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It began with a pair of red patent leather pumps his mom wore until the heels cracked. The color was probably what drew him in – his mother called it “ardent crimson”. Or it was possibly the shiny finish that showed every scratch and wrinkle, every smudge from his sticky, clumsy fingers. He was barely out of diapers, so the less wholesome symbolism was lost on him at the time, but he was drawn to them regardless, stuffing his pudgy fists in and wearing them like hooves as he clattered around on the hardwood floors on all fours. Though they were his mother’s favorites, she let him play as he liked, with a doting curl to her lips while she watched him growl and adventure on the floor.

“You’ll ruin him,” he remembered his father grumbling while his mother tutted and dismissed the suggestion. “It’s unhealthy.”

“He’s just playing, William.”

“Playing at what?”

When he’d looked at his father then, the man’s expression held something in it that disturbed a child’s heart. It wasn’t until years later, thinking back and trying to recall the exact set of his brow and tone of his voice, that he identified it as disgust. Analyzing the memory, he wondered if he understood at the tender age of three that his father was disappointed in him. He also believed when his father left them a few years later that those red pumps played a significant part in that decision.

So, it started with the pumps but didn’t end there. It was never in doubt that he was his mother’s joy, and as any child with a contentious homelife, he curled towards that joy eagerly and away from his father’s judgment or the critical gazes of strangers and relatives. He watched his mother at her dressing table for hours, garbed in satin slips of various delicate colours, preparing, painting and perfecting her mask for the world beyond their house. The tweezers, brushes and combs, the cuticle scissors and emery boards, the eyeliner sticks and lip rouges and tiny pots of shadows and blushes lined up before her angled mirror just so. Even after her illness began to master her, his fear was always softened when he spotted her at her table gazing at her reflection in assessment. When she took up her brushes, he knew it would be a good day, and he’d be mesmerised as she slowly reasserted herself with camouflage.

It was same with her closet. She’d dive into it, bursting as it was with too many fabrics and patterns and colours all clamouring for her favor, and pulled out silks and chiffons, tweeds and worsted wools. As with her make-up, she’d combine them like alchemy, twirling before him in different combinations until she landed on the perfect mix. He watched her magically assemble herself in her armor while seated on her bed, legs swinging absently as she exclaimed, “I am Joan of Arc in silk! No army on earth shall defeat me in such an assemble!”

She’d wink, and he’d giggle, happy because she was happy, and he could ignore her madness for a while. But he also loved the change that came over her in those moments. She was truly unstoppable then, if only for an afternoon, and he never forgot the calm stability of those times.

He learned to paint her nails, feeling a strange sense of accomplishment with each luscious, hardening coat. He watched closely as she applied her cosmetic disguises and did his best to mimic them when the medications made her hands unsteady or her mind too forgetful to remember the correct order of layers. He learned to sew, altering her clothes when her spine slouched, and she lost weight until her hips stood out noticeably. His fingers moved over the material with reverence, sensing the transformative power they held that his own clothes didn’t; his mother always said men designed clothes to trap women, but women turned that trap around to snap back at them. He wished that his clothes would defend him from the world and bolster his fragility the way his mother’s delicate armoring did.

“Try it on,” she said one day after he’d experienced a sudden growth spurt. He looked up from the appraisal he was making of the new hemline in his hands, pins pinched between his lips, and she smiled with crinkly, doting warmth. “It’s okay, no one will know. You’re almost as tall as me now – it’s sure to fit.”

He swallowed hard and nearly choked on a pin. He couldn’t. He was a boy. Oh god… did she know that he still tried her shoes from time to time?

“It’s fine, Spencer,” she said gently. He closed his eyes briefly; she definitely knew about the shoes. How mortifying.

“I can’t.”

“Of course, you can.”

“I’m a boy. Boys don’t wear dresses,” he said with a sigh.

“Says who?”

He looked up, and she seemed genuinely confused.

“Men have designed clothes and told women what to wear for thousands of years,” she continued. “Men have always decided.”

There was a tightness to her voice then that she shook off a moment later when her gaze softened.

“You may do whatever you decide to do, my son. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t.”

He stared at her for a long time, halfway between fear and a fledgling desire he didn’t understand.

“Dad wouldn’t like it,” he said. Her eyebrows lowered.

“Your father is a fool,” she rumbled definitively. “And since he’s no longer a part of this family, he doesn’t get a say in it.”

He dropped his eyes and slowly pulled the dressmaker’s pins from between his lips. He shivered, imagining what his father would think, and then trembled as he slid the silk between his fingers.

“Aren’t you curious about what it feels like? The power that they have…” When he looked up at her again, her expression was filled with awe. “The way they draw the eyes of others, the way they hold and protect you, the feeling of being wanted, envied… There’s nothing quite like the authority confidence gives you, Spencer. The perfect clothes can give you that.”

He didn’t know what confidence felt like. But he was aching to find out.

When the silk fell over his skin, brushing his thin hips with a warmth lighter than a finger’s touch, he felt excited and alien and completely new. He wasn’t the bumbling teenager who tripped over his unlaced sneakers or cowered from people in his thick-rimmed glasses and nappy sweater vests. He was tall and lithe. When he moved, the fabric hugged and moved with him. Like a dance. He felt the air flute and ripple the silk over him, and he was tickled and light for the first time.

“Twirl… twirl,” his mother laughed and clasped her hands in delight.

And he did, feeling like an arrow slicing through space, rain soaking a mountainside, snow blanketing and silencing the earth beneath it. He looked at himself in her dressing table mirror and was stunned: he wasn’t slouching, and his sharp edges seemed… purposeful in this fabric. He tried to picture himself with dark lines around his eyes, his hair swept back from his face, and his cheeks lined with a delicate, artful blush. His shoulders straightened, and his hands fell loosely at his sides, his chest opened, and his chin lifted…

“You’re beautiful,” she whispered, and his heart leapt.

He felt that. He saw it. And for the first time he could see the powerful specialness everyone always said he had. It wasn’t just his mind, or only his body. It was both – a completeness that securely anchored him in reality for the first time. His mother was right – there was sorcery in this. He could be whoever he wanted to be now that he knew the secrets of its power.

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His realization got complicated. The magic didn’t always work when and how he wanted it to. His own clothes, no matter how carefully chosen, didn’t give him the same confidence, and he wasn’t naïve enough to believe that a teenaged boy could strut around suburban Las Vegas in a dress, even if he had no friends to embarrass. And there was puberty to negotiate, which only confused him further.

Girls were a thing. A thing that ate up a considerable amount of his time and consideration. Not that he ever asked any on a date, no. He didn’t have the power to look them in the eye while he stammered out an invitation, not in his short-sleeved buttondowns and skinny ties. He watched them go with others – rough-edged football players and shifty smokers with their dead eyes and leather jackets – and he knew he was invisible with his slouch and the way he curled away from the light. But his eyes followed those girls greedily. Their dresses and blouses, the tight jeans that they seemed poured into, the large, soft sweaters that hung off one shoulder, the scrunchies in their hair and the too-much make-up they wore that he wished he could fix. He watched other boys’ eyes follow them too and saw that his mother had been right – women turned fashion into an ally, a weapon of influence. And he envied that until it physically hurt. He just wanted to be seen the way he had in his mother’s mirror in her lighter-than-air silk dress. He wanted to feel the confidence of his unique mind housed in his beautiful body once more – to be unstoppable.

But he was a man. Well, he was becoming a man, at least. He’d have to find a way to adapt. His mom always said that one of men’s few good qualities was the ability to mutate when their survival was on the line. He wasn’t struggling with survival – it wasn’t as alarming as that – but his future was barreling toward him quickly and he had to figure out a way to handle it. Mutation seemed as good advice as any.

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Mail order catalogues were a godsend, and anything that couldn’t be found in the mainstream ones could be located in the more questionable parts of Vegas. One simply had to be a little brave and curious. These adventures were also his first taste of the advantages of maleness; he was a gawky, teenaged boy in an adult bookstore, or a racy lingerie shop, or a place that sold shoes to cabaret performers on the Strip. Sometimes the staff chased him away, but more often than not he received knowing smiles as they rang up his purchases.

“Boys will be boys,” one sweaty shop owner mumbled as he handed over a plain brown bag while Spencer tried to find something to look at that didn’t frighten him.

Pornography wasn’t the point. He wanted to understand how women wielded their weapons, even while being objectified. With clothes or without, he thought women had a power that men simply failed to match. They understood the power of the covetous gaze. They strutted around in it, wrapping themselves up like it was a cloak, and they turned something that should have been a burden into a tool of access. He was determined to learn that secret so he could become who he was meant to be.

So, he researched, and bought what he needed, and practiced in the solitude of his room with its sci-fi and comic book posters watching him slowly teach himself the alchemy of metamorphosis. If his mother ever knew, she kept it to herself. But by that time, she was having more bad days than good; it only heightened his sense that he was a confused traveler stranded in an alien world. But one day he’d discover the correct combination of elements, and he’d successfully assimilate. He had faith in that idea, and his mind had never failed him in that regard.

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He was seventeen and a half, in his college dorm room with a chair propped under the doorknob in lieu of a functioning lock, and he was pressed against Patty Bernbaum on his tiny twin bed like a sweaty, excited eel. There was nothing in his world except their nervous breathing, the voracious tangle of their mouths, and the sticky fumblings of their innocent fingers. He was elated; in bed with his girlfriend, and WANTED, finally. It had been a struggle to get there, taking nearly three weeks to work up the courage to ask her out in the first place, but it was worth it now, to feel her excitement for him, for this, even if they’d both admitted that they were each other’s first and didn’t have a clue about what they were doing.

His hands were under her shirt wrestling with her bra, and he groaned when he felt her fingers clumsily pull at his belt, his fly. He was digging into her too hard, already excited enough that just the idea of her hands around him could have set him off, but then she slipped into his pants and her mouth pulled away from his abruptly. She gasped, and he held his breath when she went still under him.

“Okay?” he whispered. She wasn’t touching him – he didn’t understand. Was she scared? Having second thoughts? Her fingers traced the edge of fabric under his pants around his hips.

Oh shit.

“Is that… lace?” she breathed.

He pushed away from her on the bed, her hand slipping out of his pants as he moved quickly. He’d forgotten…

“Spencer, what are you wearing? Let me see…”

Patty reached for him, and he couldn’t stop her, not without being rough or rude. Her hands grasped the fabric of his pants and pulled them wide enough to see him in the dim light from his desk lamp, excited and trapped in burgundy satin with lace trim along the waist and thighs. One of Patty’s hands came away in surprise and then hovered in the air before him, unsure of where to land.

“Are you wearing panties?” she asked tightly. She looked up when he didn’t answer, his voice lost in the chaos of discovery and fear. Her brow wrinkled. “Why?”

He coughed and his throat closed up. How could he explain it? How could he tell her that the only way he could be the man she wanted was to wear a talisman of becoming? There was no way to illuminate it for her when he barely understood it himself. But he wanted her to understand. She was his girlfriend…

“I don’t understand,” she sat back and clutched her half-open shirt over her chest. “Why would you… bring me here if…”

“I-if what?” he finally stammered. She looked him in the eye, mouth tight.

“If you don’t like girls.”

“I do like girls,” he blurted, heartbeat suddenly accelerating until he could barely breathe. “Look at me – I’m very excited by you, Patty…”

Her eyes flicked to his groin, and then away with a twist of discomfort, and his heart stopped dead in his chest for a painful moment.

“It’s 1998, Spencer. You don’t have to pretend to be straight these days. You can be gay, you know…”

“I’m not gay,” he said, fighting his lungs to get the words out. But she was already off the bed, looking around for the few pieces of clothing he’d managed to get off her. By the time she was jamming her feet into her maryjanes, he’d caught his breath and his wits, sitting up on the bed with his arms wide in an effort to calm her. “Patty, I’m not gay. I swear to you I’m not.”

“Okay, Spencer,” she said dismissively, wiggling too roughly into her sweater. Then she marched for the door and was stopped by the chair. “I want to leave.”

“Please don’t go,” he whispered urgently, getting to his feet and coming up behind her. She twitched when she heard him and shuffled away, looking at him with something like… fear.

“Will you let me leave?” she asked cautiously.

“O-of course, I’ll let you,” he gulped. “But I’m asking you to stay, Pats. You know me… I know you know me. Don’t let this one thing – a piece of clothing – derail us…”

She fixed a determined stare on him. “Open this door, Spencer. Now.”

He swallowed, blinked away the stinging of his eyes, and gently unhooked the chair from beneath the doorknob, opening it to the light of the hallway beyond it.

“Please don’t go,” he whispered again, not looking at her. “Please.”

He heard her sigh. “It’s not your fault. I get that you’re born… the way you are. You didn’t choose this.”

“I told you, I’m-”

“But I don’t like being lied to. How do you think it makes me feel that you don’t actually want me?”

He looked up then, horrified. Her mouth was pulled down, her eyes glassy in the meager light.

“Everybody wants to be wanted for who they are, Spencer. It’s terrible that you think you could’ve gotten away with giving me less than that. Just so you could ‘pass’.”

“Patty, I didn’t-”

But she turned on her heel and walked away, her hand brushing her face as she hurried down the dorm hall.

