, you only knew the masked superhero.
He’d spent so much time blocking away his identity, making peace with the fact that there was no longer anyone in the world who would call him Peter and know exactly who that person was. That name only belonged to the people that once knew him, and no longer existed, so he never gave it to you.
Never showed you more than a sliver of skin when his mask rode up or glimpses of his abdomen when you tended to his wounds. He always kept that barrier and you respected it, even on those nights he was too weak to stop you. Even if sometimes not knowing the color of his eyes kept you up at night.
A promise was a promise.
Maybe that’s why he kept coming. Why he trusted you with a certainty he couldn’t understand. Why he eventually showed you his new living quarters in the attic and let you spend time with him. Why half a year ago, he added another chair next to his desk so you could work together, or help him when he was out patrolling and needed an extra set of eyes.
“I’m officially the girl in the chair, spidey,” you joked that time as you sat next to him, spinning around in your chair.
He’d gone quiet immediately, his body tensing up enough to make you frown, but then managed a small smile and said you were. You pretended you didn’t notice him being too quiet as he worked on his inhibitor after that.
He was wearing a hoodie, sweatpants and the mask. Always the mask that didn’t quite let you see through him. After a moment of quiet, you rolled your chair closer to his and nudged his arm playfully.
“You know I can’t keep calling you spidey forever, right?”
He snapped out of his trance, and the chuckle that came from under the fabric was unmistakable.
“Why not?” He nudged your arm back, but still focused on the device he was hunched over. “I like spidey.”
You put your elbow on the desk, resting your cheek on your hand so you could lean a little closer.
“I like it too, but it feels ridiculous after having my hands all over your body almost every night.”
The moment the words left your lips, you realized how bad that sounded. He straightened up, turning toward you.
“Wow.” Even if you couldn’t see the smile on his face, the lenses of his mask were quite expressive sometimes. He was amused.
“That came out very wrong,” you said immediately, before he bursted into laughter. He had been laughing more since you entered his life. “You know what I meant,” you whined, laughing too with heat flooding your cheeks.
“I think I know,” he chuckled, making you roll your eyes.
“I’m being serious though,” you added, a little more quietly. “You don’t have to say your real name. Just give me something.”
“Mmm…” he acted like has considering it, going back to tinkering with the piece of metal between his fingers, but then his eyes drifted to the flowers he’d bought that morning, and the name came out of his lips before he could think twice about it. “You can call me Maynard.”
“Maynard?” You repeated, suppressing a chuckle. “You don’t sound like a Maynard. That’s like an 80 year old man’s name.”
“That’s all I can give you,” he shrugged playfully.
You had a feeling it went deeper than that, but you’d also learned not to push it with him.
“Alright. Maynard,” you nodded, “but don’t expect me to use that name unless you’re dying. Guess I’ll stick to spidey for now,” you chuckled, going back to your own work as he hummed in agreement.
The conversation ended there. With him trying not to think about your hands all over his body in…different conditions.
Peter didn’t know exactly when his gratitude became longing. He could not identify the moment the friendship, the closeness, or just your smile, shifted into something he craved everyday.
Despite the mask and the fake name, he knew that after years of being no one to everyone, he had become someone to you. And you had become everything to him. Even if it was behind walls he’d built, you were the person who knew him better than anyone alive.
Which is why, the night he lost control of himself after an unknown dust was thrown at him in a fight, he chose not to crash land into your room.
Peter hit the floor of the dark attic with a loud thud, as his senses went overboard. His suit was sticking to his body uncomfortably due to the sweat coating his feverish skin. The fabric was intact, with no visible wounds in his body, just that burning sensation of something running through his veins.
And that dark part of him he’d managed to lock down with the inhibitor, trying to claw its way out.
“What the…what the fuck is going on,” he cursed, clutching his heaving chest as he panted against the worn wood floors. “I can’t–I can’t breathe…”
The computer’s monotone voice broke through the silence.
“You have arrived injured. I’m letting her know–”
“NO!” He cut the AI off, “EV, don’t tell her–”
“Message already sent.”
He glanced up at the digital clock on his desk. 2:18 am.
He groaned, grabbing his head when a wave of migraine hit him. He knew what came after that. The black eyes. The desire to break. To take. But this time something felt different. It was like a pull, looking for something or someone…for…for you?
Oh fuck.
You were going to come in and you were going to see him like this. No, no–
“Spidey?” You asked from behind the door, knocking exactly twice before opening it anyways.
The air changed the exact moment you walked in, and that something inside him shifted too. It became aware that the only thing it craved to survive was in the room now.