She didn’t return his messages when he called her, and she transferred out of the TA pool that they were both registered to. When he was jumped by a bunch of guys across campus after a late night at the library, he had to admit to himself that Patty didn’t know him after all. The guys jeered as they kicked him over and over, trying to keep their faces in shadow even though he caught fragments of details when they moved in and out of the streetlights. They were other doctoral candidates. For all their exalted education, they labelled him as “queer” and “a perverted fag” just like the bullies in high school. They did – ostracized nerds just like him – delighted finally to have someone to punish for his ‘otherness’ just as they had been punished. They didn’t see him as one of them anymore, and they certainly didn’t see who he was trying to become. They only saw his difference, and that difference was dangerous when it defied understanding. He curled up and protected his head, waiting for it to be over, tears streaming down him, not for the pain, but because the only way they could’ve found out was if Patty told them.

After that day, he never trusted another with his true self again. It was a freedom, a strength that he only permitted himself to have in private. The few lovers he had never saw it, and his friends never knew. He kept his true power hidden and lived a half-life, afraid of both becoming and never becoming simultaneously.

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In 2003, he found himself in Virginia training for the FBI. His metamorphosis was only half mastered by then, and more than once he’d go home to his pokey apartment filled with his books and papers and suits lined up next to his collection of dresses and heels in his closet wondering what on earth had convinced him that joining an organization based on violence and aggressive masculinity was a good career move. Even if its most famous member had enjoyed the odd frock now and again. He speculated that he might be a bit mad or had a taste for self-loathing. But then he’d sit in front of his mirror and slowly reveal himself with artful lines of kohl and powder until he could smile back at his reflection confidently.

“There you are,” he’d say with delight. “Good to see you again.”

And he got on with the business of being brilliant Dr. Spencer Reid – child prodigy, math genius, and now, FBI profiler. Nothing could stop him.

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She walked around like she owned every step of the ground beneath her, but she wore that ownership casually, as if it were a birthright. He was stunned by her introduction and found he could do nothing but nod at her when she tried to shake his hand.

“He doesn’t shake hands,” Morgan offered helpfully.

“Oh.” She lowered her hand and looked at him oddly. “Sorry.”

He tried to stumble out an apology, but it took too long, and she turned away to meet someone else. His heart dropped. That would be that. Another person whose eyes flicked past him as he struggled to achieve the bare minimum expected of him. His gaze fell to her shoes – a beautiful pair of classic pumps with an asymmetrical heart opening and stacked heels – and sighed. He turned back to his desk and its endless file folders. When he sat, he felt the garters tighten around his thighs under his pants and self-possession rippled over him again.

“Whatever,” he mumbled, his awkward meeting with Emily Prentiss already dimming as he flipped open a new case file, his finger quickly skimming over its paragraphs.

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It was a sort of hell working with her. She was stunning, but that wasn’t what concerned him. It was that her beauty was immensely powerful – it rolled and crackled off her like electricity at any given moment. And he was envious of that. His had to be locked down so tightly.

Her physicality was just a part of it though. He recognized that she wasn’t perfect – she had a ski jump nose that she complained about, and her hands were too big and workaday, her nails constantly bitten down to the quicks. But he’d observed enough women in his life to see that ‘beauty’ wasn’t just long legs, supple curves, and the longing suggestion of sex buried in flirtatious innuendo. Beauty was a secret recipe of the body, the intellect, and an instinct to survive and thrive. The exact measurements of this recipe were unknown, but you knew it when someone had it, and Emily Prentiss had it to spare. And, as his mother had so often described, she used clothing like a weapon. The mannish pantsuits and heels that were meant to cow her, she wore with relish, strutting in them across police squad rooms and interrogation cells, using them to establish her authority more than the gun on her hip. The shirts that emphasized her breasts, the dress pants that outlined the swell of her hips, the long lines down to her heels, announced her femininity without weakness, and without an invitation to seek more. Her allure just WAS, and you could choose to either accept the little that she gave you or to leave. That was it. He craved that confidence hungrily. What a marvelous way to move through life.

But when they worked together, he was stiff and awkward, it didn’t matter what he was wearing. He was intimidated by her strength, enthralled by her confidence, aroused by her body, and stimulated by her intellect. And all of this manifested itself in twitchy stammerings and an almost hysterical aversion to touch. He wanted it to be different – he really did – but his intentions always came out as this hot mess instead.

“Hey, Reid, have I done something to offend you?” she asked after she brought him a coffee and he’d spilled it all over his desk when their fingers brushed on the handle.

Her eyes were wide and cautious under the inky lines of her hair, like he was a wounded animal she didn’t want to spook into further injury. He hated that, but he also couldn’t blame her. She’d been sitting across from him for a year now. How long was anyone expected to wait while he got his act together?

“‘Cause I’m wracking my brain about this, and I can’t figure out when I freaked you out so completely,” she continued, and then waited for him.

His self-protection instincts lashed out before he could make a choice about it. “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do, Prentiss,” he grumbled while mopping his desk. Then he realized what he’d said and looked up at her. She sighed and cocked one hand lazily along her hip.

“If you tell me what I did, it’ll be easier for me to fix it. That’s all,” she said quietly. And then, to his horror, her confidence cracked and something like distress took its place. “I keep trying to turn you into a friend, Reid… but you’re not having any of it…”

“W-why would you do that?” he asked in astonishment, the tissue he’d been using to clean his desk falling into a puddle of coffee with a quiet splat.

She blinked at him. “Why am I trying to befriend you?”

He nodded.

Her expression melted into incredulity. “Because you’re cool, and I like you. Obviously.”

What? He just kept staring at her. She started to bounce nervously between her feet, back and forth.

“Okay, it’s like… you’re brilliant and insightful and startling, but that’s just the apparent stuff. You also have this air about you… like unimportant things really don’t matter to you. You just block it out. You don’t care what people think. And… I wish I was more like that.”

He kept blinking.

“And you get really revved up about the things you discover, and you get all of us revved up too. You find something new to excite you every day, and you’re wholly weird, which I find personally appealing…”

Whaaaaaaat???

“… so, I want to be your friend and hope that some of these things rub off on me. I mean, the cool stuff, not the frantic coffee-flailing stuff…” She nodded towards the coffee that was now trailing over the edge of his desk and plinking drops on his shoes.

“Oh!” He started aggressively mopping again.

That was something to turn his brain inside-out, and he ended up chewing on it for so long that she just sighed, went to the staff kitchen for paper towels, and then dropped them on his desk next to the puddle without further comment. They didn’t speak again that day, and on the VRE home that evening he built up a choking cloud of disappointment around him that could only be dissipated by doing himself up in his best Sally Bowles impression, with bowler hat and fishnets, the moment he got into his apartment. When he batted his fake lashes in the mirror and rose from his chair to stand statuesque and alive with all his curves and sharp edges boldly defined, he realized living a half-life wasn’t enough. He wanted to be seen, known, strutting down K Street with his beauty and power flapping around him like a brilliant flag in the wind. An undeniable statement, I am Spencer, in stilettos and silk. But if he chose this, he was sure to be alone. It was just too confusing for others to negotiate. He cocked hands to his hips and stared at himself with kohl-smudged incisiveness, satin-red lips making his words as beautiful as they were brutal.

“You’ll never have her. Because you’re only alive at night, here. It’d be Patty all over again. Hiding all your strength just so you can ‘pass’ as a forgettable, drab man.”

His mother always said confidence led to attraction. And there he was, attracted to the most confident woman he’d ever seen. But he’d never be able to reciprocate without his war paint. Story of his life. He’d even tried flirting with men, just to see if he was confused about himself. And though he’d been compelled by drag performers, it was more fascination at their art and non-verbal signaling than sex appeal. He gloomily decided that girls were still, and always would be, his thing.

The worst part was the tricks he’d honed while at the Bureau withered in Emily’s presence. His bustiers, corsets, garters and hose rubbing gently and silently under his suits and sweaters unleashed a potency that allowed him to shoot accurately, stare down suspects, and intellectually subdue murderers. It always worked. Always. Who cares if he never used the men’s locker room or bunked with Morgan or Hotch during a case? His secret was worth it for the psychological buttressing it gave him and the appreciative backslaps he got from the team and his stone-faced boss. He was every bit the man they expected him to be, and sometimes surprisingly more, and the rush of power that gave him was so stimulating it occasionally left him breathless.

But it all evaporated around her. And still, his eyes kept following her, hopelessly covetous, wanting to ask her about her power as he’d once asked his mother, and wanting to reveal his in turn. She’d catch him in it, and he’d flick his eyes away shamefully, trying to make his long body small as he cloaked himself in ordinary humiliation. But despite the obvious questions his behavior aroused, she never confronted him about it again. She just watched and kept her distance, her perfect mask of professionalism walling him off from any insight.

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Stumbling into the elevator one Monday morning after a weekend spent exploring D.C. as his true self, he shook the hair from his eyes and caught hers as she leaned against the back of the cab. He mumbled a ‘hello’ and dropped his eyes to his sneakers, shrugging under the weight of his satchel.

“Nice weekend?” she breezed, and he bit his tongue before he told her about all the blisters he’d earned from walking around town in his stiletto boots and how it was simply the best feeling and was certainly screwing with his pain response mapping in his brain. Instead, he shrugged.

“I went to the Museum of Natural History.” Where my heels echoed off the marble, and I checked my coat and bag and the attendant smiled and told me to ‘enjoy the exhibits, miss’ and I overheard two women wishing they had my legs to pull off such a short skirt… No one shall defeat me in my ensemble…

“Oh, cool.”

He looked up at her then and she glanced at him nonchalantly. “Cool? It’s museum.”

“I like museums. Ever since I moved back to D.C. I’ve meant to revisit them. This is, like, THE museum town, after all. But I never seem to find the time…”

There was an opening there, but he swerved away from it. “What did you do this weekend?”

“Uh,” she huffed. “A few friends from college were in town, so we got dolled up and hit the nightlife. You know… the usual.” She seemed blasé about it, then she focused on him, and her eyes got intense like she did during interrogations.

“You, uh… have a little…” She leaned in slightly and made a sweeping gesture with her finger just under her eye. His body went rigid as he concentrated on looking confused, then he turned enough so he could see his warped reflection in the polished elevator panels. There was a black smudge lining the bottom of one eye.

Oh no.

“Better hit the head before you go to your desk,” she murmured as the elevator doors slid open on the sixth floor.

He dropped his face, so his hair hid him, and then he rushed out of the elevator without another word to her. He didn’t care how she reacted, and he refused to think about her at all as he frantically scrubbed the mark away in the men’s room, splashing his tie too much to go unnoticed and nearly suffocating on the shame of discovery. He gripped the sink and gasped long after he shut off the taps, clamping his eyes closed and willing himself to be drab, to be mousy, to be what everyone expected. The joy of his weekend burnt away, and he was once again left with the feeling of naked inadequacy and the sound of his father’s voice in his head: you’ll ruin him.

He returned to his desk and sat like he’d lost a fight with gravity, not looking in her direction. She let him be as the office slowly filled for the day. Then…

“I thought someone hit you,” she murmured. His head flashed up and he looked at her as she looked at her laptop.

“Pardon?”

“The eye. I thought I’d have to cajole the name of the asshole outta you, and then go all Charles Bronson on his ass.”

She still wasn’t looking at him.

“I, uh… I don’t know who that is.”

“Charles Bronson. Hollywood tough guy from the 70s.” She glanced up, and there was nothing unusual in her expression. “Death Wish?”

He shrugged in confusion and disbelief.

“It’s an awesome movie. We should watch it sometime. He’s a prototypical vigilante. Like, straight outta one of our case files or something.” She flicked him a quick smile that stopped him dead for an instant. “If you want to.”

Before he could think about it, he whispered, “Sure.”

Sure? Sure?!? He didn’t even like action movies…

She smiled again, and it was accompanied by a slight flush. “Well, alriiiiight.”

Emily turned back to her laptop, and he was left to stare, wondering what she thought was happening and what he’d signed himself up for.

“It’s a relief to know you weren’t some jerk’s punching bag, though,” she added, like it was nothing. “I mean, I get it. It happens to me a lot. And the waterproof stuff is the worst. You need industrial-grade solvents to get it off sometimes. It’s probably giving me skin cancer or something. Serves me right looking like a drug-addled raccoon some mornings…”

He choked and made an inarticulate noise that caught her attention, drawing her eyes up from her screen.

“It’s okay, Reid,” she murmured just loud enough for him to hear. “You don’t have to explain anything to me.”

His mind spun with what she thought she knew about him now. Drag queen? Goth? Punk? Gay? Dinner theater actor? Buttoned-down screwball weirdo? He churned with it throughout the day, though she’d long moved onto other things. But it ate at him like a slow drip of acid.

“I’m not gay,” he blurted as she shuffled into the staff kitchen for a midafternoon caffeine pick-me-up. Her eyes went wide in surprise, and he felt the blush scorching over him. But he pressed on. “I’m not gay.”

“That’s fine,” she said after a long pause. “It’s fine if you’re gay as well. All of it’s fine, Reid.”

“But you saw the make-up and the default assumption would be ‘he’s gay’ whether there’s empirical evidence to support that conclusion or not, and I’m not, and I wanted to clarify that point, not from a cisgender fear of being mislabelled or trepidation about being outed, but because there’s a lot about me that’s a grey area but this fact isn’t, and friends should know basic facts about each other, and you’ve been trying your best to be a friend, as proven by the tip in the elevator this morning which was designed to forestall further discomfort at discovery by others, and I recognize that and wish to mirror it back in kind even though I’ve given no obvious signals that is my ambition…”

He ran out of breath and had to quickly gulp some oxygen while Emily stood rooted to her spot in the kitchen with a mug halfway to her mouth.

“Which is to say, I’d like to be friends. With you. You know, even though I’m bad at saying so.”

He began blinking too much and wondered what that statement would’ve been like if he were standing before her in heels and a tasteful cocktail dress instead.

Emily took her time, staring as she forced herself to take a slurp of coffee. Then she snapped out of it. “Well… that’s great. Right? I mean, great!”

“Y-yeah.” He hesitated a beat, and then felt a smile bloom over him.

So, they watched Death Wish at her place a few weekends later (predictably, he hated it) and he was the drab version of himself she knew. But for the first time it wasn’t excruciating for him. He chalked it up to the new corset he’d bought and wore for the occasion, but objectively, he knew that wasn’t it. The undergarments never worked with her before. It was the comfort of her overstuffed sofa, the casual outfit she greeted him in but with meticulous make-up applied. It was the mundane conversations about work and movie character profiling, and the shared bowl of popcorn between them that he focused on too much, wanting and not-wanting to brush against her hands in it. It was the heat of his skin against the straps of his garters under his khakis, driving him to just the right level of distraction every time he shifted. It was companionship and anticipation, and he chided himself for it in the cab on the way home because there was nothing to anticipate.

Chapter Text

It went on like that for years. They hung out more and more beyond the office and slowly acclimatized themselves. He even allowed her to touch him from time to time without exploding in a seizure of twitches. He discovered she wasn’t as glamourous as he first thought, being nerdier and more tomboy-ish in private than he could’ve guessed. And she was lude and sassy when she trusted you, as well as poignantly self-effacing when she wasn’t fronting before a roomful of macho investigators. It did nothing to ease his draw towards her, recognizing that the power he envied in her was hard won and as much a costume as his mismatched suits were. It was the first time he’d known a woman beyond the surface myths his mother sketched for him; she was much more than weaponized beauty and cut-glass assurance. There was softness, resilience, and plenty of flaws as well. Somehow these hidden facets made her armor seem more impressive to him.

So, they worked together, traveled together, and they were scared and angry and exhausted together. They buttressed each other in long, drunken nights of the soul after bad cases, and they went to comic conventions and book fairs and had weekend brunches where they made fun of each other and laughed loud enough that others looked at them strangely. They had movie nights at her place and board game nights at his. But his true self always remained safely behind his locked bedroom door on those occasions.

She broadened his life, and he hoped he did the same for her, but it didn’t make up for how he yearned to stand before her as he really was.

“I never ask you if you’re seeing someone,” she blurted one night after too much merlot. She showed up unannounced with the bottle and planted herself on her end of the sofa to ‘celebrate’ the ending of another ill-advised relationship. He’d been through this before with her, though not often enough that he didn’t privately burn with jealousy as she either cried or railed against the latest ex.

“I just show up,” she continued while he fiddled with his wineglass. “It’s rude of me to assume that you’ll just be here. Sorry, Reid.”

Her eyes flitted away from him, and he knew she meant it. He wished that she’d start calling him Spencer instead.

“Dating isn’t really a factor in my life,” he murmured back.

A year before he’d quietly tried online dating, thinking it was the safest way to filter out candidates who might be repulsed by his peculiar combination of quirks. He’d met someone nice, plain but openminded and intellectually challenging. For a few glorious weeks he mostly forgot about his pointless workplace crush and let himself hope that he’d found someone who’d accept him. But as they went on together, he realized she fetishized his ‘drag’, like it was performance art or a rebellion against societal norms. He tried to explain that it wasn’t a costume to him, it was a part of his personality; he didn’t ‘put it on’, but rather he took his suits off to reveal it.

“But you’re a man,” she’d said with a confused curl to her lips. “You sleep with women – we’ve slept together. You identify as a man… I mean… you do, don’t you?”

“I don’t want to be a woman,” he sighed, exhausted that no matter how much he explained it, the message never got through. “But this,” he gestured to his closet, spilling over with colors and fabrics. “Is a part of me. Perhaps the best part – the most ‘me’ I ever am. It’s not a metaphor.”

She’d stared long and hard, at both him and the dresses in the closet. Then she shrugged.

“I guess I don’t understand. I can see many paths that would lead a heterosexual man to dress as a woman, but I don’t get how a het guy sees the best part of himself as female and not want to be female in the end. It just sounds like you’re confused, Spencer.”

And that was the end of that. At least they’d parted reasonably, and she hadn’t sent a bunch of her friends to beat him up.

“I never hear you talk about anyone.” Emily’s voice brought him back to the wine-soaked conversation on his sofa. Her eyes were dark and sad, and for the first time that evening it felt as if her sadness was for him. He felt his face heat a little.

You probably wouldn’t get it either…

“I’m not the sort of guy who falls for people easily. And people don’t fall for me either.”

She snorted in disagreement. “Maybe if you let folks in more they would.”

He sat a little straighter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you seemed scared of me the first year we worked together, and you only calmed down after I declared my intentions like some awkward junior high kid. Most people don’t give new friendships that much of a trial run, Reid. You gotta give a little to get a little.” She sighed and gulped down some wine. “I can’t imagine what you’d do if a woman walked up and flat-out asked for a date…”

Resentment bubbled in his chest. She didn’t know why he had to protect himself, how the instincts were steeped in experience. And then his resentment deflated when he realized she didn’t know because he wouldn’t let her know.

“Well, that’s not likely, so…”

“Why not?” she challenged, leaning forward and fixing for a battle over it, which surprised him. “You’re handsome, smart, funny, you have a hero’s job, and you’re fun to hang with. Why wouldn’t a woman take a chance on that?”

Handsome? It was the first descriptor she used. Not the third or fourth, or a pity tag on the end of a sentence.

“I’m… handsome?” He couldn’t contain the shock. He’d never felt that way about himself in his ‘drab’ costume. It held no power and therefore he had no confidence in it.

“Of course, you are,” Emily rolled her eyes. “It was the first thing I noticed when we met. I even mentioned it to J.J. and she got all huffy and protective. It was before I understood that brother-sister vibe you guys have.”

She thought he was handsome. From the moment they met. His mind couldn’t move beyond that.

“But… I… I’m a nerd…”

“Okay, maybe, yeah,” she hedged. “But a nerd with know-how and an unexpected streak of bravery, and great cheekbones and a winning smile, and undeniable panache. I mean, look at the colors you wear – they’re vibrant, warm, complicated. Most guys don’t stray too far from black or blue. Women notice things like that, ya know…”

He looked down at his eggplant pants, grey vest, and burgundy dress shirt rolled to his elbows. He realized he’d worn the same palette out the weekend before, but it was a satin blouse and an A-line skirt. Was his hidden self leaking through his daytime armor? He decided he needed to mull that idea over with all its implications at a later date.

“You. Are. Handsome,” Emily concluded and leaned back into the sofa, satisfied with her argument. “Believe it.”

Chapter Text

Believing was harder than it seemed, but he made an effort to see what Emily saw, if only to understand her a little better. He began to put more care into his armor selections, and slowly removed the thrift store purchases from his wardrobe with their careless workmanship and ambivalent fit. He bought a few tailored shirts and trim-fitted suits, discovering the rare flush of surprise to see himself in his mirror and feeling power pulsate from their seams and not just the lingerie underneath. He was stunned. His menswear never felt like anything to him, just a harness to a work horse. And though they’d never match the absolute confidence he felt in his dresses and heels, he started to see that these two sides of him didn’t have to oppose one another so much. A nascent blending was beginning – the warp and the weft of his life cinching a little closer.

“Oh,” she murmured one day as he settled his satchel at his desk after a morning spent in court. He turned and cocked an eyebrow.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she smiled and shook her head. “You look great is all. Really sharp in that suit.”

He looked at himself, long fingers smoothing over the charcoal wool with the almost invisible tweed check and his polished black Italian oxfords peeking from under his pants with their perfect break.

“Oh yeah?” He felt his skin tingle beneath the materials, and his garters seemed tighter as his pulse sped up. “You like it? I got it a while back. For court, you know…”

She circled their desks until she was standing in front of him. Still smiling, she reached out and ran her fingers under his lapel, testing the fabric. He didn’t move or breathe, just watching her as she took in the overall effect. Her pupils widened noticeably, and he was struck dumb. He even forgot to worry about her accidentally feeling the seam of his bustier underneath.

“Wonderful,” she murmured, and then took a step back as her fingers slid away. “I bet you killed it in court in this. There are few things as universally alluring as a man in a good suit. Clothes have power, you know.”

“I do,” he whispered, and felt in real danger of making more of that than it was.

She chuckled as she slid back around the desks to her chair again. Then she fixed him with a stare he’d never seen before, and one of her dazzling smiles.

“You should buy a few more of those.”

She sat and went back to whatever he’d interrupted when he arrived, but he just watched her and wondered.

Chapter Text

His fingers flicked out his business card with a flourish and the waitress smiled at him, warm and inviting, her fingers brushing his ever so slightly as she accepted it.

“And if I don’t remember anything useful?” she asked, lashes fluttering just enough to indicate an excited nervousness he hadn’t anticipated. “May I still call you?”

He swallowed hard, feeling too warm in his dark suit and the stiff corset beneath it. “Ummm, I’m working,” he mumbled, dropping his eyes, but she laughed anyway.

“Alright, Agent,” she teased, and when he glanced back up, she gave him a wink. “I’ll keep the card handy regardless.”

He turned and headed back to the bar’s entrance when he caught Emily’s stare. She seemed stone-faced, almost angry, but when he cleared his throat and asked about the customer canvas, the expression evaporated as if it never existed. They pushed through the bar doors out into the midday sunlight shoulder to shoulder like they always did.

“Careful,” she murmured as she put her sunglasses on and tucked away her notepad.

“About what?” he blinked.

“You know.”

“No, I don’t.”

Emily turned to face him, her eyes blotted out by black lenses. “Hotch would tear you a new one if he caught you flirting with a witness.”

He was suddenly choking and ablaze in the Arizona sun. Was she… was she pissed at him?

“I wasn’t flirting,” he asserted, and she snorted as she turned away. “I wasn’t.”

“Whatever.” Her tone was so dull it had to be forced. She started walking toward the car, and his whole body activated without his consent. In three long strides he’d caught her and turned her back to him with a firm hand on her arm.

“Hey. Seriously. That wasn’t flirting. I wouldn’t do that – it’s unprofessional.”

Her lips thinned and one corner of her mouth curled in an expression that should’ve been funny but wasn’t. “You played magic tricks for her. What was that if you weren’t trying to impress her? And for the record, magic tricks, Reid?”

She implied this was humorously lame and she was giving him back-handed advice, but her posture looked accusatory, like she’d just walked in on him making out in an interrogation room or something.

“I was getting past her reticence to talk to law enforcement,” he huffed as his face heated. He wasn’t about to tell her that was the first interest anyone had shown in him in months, and he’d soaked it up like a dying plant. “And don’t rag on magic. You’re a grown woman who’s a raging Harry Potter fan. Like that’s any cooler.”

Her hands went to her hips as she glared at him, but after a moment, she nodded once. “You may have a point.”

“Yes, I do,” he responded, surprised he’d won some ground. They both turned and walked to the car. “Yes, I do.”

She chuckled as he strutted a little and then struggled opening the car door before she unlocked it. “But she did flat out ask if she could call you sometime…”

He looked at her across the roof of the rental car. She wouldn’t meet his eyes even though she was smiling. “What about it?”

“Well, if she called and asked you out, would you go?” Her black-lensed gaze snapped to his, a smile still soldiering on as she made it sound like a casual question.

He leaned an arm against the car and held her stare. “No, I wouldn’t, Emily.”

“Why?”

“You mean other than she’s a potential witness in our case and we happen to live in different states?”

Emily glanced away and fumbled with her keys. “Yeah, uh… it was a stupid question. Sorry.”

“I wouldn’t because she’s not my type,” he explained, drawing her focus back to him. And it was true: the waitress had a pleasing, Midwest beauty about her, but she was obvious and unartful, swathed in Gap and Walmart designer knock-offs. Nothing about her said that she took any care in her armor, being pretty enough that she didn’t have to worry about it. And beauty alone wasn’t enough for him. “Though it’s always flattering to be considered.”

He smirked and she glanced up like she was rolling her eyes at him, then she opened the car door.

“Did it upset you?” He didn’t know what prompted him to ask when he could’ve let the whole thing go. She looked at him, half-curling into the driver’s seat.

“Why would it upset me?”

Her expression was completely unreadable behind those sunglasses. They stared at each other for an instant, then she dropped down into the car and shut the door. He did the same. They were halfway back to the precinct when she spoke again, barely heard over the background noise of the road.

“So, who is your type?”

He glanced up from the notes he was transcribing in his pad, but her eyes were on the road. He stared out at the road as well as it was eaten up endlessly by the hood of the car.

It might be someone like you. But it’s more likely to be no one at all. No one wants all of me.

“I don’t think I have one,” he ended up mumbling.

“C’mon, everyone has a type…”

“I don’t think that’s true, actually. There’s evidence to suggest that ‘types’ are merely what we’re most familiar with. The people in our immediate families, communities, our scopes of social experiences… things like that. If you’re suddenly removed to an environment with different people, ethnic groups, experiences etc., you might develop different tastes.”