He needed to get to you. He needed to pin you down and–
“Don’t!” He managed to scream, holding his hand up weakly when you scrambled toward him.
You stopped right in your tracks, eyes wide and running all over him, searching for torn fabric, blood, or anything that would explain why he looked like every breath was painful.
“What happened?” You frowned, when you couldn’t find any source. “Did you get hurt?”
You instinctively stepped forward, but he waved his hand in front of him again.
“Stop, stop, stop,” he said quickly, “don’t come any closer.”
The harshness in his voice caught you off guard, but what sealed the deal was him dragging himself further away from you. It was barely more than a clumsy, desperate crawl, but he managed to put a decent distance between you before collapsing against the side of his thrifted couch.
He avoided looking at you. The oversized shirt covering your body, the comfy shorts you were probably wearing, the way your hair looked messy from rolling out of bed as soon as you got EV’s warning even if you had work the next morning.
You stayed right where you were, watching him. His suit had always fit him like it was painted on his skin, but every pant made his chest rise and fall beneath the fabric so violently that you wouldn’t be surprised if it ripped at the seams.
This reminded you too much of the changes that happened in him months ago.
It started with a sharpened temper, then the heightened sensitivity to everything, the black covering his eyes, and moments during patrol when his reactions became simply frightening for someone who had as much strength as he did. But you were supposed to have stopped it.
“Is it the inhibitor?” You asked, crossing your arms over your chest, “is it failing?”
“I–I don’t know…I was hit with some dust out there,” he breathed. “I think it’s tampering with it…my head is killing me. Everything is too much.”
You nodded, turning toward the workstation.
“I will check the programming. Just hold on.” Not your best attempt at reassuring him, but he groaned in acknowledgment.
“EV?”
The computer woke when you touched the keyboard, illuminating the dark attic in a wash of blue light.
“Online.”
“Please run a diagnostic on the inhibitor and any possible interference.”
“Beginning diagnostic.”
You waited impatiently for the results, tapping your fingers on the desk while you watched him from the corner of your eye.
Over there, he…he was doing his best trying to breathe.
This obviously wasn't his first time having sensory overload. When the animal tried to take over the human part of him, everything in the city became impossible to escape. Not a single movement, or sound, or simple existence within miles was unnoticed by him.
But this time? The rest of the city had disappeared. There were no sirens in the distance, or voices coming through the walls, or every heartbeat in the building pounding in his head.
There was only you.
Your rapid heartbeat echoing inside him. He felt every tap of your fingers against the wood, every slight catch in your breathing each time he made another involuntary and pathetic sound from his spot on the floor.
Your scent…God, your scent filled the entire apartment.
The scent he found himself coming back to so often that it scared him. He didn’t want the attachment. The possibility of having someone again only to risk losing them again.
That same scent was making every muscle in his body react in a way he didn’t understand. It made him, and the other him, wanna do things to you he had only dreamed of in his wildest fantasies. Things he wasn’t proud of, things he wouldn’t dare to say out loud, even if he looked at you through the lenses of his mask and you couldn’t see the black in his eyes.
He pressed the back of his head against the couch harshly.
This was wrong. So wrong.
His senses were supposed to consume everything when the change came. Instead, they had fixed themselves entirely on you.
He could feel the heat of your body from across the room as though you were still in front of him. Could remember with sickening detail how soft your hands looked when they reached for him. Could almost feel the burn of the touch that had never landed because he stopped you.
What if he’d let you? What if he’d felt the way your hands ran all over his body? What if you’d moved them lower, and lower, as your mouth–
“Diagnostic complete.”
Your heads snapped toward the screen.
“There’s no external damage affecting the integrity of the device. I detected a foreign biotoxin in the bloodstream that may be bypassing the inhibitor, activating the suppressed arachnid hormones.”
“What biotoxin?” You frowned.
“Unknown. No matches found in available databases.”
Great. He thought. He had no time to take a bath with Yelena Belova to find out what the stupid dust was.
Tiny, microscopic potato, she would say.
The screen changed, displaying a model of his nervous system. There were yellow bright lines pulsing quickly, running all the way from the base of his brain down the length of his spine. Something unknown was moving through his blood, altering the part of him he had spent months forcing into submission.
He sucked in a breath as he watched you read the screen. Your eyes were focused, and a bead of sweat made its way down the side of your forehead.
He suddenly felt the need to lick it off.
Wanted to run his tongue from the base of your neck to the back of your ear. Wanted to fist your hair and make your heart beat out of your chest from how good he knew he could make you feel–
“The effects remain within his enhanced tolerance. However, prolonged exposure to certain hormones can cause extreme distress without relief.”
“What hormones?” Your voice, worried and unknowing of his thoughts only made him feel guiltier.
It took him a second to realize what you asked, but EV threw him under the bus before he could say anything.
“There’s a significant rise in reproductive hormones. The unknown toxin is inducing a strong mating response in him.”
Mating response. He stopped breathing.
Your eyes slowly moved from the monitor to him, and he saw the moment your attention dropped lower to the tent of his pants.
That suit concealed nothing on a good day. On one like this? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck–
He shifted almost immediately, but the movement only worsened the pressure, pulling a helpless groan from his throat that made your pulse jump. You looked away at once, turning back to the computer.
“Is there a way we can…umm…stop it?” You asked hesitantly.
“The subject is experiencing severe sexual arousal with a fixation on a nearby individual,” she explained, because fuck him if he wasn’t the unluckiest individual on earth. “Acting upon it can be a positive option to relieve sexual tension.”
He wished the floor would open beneath him, swallow him, and never ever EVER spit him back out again.
Your pulse was absolutely hammering after that. He caught the sudden change in your scent. There was a sharp spark of surprise, nervousness, and something else beneath it that his altered senses fed on immediately.
You kept your eyes fixed on the monitor, although the data had stopped meaning anything the moment you heard fixation on a nearby individual.
“Is that what you really feel?” You asked softly after a moment.
His head fell forward, catching it between his gloved hands. He didn’t know how to answer without making everything worse.
Although, after what EV said, could it really be worse?
“…Yes.” The word came out rougher than he expected. Yet still not enough for what was happening inside him. “It’s like…I can only feel you. All of you.”
Heat rose to your face once again.
“What does that mean?”
Don’t say anything, don’t–
“I can smell you.” Great start, idiot. He cleared his dry throat before continuing. “I can smell your shampoo…the lotion you use…the ink on your hands from your favorite pen.”
He chose not to mention he could also smell the adrenaline on you. The heat gathering slowly beneath your skin.
Your eyes dropped to your hands, and under the dim light of the computer, you caught the ink stains in them from your journaling session before bed.
“I can hear your heartbeat changing every time I speak,” he added. Okay, that one slipped out.
You swallowed. And god, he felt that in his own throat.
The suit was suffocating him at this point. He wanted to rip it off as much as he wanted to rip off the fabric covering the goosebumps on your skin.
“Is it only because I’m nearby?” You asked, gathering the courage to turn your chair to him.
White lenses met you across the room. He dragged in another shaky breath of oxygen made of you as he thought about his next words. He could’ve lied. He should’ve lied. But instead, chemically overwhelmed and stripped of every defense he possessed, he gave you the truth.
“No.”
His voice was firmer this time. No hesitation in it despite the thousand red alarms pounding in his head telling him to shut up.
“It picked you–no, I picked you for a reason,” he added. “And it’s not just me. The other…the other me wants you too.”
His voice went lower on the last part, that told you how much it cost him to admit that.
The silence following his confession was heavy. For a moment he wished he could read your mind. For all he could feel of you, your thoughts were unreachable.
His own mind was a mess. The impulses didn’t feel like thoughts anymore, just his body feeding him instructions.
Get up. Cross the room. Touch her. Breathe her in.
His palms shook with the urge to close around you. His teeth ached with the need to graze your skin. His eyes burned with the desire to see beyond fabric.
Every part of him seemed convinced that the small distance between you was a mistake he needed to correct. That he needed to breathe you in until his lungs burned. Drag his mouth along the inside of your wrist and taste the pulse there.
He hated it.
He hated that something inside him could look at the person he cared for the most and reduce her to an answer for his pain.
“EV, how long is this state going to last?” He asked the computer, followed by a weak cough as he clutched his side.
“Your enhanced physiology is struggling to break down the toxin’s structure. I estimate a time between ten to twelve hours before it’s metabolized. However, neurological collapse is expected before that timeframe.”
“What?” You looked at him. “There’s no way we’re letting that happen. Maybe I can–”
“Don’t even start,” he cut you off, shaking his head profusely.
“So what? I’m supposed to sit here betting on whether your body collapses on hour three or hour six?”
“I’ll just pass out, big deal. I’m not putting you in danger because of this. I can handle it.”
“You’re barely handling it now. There’s no danger in trying–”
“You don’t understand what’s happening inside me right now,” he argued, raising his voice. “This other thing, the one the inhibitor controls it’s…awake. That part of me doesn’t think like I do. It doesn’t care if you're scared, or hurting–”
“You wouldn’t hurt me–”
“You don’t know that!” He snapped, his fist struck the floor next to him, hard enough to make the worn wood crack beneath his knuckles.