“I guess.” He heard her shrug.

“Our brains are very elastic, and attraction is born in the brain.” There was a long space of nothing in the car between them. “Looks are something, I suppose, but I’ve always been more interested in what lies beneath. That’s where a person’s true self lives.”

He watched her but she just kept her eyes on the road, not reacting. He went back to his notes and skimmed what he’d written. Even if he’d been interested in the waitress, there wouldn’t have been a work conflict; she wasn’t much of a witness.

“Maybe that’s why you became a profiler,” Emily added without warning. “To find out who people really are underneath.”

“Maybe,” he murmured, refusing to acknowledge the ache in that word while looking at her.

“There are worse motivations to do this job, believe me.” Her mouth ticked up in a smirk and he didn’t have a chance to respond as they bounced into the precinct parking lot and had to get back to work.

Chapter Text

There were no further discussions about dating and no more drunken ‘celebrations’ of Emily’s break-ups after that case in Arizona. He was unsure whether she’d stopped seeing people, or if she’d just stopped telling him about it. It was probably the latter. Maybe the conversation made her uncomfortable. Maybe she didn’t want to be judged by him and his nebulous search for someone’s ‘true self’. Her paramours were always big and bold, unquestionably masculine; she definitely had a type. Part of him was upset that she might be keeping that part of her life away from him, but a much larger part was relieved he no longer had to play the miserable comparison game.

Months passed, and he quietly chafed at their stasis, neither diminishing nor moving forward into something more revelatory or satisfying. But he realized he was alone in this anxious ambivalence; Emily seemed perfectly content with who they were to each other. Her easy familiarity, the gentle ribbing, and enthusiasm for whatever they did together never wavered. And while this should have pleased him, he felt himself slowly emerging into a space where hiding who he was from her seemed unforgiveable. But his becoming couldn’t be shared – he knew that.

Chapter Text

The team worked a case in Chicago. Brutal BDSM murders of the city’s upper crust, which meant the investigation was stymied by an unusual number of high-priced lawyers, secretive witnesses, and reticent social club owners. In the end, the murders weren’t driven by politics or kinks or blackmail; it was about class disparity. The unsub was a former ingenue whose bloom had faded, and when he could no longer appeal to those in the scene who’d happily take him in and pay for his lifestyle, he turned around and killed them with opulent depravity, making their deaths a pointed indictment of how they’d used him up and discarded him.

Spencer found the case dangerously, quietly fascinating. Here was an object lesson about armor gone wrong. The assailant had weaponized his beauty and used it for everything it was worth – just as Spencer always wanted to do. But the power wasn’t guaranteed, and when it ebbed, the suspect was broken by it. Spencer was aware of the capricious march of time and wondered if his hard-won power would be just as capricious. By keeping it hidden, was he frittering it away until he was as forgettable in women’s clothes as he was in men’s? Did any of it really matter if he was never seen for who he was?

The suspect’s eyes washed over him as he walked into the interrogation room, lingering on his tailored lines and the combination of blues, purples and greys. Then his eyes flicked up and he smiled with such warmth and attention, Spencer was momentarily shocked by the focus of it.

“What a lovely surprise,” he murmured softly, pupils dilating in the dim light. “Who knew the feebs had style…”

Spencer cleared his throat awkwardly and sat, shuffling some crime scene reports against the table.

“Honestly, if I knew agents like you were out there, I might have gotten into trouble sooner.” The suspect chuckled when Spencer glanced away for a moment, as if his befuddlement was even more alluring. “Or I might have considered a different career path.”

“That might have been the wiser choice,” Spencer mumbled back, meeting the suspect’s entranced gaze.

“Oh well.” The unsub waved it away. “At least we have this time together. And maybe you can redeem me somehow.”

Spencer leaned closer, arching an eyebrow. “You want to be redeemed?”

The suspect mirrored Spencer’s movement. “I’d do anything for the right person. That’s something the others never understood. They wanted their games and fun and kinky sex, but they wanted it all to go away when the sun rose, or when the crow’s feet started to show. I could’ve been so loyal to any of them if they’d given me the same in return, ya know? It was such a waste, really.”

“A waste for them? Because they didn’t see that you could care for them?”

The suspect’s smile turned beatific. “Exactly. I would’ve taken care of them if they took care of me. It was about respect, that’s all – simple respect. That’s not so hard to understand, is it? And it’s completely free.” He sat back in his chair with a delighted look on his face, flicking his eyes all over Spencer in appraisal as the silence stretched. “You seem like you understand the value of things, of people.”

“It’s my job.”

He nodded and clasped his hands over a crossed knee, like they were settling into a pleasant dinner conversation. “What would you like to know, Agent? If you take care of me, I’ll return the favor.”

Spencer settled into the interview and quietly, almost casually, pulled the confession from the suspect, as if they were on a first date and trying to impress one another. He felt the garters tight around his thighs under his suit and the stiffness of his corset forcing him to sit straighter, and his power swelled through him when he saw the effect it had on the man across from him. Somehow, this murderer recognized his power on a fundamental level and submitted to it. Spencer never had to threaten or raise his voice. It was a silent, potent thrumming under his skin that was reenforced by every laugh and open glance the suspect made. The man was flirting with him, flirting with his strength, but he also knew it wasn’t going to amount to anything: he was going to prison. Attraction had been the currency of this man’s life, and he was appreciating the game played by another compelling opponent. If Spencer hadn’t been so focused on getting all the kill details out of the man, he might have been stunned. When he walked out of the interrogation and into the observation room with a written confession in his hands, his team regarded him with outright wonder. Spencer swallowed hard and didn’t know what to do.

“You flirted with him,” Rossi said. It was difficult to tell if his tone was impressed or accusing.

“He flirted with me,” Spencer corrected, eyes ducking to his shoes, his power deflating like a party balloon. “I only had to mirror his emotions back to him. He’s a malignant narcissist – he doesn’t care about anyone but himself anyway.”

Hotch took the confession from his hands, his expression unreadable. “Still, it was an unexpected tactic to take.”

“For me, you mean?” Spencer raised his gaze and sharpened his tone. “None of you expected that from me. Because I don’t possess those attributes or wherewithal or bravado, right?”

“Nobody’s saying that, Reid,” Hotch intoned after a silent beat.

“Yeah, haven’t I always said you’re a heartbreaker, Pretty Boy?” Morgan gave him a strained grin, like he was trying to find a way for everyone to get out of the room safely. Spencer just shot him a glance and ground his teeth. None of them understood because none of them really saw him. Same as always.

When they got back to D.C. and filed their reports, Emily wandered to his desk and brushed her hand along the shoulder seam of his suit.

“Wanna get a drink? I think I need drinks after this one.”

He glanced up at her, momentarily shocked by the warmth of her palm still on his shoulder. He wanted to say no, still quietly seething from the team’s reaction to his show of power. But her expression was earnest and exhausted – it wasn’t a pity ask – and when it came down to it, he wasn’t good at refusing her.

“Sure. Why not?”

They went to their usual haunt: a grimly-lit dive bar that none of the others knew about. They were noticeably out of place among the street punks, emo kids and 20-something unemployed musicians. Like flamingos in a cave. He secretly loved it. Power came in all sorts of forms…

“The confession interview was amazing,” she said from out of nowhere, watching the bartender instead of him. “It surprised everyone, and I know that pissed you off. I’m sorry we reacted that way.”

“You’re sorry?” he said with an edge that was softened by the effects of his beer. She nodded and then turned back to him.

“Yep. After all this time, stuff like that shouldn’t come as a surprise. You’ve settled into your skin so much, and you’re a frighteningly good profiler…”

It came out so casually and hit him like a ton of bricks. If he couldn’t stand before her as his true self, this was the next best thing. Her professional respect – her recognition of his skill – was something he thought he’d never achieve. He almost choked on his beer.

“We’re bad at seeing one another clearly. The team, I mean. Kinda ironic, isn’t it?” she continued. “But after the shock of realizing what you were doing passed, it wasn’t so surprising. You’ve always had that in you. At least, that’s what I think.”

“Had… had what in me?” He could barely get the words out and heard over the surrounding din.

“That kind of mastery. The skill to read someone’s affect and then have the know-how to get to the meaty stuff underneath it. They don’t train us in that shit. You either have it or you don’t. You see people, Reid. It’s a gift.”

His face flamed in the dim lighting, and he found he couldn’t maintain eye contact with her. He stared at his pint glass instead and wondered if this might be the best moment he’d ever have with her.

“It’s impressive as hell.”

He glanced back to find she’d leaned a fraction closer.

“Have to add that to the list.” She smirked, and he raised his eyebrows in confusion. She lifted her hand and began counting off. “Handsome, smart, funny, brave, entertaining, impressive-as-fuck at your job… You know: the Reid list.”

He barked out an unexpected laugh because he couldn’t think of anything better to offer her. It was almost too much to believe that she might envy him, and it sounded like she did. The indomitable Emily Prentiss envied him, when all he wanted was to know the secret of her power. And that list had begun with “handsome”, just as it had years ago. He still couldn’t get past that.

“I think Morgan is legitimately worried that I’m gay and he’s been making a fool of both of us by throwing me at women for years,” he choked through his nervous laughter.

Her hand landed across his back right where the edge of his corset gave way to bare skin, and he tensed for an instant before he realized her booze buzz and his jacket would disguise it. For a split second, the lines around her eyes strained before they smoothed out into humor.

“Well, be nice to him when he comes to apologize. He’d rather hurt himself than hurt you, you know.”

“He doesn’t have to apologize. He didn’t get anything wrong. I’m not gay.”

“He got stuff wrong about you, Spencer.” Her tone changed from amused to serious in a heartbeat. His attention sharpened at the use of his first name – she never did that. And her hand was still a warm weight on his back. “We all got stuff wrong about you.”

He waited a beat. “What stuff did you get wrong?”

Her expression became hesitant, and her hand slid from his back. “I dunno. Maybe it’s not so much ‘wrong’ as it is ‘missing’. There’s stuff I’m missing about you. I’m sure about that.”

His heart sped up so alarmingly he sat straighter to take a full, calming breath. Without permission from his brain, he reached for her other hand on the bar top and clasped it.

“You know me better than anyone,” he said earnestly, hoping his hand wasn’t sweaty.

“But I don’t know all of you, do I?” Her eyes were sad, and he was floored that such a statement elicited that kind of reaction from her. “You’re the most guarded person I know, and I have no idea why. So, I’ve definitely missed something big with you.”

He let another pointed moment pass between them as the bar buzzed and rolled around them. He was perilously close to blurting everything to her. The desire was so strong, it almost had a physical taste in his mouth. But he couldn’t and he knew why. He had too much evidence of how disastrous revelation could be.

“You think… I’m lying to you?” His voice broke as he asked. Emily’s eyes focused in a way that terrified him.

“I think that I’ll always have limited access to you,” she answered quietly. “It doesn’t matter how close we get. Part of you will just always be off limits.”

Her hand slid out from under his on the bar. It was a subtle recoiling, but it amped him up as if someone had just shouted, gun! in the bar.

“Does that really matter?” he blurted, coming as close as he ever would to admitting anything to her. Her whole demeanor seemed to shrink while she watched him. “You’re my best friend, Emily.”

“It does matter, Spencer. Because you’re my best friend too and I care for you. It hurts that you won’t let me in. After all this time, it still hurts.”

His pulse hammered against the garters on his thighs until they felt like tourniquets, and his corset was too tight to catch his breath.

“You’ve… you’ve always felt this way?” he choked. “From the beginning?”

Emily nodded and half curled back towards her drink. “For a while I thought I just needed to earn your trust. I was sure it would happen eventually. But I don’t think that’s true anymore. The weight of what you’re holding onto is so much bigger than any confidence I could earn from you. Can’t ever cash it in…”

“Emily…” His chest felt like it was cracking. He had no notion until that moment that heartbreak might be physically crippling.

“Don’t mind me.” Her mouth lifted in a half-hearted smirk, and she took a generous swig of her drink. “I’m drunk. And maudlin. It’s okay – we’re still friends an’ everything. Maybe this case got under my skin more than I thought.”

His mind blanked out on him. “How so?”

She shook her head. “I saw you and the unsub facing off in that interview and thought, they’re the same. Not that you’re a narcissistic killer or anything, but… that you both want something that, deep down, you won’t let yourself have. He turned it into something horrible. I’m wondering what you’ll do with yours.”

She flicked her gaze and pinned him with it, and he was overwhelmed by the urge to flee. She was so close to it now…

“Not sure how you expect me to feel about my ‘best friend’ complaining that I won’t let her in, and in the next breath, you’re comparing me to a serial killer.”

He stood too quickly and nearly got his legs tangled in the bar stool. Emily tensed and then reached for him, but he avoided her and flipped some crumpled bills onto the bar to pay for the drinks.

“Spencer-”

“I’m tired. I’m going home. You okay to get home by yourself?”

“Yes, of course. But-”

“It’s fine, Emily.” He gave her a fake grin. “Like you said: you’re just drunk. You’re always a bit brutal when you drink.”