The sudden noise made you flinch. He smelled the flash of fear moving through your body for only a second.
One second enough.
“Fuck–that is what I mean,” he cursed, covering his lenses with his hands. “I don’t…I don’t know if I’d be gentle. I can’t risk this, I can't…shit, I can’t risk you.”
The words, said with so much pain, and honesty, seemed to settle somewhere deep in your chest.
“Okay,” you nodded, settling deeper in your chair. “But I’m not leaving you like this. I can’t risk you either.”
He shuddered a painful exhale. His head dropped to the couch again, shutting his eyes in preparation of what the next hours of torture would be.
Except…he didn’t even last ten minutes.
The suit was killing him, so he decided he’d be better without it. He reached desperately behind his back, clumsily undoing the zippers that tied the suit together.
He could feel your wide eyes on him as he tugged the fabric off his shoulders, peeling it off his sweaty arms. He groaned when he lifted his hips and the suit grazed his swollen crotch. In a matter of seconds that felt like eternity he managed to break free from the spandex, and threw it away somewhere in the room. He’d undressed down to his dark boxers, mask still in place, revealing the marble sculpture of his body.
You let out a shaky breath from your spot, eyes raking over a body you’d only seen partially. He was covered in wounds most of the time, but this time, he only had faint bruises from the night before decorating his chiseled abs.
His tight muscles flexed with every rise of his chest, his bulge straining harder the more you devoured him, pressing against his pants, making him curse quietly.
You noticed, and returned your eyes to the screen to track his vitals.
He felt grateful that you’d given him that grace, but just you being in that room made it very hard for him to think of anything other than your existence.
Too hard.
Before he knew his hand drifted down the growing ache in his crotch, trying to feel some relief, but every rub he made over the fabric of his boxers sent a jolt of pain through his body instead of pleasure.
It only made it worse when he realized you were tense at the desk, trying very hard to keep your focus on the screen and not on the whines he was letting out.
“…I’m sorry,” he apologized instantly, breathlessly, moving his hand away. “I didn’t–”
“Don’t apologize,” you shook your head quickly, eyes still on the screen. “You…you can do whatever you need.”
He didn’t say anything, just whined in pain again, so you took it as a chance to say it before you regretted it.
“But my offer still stands, spidey.”
What a polite way of saying ‘I’d let you fuck me into next week so you can control your horny arachnid hormones, spidey.’
Fucking hell.
“I’m okay I just–God I didn’t–I didn’t think it would feel this way…” He laughed humorlessly, staring at the ceiling. “But I–I got this. Yes.”
You kept quiet, hearing him mumble to himself about a hundred times about how he had this.
“I’m okay…I’m good…it’s fine…”
He wasn’t.
“Fuck I don’t…I’m going to die…”
For God’s sake.
“I think I can help.”
By the time he registered the words and looked back at you, you had already moved from your chair and shortened the distance between you, kneeling in front of him.
His senses went from one thousand to one million. He forced his hands behind his back, trying to keep the animal from grabbing you and getting it over with.
“What–what are you doing?” He stammered nervously, the lenses of his mask going wide.
“Maynard,” you said quietly, ignoring the way his body tensed up at that name. “Would it make you feel better if I put my hand here?”
You placed your hand right in the center of his chest, and your cold palm met his overheated skin. He gasped, feeling every individual fingerprint on his skin. He wanted them marked on him. Tattooed.
His back arched from the couch, with a strangled gasp breaking from beneath the mask. The relief hit him all at once, through a simple contact that felt like salvation.
Your hand steadied him for only a glorious second, but now that you had touched him, his body knew precisely what it had been denied.
It wanted more.
His own hand closed around yours so suddenly that you almost pulled back, but he loosened his grip the instant he realized how tightly he was holding you.
“Sorry–”
“Don’t apologize.” You pressed harder.
He was burning.
The heat beneath your palm scared you, but what scared you more was the violent pounding of his heart beating against your hand so so quickly.
“Better?” You asked quietly, trying not to bite your bottom lip at the image of him crumbling under your palm.
“So fucking better,” he said breathlessly, pressing your hand tighter against his chest. “I…dammit–”
“Breathe,” you reminded.
His head fell back against the couch. Chest rising up and down, up and down, up and down.
Just take her, man, she’s right there–
Your free hand accidentally brushed his neck, right where the border of the mask started, snapping him right back. He grabbed your hand, not harshly, but firm enough to make your breath hitch.
“Please.” Was all he said.
Leave it on.
It brought you back to that first night he’d crashed into your life.