Hurt ricocheted across her face, and he left her there like that, both happy and disappointed that he got in the last jab. In the cab ride home, his clothes felt like they were strangling him, and by the time he stumbled into his apartment, he was hyperventilating. He stripped, ripping his corset, garters and hose from him and throwing them across the bedroom. He never disrespected his things that way – his second, true skin. But tonight, he hated them and the trap they’d made of his life. He hated that they gave him what he wanted, but only a sliver of it. He hated that he had to hide all the time. He hated that he was too broken to function any other way. And he hated the look of defeat on Emily’s face when she resigned herself to always existing on the periphery of his life.

He howled and threw himself on his bed, naked and small, crying into his sheets and cursing the shiny temptation of his mother’s red patent leather heels so long ago. His father was right all along: they’d ruined him.

Chapter Text

They made their apologies to each soon afterward, but both knew there was more truth to that conversation after the Boston case than either of them was comfortable with. He found that his secret armor didn’t work as well as it used to. His undergarments no longer felt like the harness of his power that he’d honed for so long. He began quietly panicking that this might mean he’d have to leave the BAU – or even the FBI altogether – if he couldn’t find a way to reclaim it. The faded grin of the Boston unsub loomed in his mind in those moments: someone resigned to what he’d lost and everything that loss had made him do. It terrified Spencer.

He stayed at arms length from Emily, telling himself it would make things less painful when he finally decided what to do. But the pain came anyway, not only from the separation but also from her quiet, pointless confession of wanting more from him. If he weren’t such a twisted mess, it would’ve been the greatest thing he’d ever heard.

He did what he could to push it all aside at work. Days turned into weeks, and then he realized months had passed since the Boston case. Emily moved on smoothly, showing no sign of anything she revealed that night in the bar. But it consumed Spencer in an unignorable way that felt a lot like regret. Was that the moment? Could he have told her everything then? Should he have tried? He couldn’t imagine someone he trusted more than Emily. But the moment passed, and he was still quietly trapped in a half-life that ground him down. Now the grip of his garters or the cinch of his corset felt like sandpaper smoothing away something vital in him. His armor started to feel like a prison that would leave him old, bitter and alone in the end.

His private torment was immense, but his professional powers were at their peak, and he continued to excel and amaze on the job. During cases, he could almost forget about his conflicts, and he welcomed the escape. But eventually, even the work conspired against him.

The team was searching a suspected serial bomber’s cabin for evidence. The property was substantial, and the decision was made to split off in pairs to cover more ground. Emily was like an arrow in front of him, every inch of her capable frame focused on the hunt. He shuffled close behind, knowing that his strengths didn’t include the sort of breach-and-clear techniques they were using. Emily was so fixated on what was before her, she didn’t think about checking the cluttered peripherals of the suspect’s workspace. She side-stepped a pile of junk and stumbled. By the time he saw it, it was too late to warn her. But not too late to do something about it.

Her boot heel bowed the tripwire, and he yanked her back against his chest at the same time he turned them both to absorb the detonation. He felt a tremendous kick to his back that threw them both across the room, into a work bench, and then to the floor, debris raining over them. He couldn’t breathe but his body was still moving, grappling her close and covering as much of her as he could while the world seemed to disintegrate around them.

He might have lost some time because his next memory was of Emily screaming at him and her fingers clawing into his shirt. He grunted and tasted blood. Then he tried to move and collapsed back onto her when pain bit into his knees.

“We have to get out!” she yelled, and as he blinked through the blood, he saw the room was on fire.

Adrenaline turned off his pain and intellect, and suddenly he was pulling them upright and stumbling back the way they came. He bulled his way past flaming doorways and corridors of thick smoke, hoping that his legendary eidetic memory was taking them the right way. She clung to him as much as she pulled him, seemingly determined to drag him to escape and the forest beyond the burning cabin. He felt heat along his back and arms, and his legs stung with every step, but he was moving, and she was with him. That’s all he needed to know.

The door they’d entered by was fully engulfed, but he didn’t have another route mapped out in his head. They swayed before it, coughing and blinking through the smoke, and he thought he heard a quiet, shit come from Emily. He just moved then.

Pulling free of her grip, he charged at the door, but it refused to give. He yelped as the flames bit through his clothes in a flash, leaving him barer than before. But he shook it off and charged at the door again while Emily screamed, NO! behind him. The door splintered and he tumbled through, tripping down the steps to sprawl into the dirt path beyond. Her hands were on him in an instant, yanking him upward when every inch of him was screaming in agony.

“C’mon! C’MON!”

They ran as far as the adrenaline would carry them, and then collapsed into the overgrowth just beyond the structure, coughing up soot and aerosolized who-knows-what. Sirens were heard in the distance, and as he looked over his shoulder through watery eyes, he saw the whole building ablaze.

“Must’ve… triggered… other devices,” he wheezed.

There was no way the one they’d come across did all of that. If it had, they’d both be dead already. He blinked rapidly and eventually saw shapes he recognized around the edges of the inferno. Hotch and J.J.-like shapes, and ones who resembled Morgan and Rossi. He turned back and huffed, “They got out.” And then he realized he’d fallen on top of her again. He grumbled and fought the pain and dizziness to pinion himself away from her with a cough of apology. He blinked a lot to make his eyes focus through the stinging, watery mess.

She was staring at him, wide-eyed. Cuts littered her face, and her eyebrows were gone leaving her with a look of perpetual surprise. Her mouth was open as if she couldn’t breathe, but he could feel her chest rising and falling against his. A stab of fear raced through him, and he leaned in to see her better through his watering eyes.

“Are you okay?”

She blinked and took far too long to nod, and then she whispered his name in awe.

“What is it?” His pulse spiked like a feral thing trying to claw its way out of his throat.

She said his name again, and then he felt her hand on his chest. His bare chest. He glanced down and saw her fingers splayed across the upper seam of his corset through his torn shirt. He leapt away from her as if on fire again, and his whole body complained at the sudden movement. She sat up in the weeds just as fast, one hand stretched out to him.

“Spencer!”

He crashed backwards, tripping over himself and then scuttling as he tried to cover himself. But it was no use: his shirt was more torn than whole, and through it his skin was red and irritated with patches of blisters. Every move he made resulted in a yelp of pain. Even his knees screamed from where they peeked through his torn pants, lacerated from splinters. She was next to him faster than he could imagine, her eyes scared under the blood and singe marks.

“Hey,” she said softly, and reached for him once more. But he scuttled away again, his chest heaving like he was about to die.

She saw… she SAW… No! Nononono… she can’t know… Get away from her!

His senses narrowed until nothing existed but her horrified expression. There was just a tunnel of black and her shocked face. He imagined her curdled dread as she processed what she saw of her friend. He no longer heard anything, and he couldn’t speak, though he tried desperately to yell at her to stay away from him. He rolled in the grass to try and cover himself in his ruined shirt, but the effort just made it all worse. It was tatters hanging off him, his whole upper body exposed to the world. Suddenly her grip, hot and tight, around his upper arm brought him crashing back to the present. Her mouth was a thin line of determination and her non-existent eyebrows wrinkled over her resolved glare.

“Hold still! You’re making it worse…”

“Get off me,” he gasped, vision going pale at the edges. “Leave me alone.”

“You’re being extra ridiculous right now, and I don’t appreciate it,” she growled back, head whipping around as extra agents and emergency services began to flood the scene.

“Emily, STOP!” he bellowed, and she immediately let him go, her expression scared for the first time. He leaned back in the grass and gasped so hard it felt as if he’d broken himself. He did nothing but breathe for a few moments, and then he rolled his eyes open to take in the world around him.

She was frozen when his eyes found her, half-crouching and leaning towards him. When their glazes met, they held, and then she broke out of her fog, snapping her fingers at a passing field agent to stop him.

“Give me your windbreaker,” she demanded. The agent blinked, not recognizing her or understanding her order.

“What?”

“Give me your jacket, agent. Are you deaf? Our clothes are burned… c’mon…” She wiggled her fingers as if this wasn’t a request. The agent shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to her with a mumbled apology.

“Go find the others and get them to EMS.”

“What about you two?”

“Don’t worry about us. Find the others. That’s an order,” she dismissed him, and he loped away obediently.

When they were alone again, her determined look melted into fear as she refocused on him. She slowly raised the FBI-emblazoned windbreaker and held it before her like a shield. He blinked so much, the image of her stuttered, and his breath was wheezing from him too rapidly to do anything calming. But she moved forward gently anyway, holding the jacket like meat to something wild and ravenous.

“Don’t freak out. Please,” she begged. “I’m just gonna…”

Her knees crunched in the dry weeds as she shuffled closer, but she maintained eye contact the whole way. He wanted to run – it was mindless and howling through his damaged body – but he was also paralyzed by her look of fear. And before he knew it, she was beside him, raised up on her knees as he lay sprawled, and she softly flicked the jacket until it haloed around his shoulders, and he found himself sitting up to fill it. He went pliant after that, like a child being dressed in a winter clothes. She coaxed his arms into the sleeves, wincing as he hissed at the brushed burns. Then she gently zipped him in, making him armored once again.

She sat back on her legs and stared. “Is that better?”

He gulped, trying to slow his panic as a small sliver of his old self settled along his shoulders with the windbreaker. But he couldn’t make anything come out of him. In the end, he ducked his eyes and nodded, sooty hair falling into his face.

“Good,” she murmured after a long measure of silence.

Sometime later – he wasn’t sure when – he realized her hand was resting on his shoulder as they sat in the grass and waited for someone to tell them what to do next.

Chapter Text

Spencer hated hospitals. He hated their utilitarian design, their clutter, their noise, and the casual banality with which dire situations were treated. It was the opposite of soothing or healing, and every time he found himself in one, he became irrationally angry at the time lost to them and anyone who tried to help.

“Can I go yet?” he snapped at the ER nurse, who, to her credit, seemed unfazed by his escalating irritation in the hours he’d spent there being poked, questioned and scanned. She flicked a bored look from her clipboard before dropping her eyes back to it.

“No, Dr. Reid. We’re waiting on the attending from the burn unit to come down and evaluate you, remember?”

“And when exactly will that be? Today I was blown up and escaped a burning building. What I really want to do is rest. Not wait around all night so your hospital can do performative procedures that relieve you of liability should I walk out of here A.M.A.”

The nurse sighed and lowered her clipboard. “You have bruised ribs, a concussion, stitches in your head and arms, abrasions to your back and legs, as well as a collection of first- and second-degree burns.”

She stayed silent for a moment as if to let the seriousness of his condition sink in. Then she went back to her clipboard and began aggressively checking something. “But you can leave any time you like if you think you know better. I can bring you the paperwork to sign.”

“I just want to know where this burn specialist is! Can you answer my question?”

“I’ll go see what I can find out.” She turned without waiting for his reply and left him in the curtained gurney area with a soft squeak of her sensible shoes.

“Great,” he muttered after she’d gone, and limped off the gurney to get his things from a bag on the floor. His clothes weren’t worth saving. He’d been given scrubs to wear but they placed both his ruined pants and shirt into the bag. He fished out the FBI windbreaker and hissed his way into it, then returned to the bag to retrieve his wallet, keys, credentials and weapon before abandoning the rest. It would be good enough to get him home, which was all he wanted.

“Have they discharged you?”

He spun at the sound of her voice and found her peeking around the curtain swathed in a formless hospital gown. She looked exhausted, beaten. Her face and hands were still pink, and the eyebrows were extra noticeable under the harsh lighting. She still had dried grass in her hair, and she seemed stooped as if she were holding herself gingerly upright. His first instinct was relief at seeing her up and alert, but that was quickly washed away by the embarrassment of what she now knew and the inevitability of the conversation they’d have to have about it.

Not now. Go away.

He turned back towards the gurney and avoided her eyes. “Are you okay? We’ve been here for hours, and I can’t get the staff to tell me anything about the team.”

“It’s patient confidentiality. You know that.” Her voice had a gravelly quality to it now.

“It’s a power play,” he scolded. “We’re in their house and they want us to know it. We’re an FBI team – when have they ever refused to tell us how team members were doing?”

She called his name like a soft rebuke, and he felt himself curl away from her disappointment. He’d have to get used to that: how he failed her when he once inspired her. He swallowed down the regret creeping up his throat and changed the topic.

“Are you okay?”

“Mostly,” she sighed. “I feel like I’ve been run over by a tractor trailer, but I’ll be fine. Been through worse, right?”

She made a smoky chuckle that sounded forced, and he rolled his eyes closed to sink down into the quicksand that was slowly consuming everything he loved about his life. When he didn’t respond or turn to look at her, she kept going.

“Some minor cuts and burns. A lot of bruising. A concussion. Kinda what you’d expect, really.” She took a breath. “The doctor said it could’ve been much worse. You took the brunt of it, and that saved me. Right before you, well, saved me, I mean.”

Her tone got softer, and his pulse sped up. He knew where she’d lead them to next, and he cut her off before she had a chance. “How are the others?”

“Uh… fine. Hotch and J.J. got away with just smoke inhalation. Rossi and Morgan had some scrapes and minor burns. Morgan broke through a window to get them out. Being all flashy as usual.” She chuckled again, and Spencer tried to imagine Morgan carrying Rossi out a window like a damsel in distress. “The team is on stand-down for three days, and Hotch has put you and me on a two-week medical leave.”

He rounded on her then, his volcanic hurt suddenly erupting and looking for a target other than himself. “Why? We’re fine. No broken bones or serious injuries. If the rest of the team can come back in three days, why can’t we? What about the case?”