“I wasn’t planning on removing it,” you whispered, leaning closer. “You can keep it on. But let me help you…I really want to.”
See? She wants it. She needs it so bad.
He hated that the other guy was right. He knew you meant what you said because he could smell the proof pooling between your thighs.
Fuck it.
In a sudden movement he reached for your waist, dragging you forward so you were straddling his lap. The bulge you landed on made you gasp, hands instinctively grabbing onto his sweaty biceps for balance when he let out a broken groan that vibrated against your core.
His hand cupped your jaw, bringing it closer to his face, and your dilated pupils reflected on the white of his lenses.
“I can feel that you want this,” he mumbled, tilting his head to the side. “Please, say it again…”
You shifted your hips, barely, so minimal yet he felt it travel through his whole body. He hissed, tightening the grip on your jaw.
“I want this,” you repeated firmly, moving your head closer to his ear. “You can take whatever you need…”
You moved your hips again, more deliberate this time, pulling a broken whine from him. The toxin made every contact feel like electricity racing down his spine, straight to the heavy, aching weight of his cock under you.
“Yes…yeah just like that…” he panted. “Just let me…”
His hands landed on your waist, moving you back and forth at a quicker pace over his bulge. You gasped at the friction, fingers digging into his shoulders, while he let out a collection of muffled words you could barely understand.
“...M–more…” he whined, throwing his head back against the couch. “I can’t–I need…”
“What do you need? More what?”
“More contact.”
His hands left your waist to grab the hem of your shirt.
“Can I?” He whispered.
You nodded eagerly, gasping when his hands shifted to the collar of your shirt instead, ripping it off your body with a sharp pull.
“Oh fuck,” he cursed when he realized there was nothing under that shirt, and saw your nipples hardening instantly under the cold air.
He resisted the urge to bite them through the mask.
His hands, however, wasted no time to cup your breasts with a broken whine. His thumbs played with your nipples, tugging at them as hard as he could allow himself to without hurting you.
“Fuck you’re perfect…you’re so perfect…” he whispered, more to himself than you, pulling some soft whimpers out of you when he tugged a little harder. His hands drifted to your lower half, to the hem of the last piece keeping your body from his greedy eyes. “These too,” he said, “please, can I? I want to feel you.”
“Yes,” you nodded, already out of air.
You didn’t even know why you tried to get off his lap to take the shorts off properly, when he just did the same as the shirt: ripped it in half where it rested on your hips, yanked it off from your body and threw the ruined pieces far away.
You weren’t wearing anything underneath.
“I can smell you. God, I can smell you. You’re so–oh God…”
Now he could feel your wetness drenching his boxers, dripping onto the fabric. He could almost taste it in his mouth. He wanted nothing more than to drown in it for hours.
“Can–can I–?”
You didn’t even let him finish, you grabbed his hand and placed it right between your legs.
Water. He found water in the middle of the dessert.
His hand moved carefully through your wet folds once, twice, delighting in your warmth, the way you felt, the way you let out the prettiest sound he had ever heard in his miserable life.
“Fuck…” you cursed softly, moving your hips eagerly when he kept stroking slow. Too slow. “Touch me, please.”
He obliged, fingers finding your clit in movements that had you gripping his shoulders tighter, eyes fluttering shut so beautifully he had to bite his lip to not let out a pathetic sound.
“Been wanting this,” he mumbled. “Longer than today. Longer than tonight.”
His finger slid inside of you, making you moan when he curled it just right.
“There were…there were nights I thought about you riding my hand,” he kept going, voice cracking as he added a second finger, stretching you more. “I’ve wanted you for so long–not just because of this shit in my blood. Because it’s you.”
Every word made you clench around his fingers. Every admission pulled another shaky moan out of your throat. You were a mess already, breathless, hips rolling down to meet the thrust of his fingers.
“Oh my God–don’t stop, please don’t stop–”
“Not stopping, baby.”
He kept working you open, the white lenses of the mask never leaving your face. His free hand slid up your chest, settling between your breasts.
“I’m–I’m close,” you managed. “I’m so close–”
“Come on…you’re perfect. You’re so fucking perfect like this.”
The heel of his palm lifted to press against your clit. You were right there, right on the edge, about to come on his hand and drip down his boxers–
“Please,” he begged, unable to keep it in. “Let me fuck you after this…please. I need to be inside you. I’ve needed it for so long–just let me, after you come, please, please–”
The plea undid you.
You came with a broken cry, stopping your movements as your walls pulsed around him. The sound you made against his shoulder nearly finished him right there.