Emily blinked, shocked by the sharpness directed toward her when she was just relaying information. “I’d imagine it’s because we got blown up, Reid. Hotch takes that sorta seriously.”

“Give the blasé sarcasm a rest, would you?” he snapped back, making her stand a little stiffer. “We’re fine. I don’t need two weeks. The case can’t wait that long-”

“The case has been given to the ATF.”

“What?” His hurt turned into anger. “It’s OURS.”

Her expression creased into confusion. “The team is injured and we’re taking downtime. The ATF have our profile and can reach out to us when they need it. Right now, it might be better if they handle it. Today proved that if nothing else.”

“That’s crap. I can’t believe Hotch signed off on this.”

“Well, I, for one, am absolutely fine with passing off the case and getting some Bureau-mandated recovery time.” Her tone turned sharp to match his, and her gaze hardened. Spencer made an inarticulate growling noise and shook off her statement, shoving his wallet and creds into his pockets and glancing around to make sure he had everything.

“Have they discharged you?” she asked again pointedly. “You look like hell-”

“I’ve been questioned, poked, stripped and humiliated enough for one day. I’m not hanging around for further indignities, thank you very much.” It came out without thought, and the moment he said the word ‘stripped’, he realized he’d exposed himself again.

When he’d been admitted, one of the triage nurses had stripped him, never batting an eyelash at Spencer’s torn corset or his garters and undergarments. He flamed with humiliation when the nurse documented his injuries and then asked him, “Agent, do you want all of your clothes in the same bag?” He’d looked up and saw his paltry armor, singed and torn, in the nurse’s hand, and made a non-committal sound. He was exposed, unmanned in a way only he could suffer, and the self-loathing closed over him like a weighted blanket. He slouched and let the staff do what they wanted with him after that. And his undergarments were in the bag with the rest of his abandoned clothes he was leaving on the hospital floor.

“Spencer.”

Her voice brought him back, and her expression had changed again. This time it was soft with understanding, and he instantly stiffened against it.

Nope. No, thank you. I don’t need that. I don’t need anything. I don’t need you…

He brushed past her, but her hand flashed out and caught him around the bicep with surprising force. He yelped as the pressure excited one of his burns, and she eased up.

“Just wait. Let me get my things and we can leave together,” she hushed, and he knew she’d insist on seeing him home and would use it to force a conversation between them.

“No.”

He shrugged her off and gave her a grim look that told her not to defy him on this. She shrank back slightly, looking as if he’d suddenly become someone she didn’t recognize, and though it made his stomach twist to see it, he used the opportunity to escape her.

“I don’t want to talk,” he added for good measure. “And if I’m forced to take time off, I think I’d rather be alone.”

She swallowed hard enough that he could see it, and then she made a wet sound that acted like a fist around his heart.

“I’m tired,” he gasped around his wheezing chest, and then dropped his gaze so her distress would be hidden from him. “I just wanna go home. I’m glad you’re alright… I just… I wanna go home.”

It was possibly his least articulate moment to date. What he wanted to say was he couldn’t bear the exposure or how he’d have to try explaining it to her. She wouldn’t understand, just like everyone else, and he’d lose her because of it. It was exhausting to think about that process playing itself out again – he just wanted to skip it this time. If she left him be, he could mourn in private and find a way to handle working with her. That’s all he wanted now: to keep his secret and his job intact.

He mumbled a goodbye and abruptly lurched away from her. She called out, “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay? I’m gonna call you…”, but he didn’t acknowledge it. His eyes blurred as he negotiated the labyrinth of the hospital, holding it together until he hit the cool night air of the ER entrance. Then he sucked in a deep, shuddering breath, shoved his injured hands into his borrowed coat and lurched off into the evening, just another anonymous man in the darkness.

Chapter Text

Good as her word, Emily called him the following day. He didn’t pick up. She tried again the day after, and the day after that. He erased her missed calls from his phone’s logs. J.J. called him, and Hotch as well, and he spoke to them. Even Rossi and Garcia made quick check-ins that were easy to handle. Morgan texted and it turned into a joking conversation about the possibility of encasing Reid in bubble wrap for field work. Spencer said it would just make him more flammable. But he managed to avoid Emily for nine days.

It wasn’t something he was proud of. He was cowering in his life, using his secret as a shield to hold the inevitable at bay. And it was sure to get back to her that he’d spoken to everyone but her during his leave. He wasn’t being subtle at all. But the longer he held her off, the longer she stayed a friend in his mind. The moment they spoke of it, she’d move to another category. One where they’d no longer have movie nights together, or weekend brunches, or where she’d no longer rest her hand on one of his suits and tell him how great he looked. He gloomily wondered if the transition would hurt, like the times he’d been beaten up for being too different, too alien. Or would it be a silent pain, like noticing the absence of something and trying to make it real again with your memories?

He physically improved: the stitches came out, his pain and stiffness got better day by day, and his burns slowly healed. He grudgingly admitted that Hotch’s two-week leave was probably wise. But he also spent the time hiding away from the world, spending whole days in his femme clothes and covering his grief in meticulous make-up. On one hand, it was a relief to be comfortably himself for huge lengths of time. Not since he first left Vegas had he indulged himself this way. It was like releasing a breath he’d been holding for ten years. But the other side of it was he knew it couldn’t last. Not while he worked in law enforcement, not with the cruel hatred he saw people hurl at one another for being other than expected. And certainly not if he ever wanted to have someone in his life. Forget about being a parent or getting married – where would he find someone willing to love him and to go to dinner with him if he dressed female? He’d created an impossible life for himself, and he grieved that almost as much as losing Emily.

But he should’ve known that she wouldn’t put up with his silent treatment forever.

The knock at his door came late in the evening. He was settling in for a quiet period of contemplation that he was choosing not to label as ‘pouting’. Not dressed for company and not expecting anyone, he knew it could only be her on the other side of his locked door. He shuffled, barefoot, across the rug and let out a deep sigh as he flattened his palm against the barrier and wondered how long he could deny her.

The knocking sounded again, then, “C’mon, Spencer. I know you’re in there. Your lights are on.”

He leaned his forehead against the worn wood and sagged. “Go away,” he mumbled without much conviction.

“Why?” It came back soft and hurt, and the invisible fist around his heart tightened like a vise.

“Because it’s impossible,” he said to himself. She didn’t hear it because she asked her question again.

“Listen. I’ve got things to say to you and I’m not leaving until I do,” she soldiered on. “It took me forty minutes to get here, so I can either do this inside, with you, or I can do it on your stoop where your neighbors can take it all in. I’m not leaving, Spencer. You know me – you know how stubborn I can be.”

His heart sped up, aching against the fist that was trying to crush it, but he knew she’d make good on her threat. He couldn’t put this off any longer. He stood straight and glanced down at the silk slip he wore that reminded him of his mother’s dress he tried as a kid. He smoothed his hands over the lighter-than-air fabric and felt it fitting he wear it now. Then he closed his satiny robe around it and tightened the sash.

The locks rattled and he swung the door wide, so the hall lighting revealed him fully, in his silk and satin and in full make-up. He kept his shoulders back and stood tall, trying to channel as much of his power as he could when her eyes fell on him. This was his home, and he would not be made to feel ashamed in his home. She was shocked by his abrupt appearance, and then stood staring at him. He could almost feel how much her eyes wanted to wander, but they remained fixed on his face.

“Hi.”

He nodded and stood aside. “You’d better come in.”

She shuffled inside where the lighting was more subdued, and he fussed with the door locks as he thought about what to do next.

“How are you doing?” she blurted. He turned to face her. Her eyes seemed amazingly large and dark in his apartment’s mood lighting. His heart thumped out a sad, hard beat at the sight. She’s so beautiful…

“I’m okay. Just looking after the burns and my ribs now. All things considered I was very lucky.” He watched her closely for a moment. She seemed like her old self, even her eyebrows were growing back. But there was a sadness around her eyes… “How are you?”

“Fine,” she shrugged and sighed at the same time, and then she looked and held his gaze again. “Because of you.”

“Emily…”

She held up her hand to stop him, and he did. Then she took a breath to settle herself and just got to it.

“Thank you.”

He blinked at her. She took a step forward.

“Thank you for saving my life,” she continued gently. “And thank you for letting me in just now. For letting me… see you…”

She made a vague gesture to the clothes she’d avoided staring at, and then cleared her throat and clasped her hands together.

“I know you’d prefer if I didn’t see you, but… I do. I do, Spencer…” Her voice cut out on a wet note that surprised him down to his bones. Then she shook it off and pinned him with a pleading look. “I’m pretty sure I don’t understand what this means to you, but I’d like the chance to learn. And even if I don’t get it, I do understand what balls it took to open the door to me just now. I was counting on that – counting on your bravery when I came here tonight.”

He felt hot everywhere though he was barely wearing anything. She’d set him on fire in an instant with her assured compliment. Part of him began to whisper, maybe she COULD understand…

“You weren’t in control of how this was revealed, and I’m sorry about that.” Her eyes swept over him for the first time, lingering on the Japanese crane print of his satin robe. He shifted his arms over his stomach when her gaze remained, and she quickly licked her lips. “I wish you could’ve told me in your own way about the crossdressing…”

“Don’t call it that.”

Her eyes flicked back to his and looked worried.

“It’s not crossdressing. It’s not a kink, or something I do for sexual gratification. Don’t lessen it with that term.”

“What… do you call it?”

He shrugged. “I’ve never given it a name. It’s not separate from me. This is me. When I dress male, I’m wearing a costume.”

She began to blink rapidly, and he could imagine the explosion of questions that statement produced in her. “So… are you… transgender?”

He took a breath to calm himself. This was exhausting for him: the explaining. But he reminded himself it was all new to her, and she was trying. “No, I’m not transgender. Or homosexual. And this isn’t performative, either. It’s an essential part of my identity and it’s private. There is no Spencer Reid without this.” He spread his arms wide almost like a martyr. Some days he felt like one.

Emily took her time with that. She spent so long in silence looking him over from head to toe that he had to break the spell. He stepped close and clasped one of her hands in his, and when she focused on his face again, he tried to tap into the bond they’d spent years building.

“I’m still the friend you know. I’ve always been here looking out from under the pile of sweater vests and mismatched socks.” He felt a smile peek out before he could get it under control, and it made her smile in return. “I still love horror movies and Doctor Who. I still drink too much coffee and eat too few vegetables. I still get nervous around women, and I still hate guns. Although I think my aim is getting better.”

She chuckled and squeezed his hand back. “It is, but don’t quote me on that to Hotch.”

“I’m still nerdy, and weird, and obsessed with books and learning, and I still go nuts over a satisfying geoprofile, and I love physics and chemistry, and I’m probably too protective of my mom, and I’m twitchy and have more neuroses than I can count, and I love the team and puzzles and the work I’m not suited for… I’m still me, Emily.”

Her smile faded and something gutting took its place. “But you have to hide,” she whispered.

He released her hand. “There’s a cost.” He thought about what it would be like to love someone like her. But it would be impossible. “I can’t stroll into Quantico in a dress and heels. I’ve always known that.”

“Have you ever thought about not-”

He glared at her. “Not being this way?”

Her expression turned confused. “No. I was going to say, have you ever thought about working somewhere else? Doing something that would allow you to live as you want…”

“I…” The question knocked the wind from him. “But… I love what I do…”

“Well,” she sighed. “That’s a tough place to be. Between two things that mean so much, but also seem mutually exclusive.”

He stood there staring at her with his strings cut. That was the crux of it, wasn’t it?

“But I guess I should’ve figured that,” she mumbled.

“Figured what?”

“That you wouldn’t choose an easy path. That you’d be anything less than who you are.” She flashed him a sad smile that went straight to his guts and messed them up. “I’ve always thought you were an enviable person. That’s why I keep the Reid list – to remind me that bettering yourself is hard to live up to. But it’s worth it when you commit to it. I guess I’ll have to add a few more items to the list now…”

She thought… he was bettering himself?

“Like… what?” he breathed.

“Like uncompromising. No, that’s not quite right – you do compromise when it’s needed. What’s a synonym for ‘uncompromising’?”

“Determined, obstinate, relentless, single-minded, steadfast-” he rhymed off without thinking.

“Steadfast! Yeah, that’s a good one. You’re steadfast because you don’t give up on anyone, least of all yourself.” She stared at him for a moment. “And you’re beautiful, Spencer.”

He choked. I’m not. I live in a cage I built for myself. There’s nothing beautiful in that.

She took a step closer.

“You’re handsome, brilliant, brave, funny, entertaining, impressive-as-fuck at your job, steadfast, and beautiful.”

“Emily…” His eyes slipped closed as the fist around his heart squeezed unmercifully.

“You can be both, Spencer,” she said quietly. “You can be both handsome and beautiful. And you are. I can see it now. Thank you for letting me see you.”

“You think… do you…” He choked again and had to clear his throat. “You’ve only ever seen me one way, and it’s camouflage I use to hide myself. Now you see this… how can you say I’m beautiful when everything you thought you knew about me seems like a lie?”

She appeared shocked by the question, eyes getting huge as she began blinking too much. “That’s not a fair question. You’ve only just shown me this side of you. Do I have questions? Yes. Am I surprised? Sorta, but probably not as much as you think. Do I want to know more? Absolutely.”