It took you a second to just breathe again, your chest synching up with his in the search of oxygen. He kept rocking his hand slowly, not just to work you through the aftershocks, but because the friction of your pussy in his hand brought the tiniest relief to him.
You just stayed there as the last soft waves rolled through you.
Once you were able to see clearly again, you let out a breathless chuckle and straightened back up.
He needed you. He needed you so badly you really thought he was going to die if you didn’t help him.
You placed one hand on his chest as the other reached under you, slipping inside the fabric of his boxers without breaking eye contact.
The second your bare fingers brushed him, his hips jerked hard under you.
“You said please,” you whispered breathlessly.
You wrapped your fingers around him and pulled him free.
His cock sprang out, heavy and flushed between your bodies, so thick and hard and painful. The head was red and shiny, with precum dripping down the vein that ran along his length. The tip brushed the skin of your stomach, leaving a warm, wet patch that made the hair on your arms go up. He could smell the small flicker of intimidation sparking inside you, but the want that followed was stronger.
You stroked him a few times, slowly just as he’d touched you at first.
“Oh my God, your hand–your hand–”
Another thick bead of precum welled up and spilled over your fingers. Whether it was the toxin or just his enhanced physiology, he was dripping for you.
Flustered wasn’t enough of a word when you had his leaking cock in your hand.
His hands slid down to your hips, gripping tighter, guiding you up as if he was about to lift you then pulling you back down immediately.
Fuck her. Fuck her right now.
“Please, I need–I need to feel you…” he cried out. “Let me…let me…”
You nodded just as desperately, lifting yourself up as he helped, steadying you with shaking hands until the thick head of his cock nudged against your entrance. You both exhaled hard at the same time when you started to sink down, taking him inch by inch.
He was big. Almost too much. The burn of it made your breath hitch, but the way he cursed under his breath multiple times, completely at your mercy, made you keep going until he was buried balls deep.
You sat there for a moment, breathing heavily, and so full of him.
When the initial sting faded away, you started moving. He let you set the pace as you adjusted, holding back his need of thrusting up. His fingers dug on your skin, not lifting just holding you, but the more that you moved, the more that control started to waver.
He could feel it coming. The change.
You kept moaning, bouncing on top of him, completely unaware of his self restraint crumbling away.
His grip slowly tightened when his eyes began turning completely black under his mask. That careful, pathetic boy who’d been begging disappeared beneath something more…primal.
Fuck. Whatever had been holding him back finally snapped.
The next thing he knew, his hands slid under your thighs with sudden strength. He lifted you up in one motion until only the thick head of him remained inside you, held you there for a second as the last part of him tried to remember how to be gentle–then snapped his hips up hard.
That first thrust pulled a sharp moan out of you, but there was no chance to adjust this time. He set a relentless pace almost immediately, using pure strength to bounce you on his cock while he drove up to meet every drop of your body, buried so deep it stole your breath every time he bottomed out.
“Oh my–May…Maynard–” the name you barely used on him slipped out in the middle of the frenzy, but his hand reached behind your head to pull your hair back slightly as he kept thrusting up.
“Don’t call me that,” he snapped, his voice so different from just minutes earlier. “It’s Peter. Call me Peter when I’m inside you.”
He didn’t even give you time to process, still lifting and dropping you onto his cock at the exact hard rhythm he wanted. The only one that satisfied the need inside of him. Your hands instinctively reached for the edge of the arm of the couch he was leaning against, fingers digging into the worn fabric as he hit that spot inside you over and over again.
“Of fuck…Peter–fuck…yes…”
“That’s better,” he approved. “I was right, you’re so so perfect…taking every inch like you need it as bad as I do…”
A desperate sound slipped out of you at the praise, he could feel your walls clenching tight around him as your body went for that second orgasm, your eyes were fluttering shut, almost there–
“Nuh–uh,” he denied immediately, stopping mid thrust, holding you pressed against him as you gasped, surprised and confused.
“What–what happened? I was about to–”
“I want you to hold it for me. I know you can.”
That twisted part of him enjoyed the slow realization on your face.
Even if you couldn’t see his eyes, you knew the same spiderman he’d been without the inhibitor, was the one with your body at his mercy now.
Good.
He stayed buried to the hilt for a moment, breathing hard behind the mask. When your breathing finally slowed down and accepted that the high never came, he stood up. Still inside you, he walked you to the bed in the corner of the room.
His bed.
He pulled out with a wet sound that made both of you groan, then laid you down roughly near the edge of the mattress. He kneeled down, strong hands hooking behind your knees and dragging your legs over his shoulders, folding you open for him completely.
“Look at the ceiling,” he ordered. “Don’t look at me.”
You obeyed, staring up at the wood beams high above you while he tugged the bottom of the mask just high enough to free his mouth.
Peter leaned down and pressed a few soft kisses to your swollen folds. He wasn’t necessarily eating you out, just giving a few loud smooches that felt good enough to make you grip the sheets.
“M’sorry, you were so perfect there…” he mumbled condescendingly against your most sensitive spots. “But I need you to hold on a little longer. Can you do that for me, sweetheart?”
You nodded, eyes still fixed on the ceiling. Maybe too eager. Maybe too pathetic. Just like he’d been. Had he pumped that toxin into you?
Either way, you didn’t care. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t like this version of him.
He laughed right over your clit when you moaned loudly, after he moved his tongue in a slow, torturous swipe over it.
“Was back there too much?” He cooed. “Maybe I just need to stretch you more...”
Two fingers slid inside you, so easily, but the sudden stretch still dragged a whine out of your throat. He curled them immediately, finding the spot that made your hips jerk.
“Peter…”
“Huh?” He acted coy, pumping his fingers with a rhythm that kept you right on the edge without letting you tip over. He added a third finger, making your back arch from the mattress. “Keep holding it in.”
Every shake of your body fed the stupid toxin inside him. Having you like this…really trying to keep your body from coming apart because he said so.
God. He was never going back.
“You just took my cock. I think you can take three fingers with no problem.”
He kept the same relentless pace, chuckling when your body started twitching again.
“Shhh, you’re perfect, absolutely perfect…”
“Peter…” you called out again, hand dropping the sheet to find his shoulder instead. “I need…need…”
“Need what?”
“Need you inside me…please I won’t–I won’t hold for much longer just–fuck me.”
He stopped altogether, a smirk you couldn’t see stretching the corner of his mouth. He pulled his fingers out with a wet pop, licking them clean before tugging his mask back in place and standing up.
“Yeah?”
Your legs dangled off the edge of the bed for a moment before his hands gripped your hips and turned you over. He moved you higher up the bed, grabbing one of the pillows, and shoving it under your hips, tilting your lower body up for him.
He then climbed onto the bed behind you and knelt between your spread thighs, the mattress dipping under his weight as one hand stroked down the length of your spine.
But something made him stop.
“This fucking mask–” he cursed under his breath. “It’s suffocating me.”
The sweat on his forehead had pooled under the mask, making it so sticky over his eyebrows that it was affecting the lenses he was trying to see you through.
“I need you to be a good girl for me,” he added breathlessly, yet still commanding enough. “Keep your head on the mattress. Ass up. Don’t turn around.”
You nodded. Too eagerly again. Couldn’t care any less again.
He didn’t think twice, just yanked the mask off and tossed it aside. It landed near you, making you bury half your face on the sheets as if staring at the mask alone would be disobeying his commands.
The sound he made when the cool air hit his face was pure relief. He swiped the sweat off with his forearm, finally seeing you clearly. Face down. Eyes squeezed shut. Already clutching the sheets.
“You look so pretty like this,” he mumbled. “All spread out for me…waiting.”
“Peter…” you whined, lifting your ass slightly from the pillow.
“I know, I know. You’re okay.” He couldn’t keep the smirk away when he added, “you said please.”
He reached between you, guiding the thick head of his cock between your thighs until it nudged against your entrance. You were still soft and ready and perfect.
Peter pushed in slowly, letting you feel every inch as he sank deep and deep and deeper.
He braced one hand beside your head and kept the other on your hip, pushing you into the mattress as his thighs hit the back of yours. Slap. Slap. Slap. The position left almost no space between your bodies, with Peter pressing his chest against your back.
“Fuck…you feel so good like this…so pretty taking me.”
He kept going, making the mattress creak and the base of the bed hit the brick wall repeatedly. Your desperate moans ran through his body like electricity, making something inside him crack open again.
What? What is–
The moment his rhythm stuttered, he shook his head, trying to clear it. Beads of sweat flew from his hair to your back.
“God–you…you’re making me–” The roughness of his thrusts slowed down immediately, inhaling a sharp intake of air as he felt the change again. “I can’t, I can’t…”
He lifted his gaze to the window behind the bed and noticed his eyes had turned back to its original color.
“Oh my god,” he gasped, stopping altogether. He straightened up, still kneeling and inside you, but panicking. “I’m…I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened I–“
“Peter!” You cut him off, pushing yourself back, closer to him, without turning around. “Shut up and fuck me.”
The order left your mouth breathless, pushing back against him even more to make the point clear. His hands twitched when they gripped your hips again.