She took a moment and stared him down. “But nothing about you meeting me at the door of your home in a Japanese dressing gown with authority and defiance as well as make-up that highlights your undeniable attractiveness is anything less than resoundingly beautiful, Spencer.”

He felt frozen in the moment. She just told him she’d seen his power, and not only didn’t she question it, she found it compelling. It had to be a dream or some sort of concussion side effect. It was everything he’d ever hoped for.

“You…” he blurted and then had to look away into the depths of his apartment when his voice broke awkwardly. He took three measured breaths to calm his racing pulse, and she gave him the space to do it.

“All I ever wanted was to stand before you as my true self,” he whispered. “From day one. From the moment we were introduced, and I couldn’t even stutter out my name. I thought, I could be like her… I could be radiant and powerful in my own way if I was true to myself…”

He heard her take a deep breath. “Spencer… you know my confidence is mostly a mask…”

“So is mine.” He turned back to face her and gave her a sad, ironic grin. “I wear women’s clothes under my suits just so I can make it through my days. It’s been that way since I was a child. All the qualities you see in me… everything on that list you’ve compiled, is me faking my way through things that scare the hell outta me. Every day.”

He sighed. “When we first met, your confidence looked seamless. I just wanted to know what your secret was.”

She took another step towards him, eyes luminous in the darkness around them. “Well, you know better now. And you still like me, right?”

He glanced away from her stare. “I more than like you.”

There was a moment of silence, and then heat lined the satin draped along his arm, skimming down to the bare skin of his wrist and circling until fingers wiggled into his. He glanced at their linked hands, and then up at her in surprise. She looked a little lost, as if all her masks had failed her at once.

“The fact that becoming extraordinary is your coping mechanism for fear justifies everything I feel about you, Spencer. Do you really not see what an amazing achievement your life is?”

Then she stepped into him, pressing against the cool satin robe, and her free hand rose to slowly brush his jaw with her fingertips. His breath came in short gasps as he froze and stared in disbelief, then she leaned up slowly and just skimmed her lips over his as her eyes slipped shut. She outlined his mouth with warmth, lips falling open slightly as she orbited around them. Then he gave into it and closed his eyes as well, living for the feel of her nervous breath on his mouth and the surprising press of her against him.

“I was sure you’d never let me in…” she whispered to his lips, and his closed over hers with an instinctive, hungry pull that drew her hard against him before he let her go in breathy shock.

“Sorry…”

“Why are you sorry?”

“I… I can’t…”

She paused, watching him carefully. “Is there something wrong with me?”

“No!”

“Is it… because I’m a woman?”

He shook his head and backed away, leaving only their linked hands intact. “No, no! It’s because of who I am. Because of this.” He gestured to his robe with his free hand while crushing her fingers in the other. “I can’t… try for a relationship and hide who I really am. Can’t you see?”

“I wouldn’t ask you to hide.”

“Emily,” he gave her a glare. “I told you this isn’t a kink. It doesn’t just exist inside this apartment. You’d never walk down the street with me in my femme clothes. You’d never want to introduce me as my true self to your friends or family. I’m a realist about this. This is who I am – and I love it – but it means… I’ll always be alone.”

Her mouth fell open as if to argue, but nothing came out. He sighed and gave her hand a squeeze before releasing it. “It’ll have to be enough that you found me attractive. That’s still doing a number on me right now…”

“Spencer… you can’t just… decide how this would play out in a matter of seconds. I mean, I’ve only been living in this reality of you for ten minutes. Cut a woman some slack, would ya?”

His eyebrows rose, and against his better judgment, his heart skipped in anticipation. “You’d go on a date with me, in public… if I dressed femme?”

She swallowed visibly and then gave him a look he’d never seen before, something soft and exposed. “Well… can we find out? Let’s not bargain with hypotheticals.”

Her question stunned him. Surely, he was misunderstanding her…

He shook his head like his consciousness hurt him. “That’s… you’re asking me to take a huge risk, Emily.”

“I know,” she countered quickly but quietly, her gaze asking for his trust. “And I don’t expect you to decide right now. Take some time to think about it. We can do this on your terms. If you want to.”

Her eyes ducked away from his and then flicked back. It was difficult to tell, but she seemed to be blushing, and he became mesmerised by that possibility.

“I mean, I’d really like to know you this way,” she continued, one hand waving towards him in his slip and robe. “I’d like to know all of you. And if it goes somewhere… well…” She shrugged. “I’ve always found you attractive. Learning that you prefer dressing as a woman hasn’t changed that.”

He was confounded by her statement, and she seemed to echo his reaction, as if saying it out loud cemented it in her head at the same time. And then his mouth went ahead and tried to smash the delicate moment without his permission.

“You’ve never gone out with anyone like me,” he wheezed, blood roaring in his veins at the mere possibility that this could happen. “I’ve seen the men you date… all big, impressive specimens, masculine down to their last inch…”

“And I’ve never seen you date anyone,” she parried back, but without the expected sting. “I’m sorta taking a leap here that I’m even your type. Kinda setting myself up to fall flat on my face. But that’s the risk, right?”

She stood there blinking at him as his brain shut down. “I want to know you. Do you want to know me?”

“Yes.” It came out of him on breath, more of an instinct than conscious thought. Then he cleared his throat to regain some ground. “I, uh, I’m not sure if I have a ‘type’ or not, but… I can remember every time I’ve seen you since we met. Every conversation, every outing we’ve been on, every step we’ve taken together – I can recall each one perfectly. And each time, I remember being happy. Even right now I’m happy in a weird way. Really nervous but happy.”

She began blinking faster and after a moment, a smile spread across her that he’d rarely seen.

“Thank you. That’s, uh… I’ll take that,” she mumbled through her rosy smile, and his heart boomed so dramatically it felt like it rattled his teeth.

“You’re welcome.”

Silence fell over them as they blinked too fast, glancing at each other and then quickly away before being drawn back to repeat the process. Eventually, Emily’s mouth lifted in a smirk.

“Well, this is a great start: we’re both nervous as fuck.”

Laughter broke through his nerves like a leaky dam, making his shoulders shake with relief that something almost certainly destined to go wrong had unexpectedly gone right instead. Emily continued smirking at him in his hilarity. He laid a hand across the ache in his chest as his laughter petered out, and the happiness he’d mentioned began to warm him as the ache diminished.

“Now that is attractive, since ‘nervous’ is almost always where I live but not within miles of a character trait I’d associate with you.”

“Well, now you know it’s communicable,” she grinned. “And I have a little insight into how to get your attention.”

“You always have my attention, Emily,” he said seriously, though he still wore a smile. And his pulse sped up when it made her blush a little more.

“This seems like a good place to leave it,” she murmured. He felt a flicker of fear, as if he’d said the wrong thing, but she carried on without him.

“May I come by tomorrow? At a reasonable hour, and without the threat of outing you to your neighbors?” She gave him a look that expected refusal, and that turned his fear into curiosity instead.

“Uh… of course.”

Emily ducked her gaze to the scuffed toes of her boots. “I’m not pushing or anything. I just thought… we could have a drink and talk. Something really low-key to start, ya know?” She glanced up again through her hair. “We’ll do this the way you want, Spencer. I meant that when I said it. I just… I’d just like to cement the first step.”

The warmth in his chest became a burst that spread out along his limbs and sparked his fingers and toes.

“I’d like that too,” he murmured too softly, and nearly dropped dead when it produced another amazing smile from her.

“Okay then.” She perked up like her old self. “It’s a date. Finally.”

He raised his eyebrows, but she was already shuffling around him towards the door. When she got there, hand on the doorknob, she turned back.

“Thanks for taking the risk, Spencer.”

“You’re not a risk, Emily. Not really. You’re my friend, no matter what my self-protection instincts temporarily convince me of.”

“Yeah, but… opening yourself to someone is always a risk. And I don’t even know the half of what you’re fighting within yourself to agree to this, so…” She paused and gave him a thoughtful look. “You need someone to thank you and tell you how amazing you are more often, in my opinion. And I’m kinda excited that the someone might turn out to be me.”

She pinched her lips together as if cutting off something more. Spencer stood in shocked muteness as she waved and mumbled, “see you tomorrow” before she slid away. He remained frozen in place staring at his closed door long after she left trying to place her gratitude into the context of a lifetime of rejection.

Chapter Text

By the time she came back the following day, he’d worked himself into such a nervous, twitchy frenzy he could barely keep still. It was obvious that it wouldn’t work, no matter what sort of improbable feelings were involved. He was a hot mess, aside from his identity issues, and objectively not in her league. It would become clear to her soon enough. He’d spent so long yearning for her, he was surprised how much more miserable it was to finally have her attention and know that he’d fail to keep it. So, when she arrived and he swung the door open, trying too hard and sweating from the anxiety of it, he instantly knew he’d made things much, much worse. Her smile fell and her eyes flicked over him in his dress pants and muted sweater vest, and when she glanced back to his face, she seemed… disappointed?

“Come in, come in…” he hushed, trying to cover the awkward moment. He shut them in and when he turned back to her, her expression was one of rejection.

“Have you changed your mind?” she asked quietly, throat working hard after she got the words out. His stomach plummeted.

“No. No… why would you think that?”

Her eyes flicked to his outfit. “You’re hiding again.”

His hand smoothed across his sweater vest as he swallowed awkwardly. “I, uh, well… I didn’t want…”

I didn’t want to turn you off so soon. You want A MAN. I can be A MAN for you for a while…

“It’s a lot to accept and I thought… we’re being gradual about this… I didn’t want to push my oddities onto you all at once-” His sweating intensified, and his breath got short and choppy. He wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t be this way with her in a femme outfit, but his clothes certainly weren’t helping. She took a step towards him and short circuited his doom spiral.

“Spencer, I’m here to get to know you better.” Her eyes flicked over his clothes. “I already know this side of you. I want to know the rest now. But I can’t do that if you won’t let me.”

He felt like a withered, forgettable thing in her eyes. He’d already let her down. His back sagged and he looked away, wondering how she’d tactfully remove herself from this situation. Then her fingers collected his and gently squeezed.

“If I wasn’t here right now, would you be wearing what you have on?”

He met her gaze and shook his head, no. She nodded once and squeezed his hand again.

“Then go change,” she murmured. “I’ll wait.”

“Emily… I don’t think…”

She released his hand and wandered into his living room, peering at his book collection with interest. She waved a hand at his stuttering, completely unperturbed.

“Go on. I’m fine. Take as long as you need.”

He had no choice but to do what she asked, or she’d leave. He understood that much. So, he shuffled to his bedroom and gloomily assessed his options. Twenty minutes later he reappeared in dark, trim dress pants and a soft, scooped neck cashmere sweater that always made him feel comfy and beautiful. He wore less make-up than her – trying for ‘casual’ with all his might – but his bare feet revealed the aubergine nail polish he’d applied that morning. He padded over to her where she sat on the couch, and when her eyes met his and took him in, she smiled like she hadn’t seen him in years.

“That’s better,” she murmured, gaze flicking over him appreciatively. It didn’t feel real to him – it seemed like she was attracted to him this way – and he didn’t understand how to react to that. Was she trying to set him at ease? Was it curiosity on her part, or a newfound kink? Or was it an actual possibility?

“I, uh… It would’ve been fine, you know,” he began. “Dressing male isn’t torture for me or anything. I’m used to it. And you’ve… you’ve expressed an appreciation for me that way in the past…”

He felt his cheeks heat and his mind wandered to the booze in his kitchen, wondering if it was too early in the day to consider drinking.

“I like you in a good suit, it’s true,” she blinked and then recovered. “But I’ll never get used to you in female clothing unless I start seeing it more often.”

“Is it something you have to acclimatize yourself to?” It came out harsher than he intended.

“Of course, it is,” she said without missing a beat. “But not for the reasons you think.”

“Oh?”

Emily focused hard on picking something invisible from her dark jeans. “Yes. Because you look great… in that.” Her finger made a wiggling gesture at him as she avoided eye contact. “It’s… distracting.”

His chest squeezed and expanded so rapidly he almost clutched himself to make sure he was still in one piece. Distracting? As in… alluring? His mind began whirring and suddenly he landed on something that would extricate him from his confusion.

“Would you, uh… like something to drink? I have wine and brandy and probably some whisky somewhere. But, uh, I could also make some coffee or tea… if day drinking isn’t something you’re into…”

His voice petered out and he tried very hard not to cringe. Emily glanced at him and gave nothing of herself away.

“What are you having?” she asked.

He sighed. “No offense to you, but I’m not gonna make it through this without some alcohol. Just being realistic here.”

She hesitated for a moment, and then threw back her head and laughed. It bounced off his walls and bookshelves and made his spine slouch and a grin spread across him.

“Thank God,” she exclaimed. “Bring on the hooch. I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

“Red wine okay?” he chuckled back, and she nodded.

So, they shared a bottle of wine and then opened another one. Spencer sketched out his childhood in Vegas for her, his mother’s permissive attitude and his early, terrifying adventures shopping for femme clothes as a teenager. Emily curled her feet under her on the sofa and listened intently, asking thoughtful questions here and there, leaning close as they made it through the wine, as if she wanted to make the retelling as easy as she could for him. And he felt relief at it. It was amazing to let loose his tale of becoming to someone, and Emily seemed astonished by all of it.