“Okay, okay…” he panted, groaning when you dropped back on the bed and his cock almost left the warmth of your pussy. “I’m sorry–if I was too rough, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…”
He picked up the pace again, but the words tumbling out of him now were pure pleading Peter again.
“Don’t turn around–don’t turn around–fuck, fuck…” slap, slap, slap. “You can come now. Please. Please, I want to feel it–you’d come apart so pretty on me, I know you would…pleasepleaseplease–”
His final permission and the desperate way he said it made you crash harder than the first time, crying out into the mattress. The second he felt you coming around him, he knew he couldn’t last much longer either.
“Can I–inside…please, can I??…let me fill you up–”
“Yes–inside, Peter, do it inside me…”
He buried himself to the hilt with a strained groan and finally came. The orgasm tearing out of him was harder and longer than anything he’d ever felt, holding you there, filling you up.
You gasped against the sheets, breathless, as the waves of cum seemed to go on forever, flooding you with warm and thick ropes in every spurt as he emptied himself inside you.
“Thank you…thank you…” His forehead dropped between your shoulder blades, sending broken gasps against your skin as he kept coming. “You are so perfect–fuck…so perfect…thank you…”
The pollen wrung him dry until he could barely breathe, and even then he kept rolling his hips weakly, chasing the last of it while he slowly softened inside you.
When it finally eased, the pain, the need, the hunger…he pulled out slowly with a whine, and half collapsed over you. His arms held most of his weight as he planked above you, but you could feel every ridge of his muscles brushing your sweaty skin.
Peter’s eyes fluttered shut, feeling exhausted and aching in the best way, almost lulled by the sounds of your agitated breaths.
You both felt the warm trail of liquid leaking out between your bodies and neither of you moved or said anything for a while. He could’ve stayed like that forever, really. With your naked body under him, no masks, no barriers, just your swollen pussy leaking out his seed–
“Successful ejaculation brought down the arachnid hormone levels immediately. Inhibitor working within regular parameters now. Congratulations, Peter.”
EV’s monotone voice cut through the silence.
It took two seconds of shock before you both broke into breathless laughter. His teeth grazed your back as your bodies vibrated in sync from the amusement and overall flustering after everything that happened.
“Thank you, EV,” Peter muttered.
“You’re welcome. I gathered data and the released semen volume exceeds standard parameters by two hundred and twenty six percent due to the high hormonal concentration. Hydration, clean up and rest are advised.”
“For fucks sake…” Peter cursed under his breath.
“Oh god…” you mumbled against the sheets.
That was your call back to reality.
Peter felt you move under him, reaching blindly to the side until your hand found the mask. You lifted it over your shoulder, offering it to him without looking.
“I don’t want to,” he said, too quickly, then cleared his throat. “I…I don’t want to put it back on.”
“Then I’ll close my eyes,” you offered instead.
“No–I mean…you don’t have to. I don’t want to wear it around you anymore. Not after…all of this,” he admitted sheepishly.
“But you told me to not turn around,” you reminded him, dropping the mask on the mattress again. “And that was you, not the darker you.”
He chuckled, nodding even if you couldn’t see him yet.
“Yeah, because if I saw your face while I was balls deep inside you I would’ve busted before you came.”
There it was. He said it. No turning back now.
At least it got a chuckle from you too.
“Listen I…I meant everything I said. Everything. The wanting, the nights I thought about you,” he confessed. “I don’t want you to feel like I just used you when…when there was always a reason why I needed you like oxygen tonight.”
Your breath hitched, and his hand found your waist, pulling you closer to him, and when you didn’t push away…he exhaled in relief behind you.
“So maybe…you can turn around now. If–if you want to. Know the real me.”
“I would really like that,” you whispered without hesitation.
You tried lifting yourself up to turn around, but he did most of the job, moving away the pillow he had placed under you and helping you roll onto your back. You closed your eyes, at least until you were facing him completely, and took a deep breath. Holding onto his biceps for moral support, you finally opened them again.
Seeing his face for the first time felt so intimate, even after everything you just did.
There he was. The same guy who just fucked you into next week, looking more shy and boyish than you could’ve ever imagined.
Brown eyes. Dark, curly hair sticking to his forehead. A nervous smile tugging at the corner of his gorgeous mouth.
So young. So earnest. So yours.
Not spidey anymore. Just Peter.
Your Peter.
Thank you so much for reading 🤍 I used to write Peter so much back in the day (shoutout to my starktonyx era) and I’ve missed him dearly.
turnnoffyourmind
gamechangershow
prguitarman
pixelskylines
izzy806
germansingergirl
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
ellievsbear