“I can’t believe you’ve done this all on your own.” She ran her hand through her hair and sagged against the cushions, wine bringing color to her cheeks. “No friends to tell, no one to show you the way…”

“Well, Mom knew in her own way…” he hedged, shrugging and making the cashmere slip along his shoulder. He was pretty tipsy, feeling the warmth of it on his face and the way it was making him lean towards her in confederacy. Emily was wearing a grey top that fit her just so and jeans that seemed painted on. It was casual with an edge, and he knew she knew what the effect was like. When he looked at her too long, he lost his train of thought and began bumbling around in his story. She’d abandoned her leather jacket to the back of the sofa, but his eyes kept flicking to it wondering how it would feel against his sweater. Then all he could think about was leather and wool twisted together, slipping over one another and how beautiful those textures would be… and he’d have to gulp down some more wine and wrestle himself back to their conversation.

“But still, you were a kid…” she soldiered on, wriggling closer on the sofa in her dangerous top. “With no role models. It’s a miracle something didn’t happen to you.”

“I did get beaten up,” he offered quietly, garnering her whole focus. “There were attacks. I mean, outside of the Strip, Vegas is a pretty conservative place, you know.”

“Oh, Spence,” she mumbled, eyes getting sad. The expression made his heart lodge in his throat.

“It’s… I’m not gonna say ‘it’s okay’, because it wasn’t. But I survived it. For all of the potential danger I naïvely wandered through, I came out remarkably unscathed. It’s mostly the emotional toll that I was unprepared for.”

“Emotional toll?”

“Yeah,” he sighed, and leaned towards the coffee table to refill his glass. “I mean, the kid I was in my mother’s bedroom trying on a dress for the first time had no clue how difficult my life would eventually become as a result of that.”

Emily shuffled a little closer until their knees brushed, and then she held out her wine glass for him to refill. His aim was wonky, but he managed it without spilling any. She sipped it carefully and waited on him. He sighed and slid closer, finding this cocoon of confession to be strangely inviting. Maybe it was the wine…

“It all started because I was a nerdy, lonely, scared kid looking for confidence. I just wanted a chance to have friends. I wanted to be someone other than who I was. I mean, sexuality or gender identity wasn’t a part of it at all. I was too young to be worried about any of that. I just… looked at my mom and saw her transform in her clothes, and I thought, that’s it – the clothes are the problem.”

He shrugged, and his sweater slid further. Her eyes flicked to his bared collar bone.

“No one but a child would think that the solution to friendlessness would be dressing up like their mother.”

His eyes drifted to his lap, and he felt her lean forward as she put her glass down on the coffee table. Then she murmured his name as she grabbed his free hand and held it.

“I had no idea it would become this coping mechanism that I couldn’t live without,” he choked, still looking away. “That little boy didn’t know how it would isolate me further. Make relationships impossible. Make me appear dangerous, deviant, other. He had no understanding that there are only small, niche places in the world for otherness, and I wouldn’t fit into any of them.”

She called his name again, but he shook it away.

“If I knew then what I know now, I would’ve left that dress in my mother’s closet.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t I?” He finally met her eyes. “I live alone. Most of my lovers never knew about my femme side. I lie to my friends every day because I'm afraid of their judgment. I'm afraid of losing my job. And when I go out dressed as a female, there’s always a sliver of fear that the wrong person might see through me and respond violently. I’m afraid of being killed for who I am, Emily, even though who I am isn’t a threat to anyone.”

Her mouth pulled into a tight line, but her eyes were glassy and pained. He could only watch her for a second before turning away. He hadn’t wanted it to go this way. He didn’t want her pity. But what other reaction would his story elicit? He was pitiable.

“I’ve never been where you are. Never experienced what you have,” she began, voice quiet and uneven. “But my two-bit opinion is that without this,” She tugged on his sweater and brought his eyes back to her again. “You never would’ve become the man you are. You wouldn’t have found the nerve to join the FBI. You wouldn’t have achieved all that you have. You wouldn’t have earned all the qualities on the Reid list without this struggle in you.”

She stared at him for an intense moment where he couldn’t find the will to turn away or deny her.

“You can’t… cherry-pick aspects of who you are. Each one of us is a package deal we have to learn how to handle. Maybe you needed something, Spencer. A sandiness, a grit… something to give you the will to overcome things. Resilience isn’t easy, man, especially when you’re on your own.”

She clasped a handful of his sweater and shook him with it. “You face down serial killers now! The things you do and say and write and put out into the world change things. The joy you bring to your friends’ lives makes us better. I don’t give a damn if you have to wear a corset and stockings to do it or not. I’m just everlastingly fucking thankful that you do.”

For a moment he did nothing but blink and try to absorb everything she said. And then he was kissing her, too urgently and with too much meaning behind it for someone who was supposed to be taking it slow and protecting his heart. It was just a lot to take in all at once, and he didn’t have the best track record in this area. But she leaned into it, with her fingers still curled in his sweater, and didn’t pull away until he did. He sat staring at her, waiting for something, and when nothing happened, fear began to creep back up in him.

“I… probably should’ve said ‘thank you’ instead,” he mumbled as his face heated.

“That would’ve been a lot less fun,” she countered, looking a little blanked by the whole thing. He didn’t know what to make of that.

“Fun?”

“Yeah.”

Emily shook her head like she was clearing it, and then she rose to her knees and leaned forward into his personal space to curve her free hand around his neck and drag him back to her mouth. The angle forced him to arch up to meet her and he gasped when they came together, trying to hold her close with a glass of wine still in his hand. She smiled against his mouth and slid in when his dropped open in shock, and then he was pushing into her deep pulls and moaning softly when they came up for breath. She shifted, licked and nipped, and he felt emboldened, letting his kisses get demanding and wet in return. She was warm and real and amazing in his arms, and the wine successfully shut up the part of his brain that questioned whether it would amount to anything or not. When she eventually pulled back, letting his lower lip slip salaciously between hers while she stared him down, she smiled in surprise.

“Wow. Nice guys don’t kiss like that.”

He didn’t know if he should be offended.

“They absolutely do. I just did.”

Part of him was amazed by the feisty response, and then impressed when it coaxed a sassy smile from Emily. Perhaps he’d inadvertently picked up some flirting skills while stumbling his way through a decade of failed relationship attempts. The unexpected flush of pride moved him to reach for her again, and she reacted at the same time, like a dance choreographed perfectly for timing and grace. It was so unlike him, but when his mouth met hers, just as warm and urgent as before, he didn’t question his instincts or the tidal wave of feeling crashing inside his chest or whether it was all moving too quickly. All he wanted was more.

He scrambled to hold her close, to pull her almost into his lap, and then he realized he was still clutching his wine glass as he tried to do all of this.

“Let me… put this…” His lips moved against hers as he tried to express his intentions while blindly flailing his hand with the wine glass towards the coffee table. Then he made the decision to lean.

She shifted awkwardly and he tried to balance them with his free hand, but he was still aiming for the table, so he ended up tipping them both over the edge of the sofa. Emily made a muffled whooping noise and Spencer tried his best to make sure they weren’t showered with red wine as they tumbled to the floor. His hand came away wet, but the wine glass sat precariously on the table’s edge, errant drips plinking to the floor beside them. He quickly reached up and tapped the glass away from the edge, and then glanced down to where he was pinning Emily to his area rug.

“Sorry!” He shifted so that all of him wasn’t pressed against all of her. “Are you alright?”

Her eyelashes fluttered as her surprise melded into something like amusement. “I’m not covered in red wine, so I’m fine. Good job.”

“Thanks,” he sighed in relief, feeling sheepishly like himself and not like the man who thought he could woo Emily Prentiss. “We are perhaps a little more drunk than we planned. It certainly doesn’t help with my historically disastrous lack of coordination.”

And then she laughed, vibrating under him as her whole body joined in. It brought color to her face and a crinkly sparkle to her eyes as he stared down at her with astonishment. He couldn’t puzzle out how so many wrong turns had led him to something so rewarding.

“You’re amazing,” he murmured without thought as her laughter slowly eased. She refocused on him as he felt her hands skim along his sweater over his ribs, holding him close. “Truly.”

“I’m just me,” she whispered back. “Just Emily. I’m not perfect, or indomitable, or any other impossible image you have of me in your head, Spencer. And you know that because you know me.”

“But that doesn’t mean you aren’t amazing as well.”

He slowly lowered himself until he could catch her mouth gently with his. His eyes slipped closed as he fell into the pull of them and then stretched it out until they had to gasp away for breath. He started to tremble at the sweetness of it, the tenderness offered in the face of his awkward confusion and general disbelief. His hands sunk into her hair, elbows propped on either side of her head as he sank into her lips over and over, just living for the feel of them and her soft gasps when they shifted. It was fantastic; he’d never felt this contented, this wanted, his mind not racing ahead of him to worry about what might happen next. Emily’s hands skimmed up his body, one curling across his back and the other tracing the exposed skin along his shoulder, and it ignited something in him so completely that he pressed into her fully without worrying about exposing his delight. She moaned into his mouth, hands tightening on him, and then shifted her leg to press up against his pelvis.

He panted away from her mouth, want firing through his body as she pressed her leg again and his hips ground back without permission. Then he had to bury is blush in her hair as he tried to gain control over himself.

“Emily…”

“Too much?” She was licking her way down his throat, which felt cruel since she was tacitly asking if she should stop.

“It… it might be,” he gritted, though his whole body was telling him otherwise. “We’re, uh, we’re kinda tipsy…”

“Yeah.” She made a soft popping noise as she sucked the base of his throat where it met his sweater, and he bit his lip hard at how the sound made him want to take her right there on his worn area rug. “I get that. I mean, I didn’t come here today with the intention of sleeping with you. Even though it seems like a great idea right now…”

“What?” He pinioned himself up and eased where they pressed together. Her face was flushed, pupils dilated, and her mouth fell open as if he’d just broken her out of a trance. “Wait… I think you should explain what you mean by that. You didn’t want to sleep with me, but now you do?”

She blinked and then pulled it together, her hands skimming over him until they could cup either side of his jaw.

“I didn’t think we’d sleep together on this date. Because you’re worried about how I’ll take to your hidden side and because I figured we’d have to take this slow given our history an’ stuff.” Her hands tightened on him. “That doesn’t mean I didn’t want to, you know. It’s pretty obvious that I want to.”

She wiggled meaningfully against him, and he felt a new blush heat his face.

“But you’re probably right,” she continued. “Ruthlessly fucking each other right now just because our bodies tell us to is probably a sure-fire way to have this end in disaster. I’ve done that enough in my life, and I don’t want that with you. I want you to feel confident in my motivations, and I can see right now that you don’t. You think I’m experimenting, don’t you?”

He turned his gaze away though her hands still held him. He wasn’t brave enough to show her how right her analysis was. She sighed beneath him.

“That’s okay. I sorta expected that given the circumstances. But I’m telling you now – hand to God – I’m not here out of curiosity, Spencer. I was always interested in you, even when I set it aside because I decided it would never go anywhere. I’ll find a way to prove that to you.”

He turned back, staring at her mutely, too shocked to do anything.

“So, let’s be grown-ups here and wait.” She let the sentence rest between them and then cocked an eyebrow. “As satisfying as I’m sure it would be to strip you out of that crazy fucking sexy sweater and have you, I’d rather wait for a moment when it means the same thing for us both.”

His pulse sped up, making his whole body feel like it was on fire as she stared at him and told him she wanted him enough to wait. And his stupid dick pinged hard against her thigh still pressed into him. His eyes rolled closed, and he forced himself to swallow down his parched throat.

“Thank you,” he husked. “Because I would’ve gleefully ignored my better judgment right now if you’d pushed me to.” He flicked his eyes open and stared. “But I don’t want to ruin this either.”

His father’s voice suddenly roared inside him: you’ll ruin him…

He shook the memory aside. He wouldn’t ruin this. She wanted him. His femme side hadn’t scared her off yet…

One of Emily’s hands curled up into his hair, drawing him back to the reality of them sprawled all over each other on his living room floor. And she gave him a wicked smile.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t make out, right?” she murmured, licking her lips.

Words failed him again, but his body didn’t. He ducked down until he caught her lips and pulled her in. She sighed into his mouth as he sank deep, and her other hand shifted into his tangles and tugged. Then he fell into her body once more, no longer worried about her feeling every inch of him. She wiggled against his arousal, teasing and rubbing just enough to drive him mad and force soft whines from him, but it was a torture he was willing to take. The anticipation was too perfect, just curling around her and exploring, knowing that when the time was finally right, the high would break him in the best possible way.

Chapter Text

They returned to work after their medical leaves, and it was undeniably weird. The first day back he kept catching her staring at him across their desk partition until eventually his panicked nervous system forced him to ask about it.

“What’s the matter?” he whispered, coming up behind her in the staff kitchen when he knew they’d be in there alone.

She twitched slightly and his hand shot out instinctively to rest reassuringly on her hip. She turned to face him, and his fingers slipped away from her as a blush rose to his face when he realized what he’d done.

“Nothing,” she whispered back, but her expression was tied down tightly. “Well… almost nothing. I guess I’m… getting used to seeing you as femme, and I find myself doing double-takes with you sitting across from me in a suit.”

She shrugged and absently stirred her coffee. He couldn’t breathe.

“I’ll get it together. Don’t worry. It’s just the first day back, trying to get into the groove again. The dissonance is weird is all.”

Her tone was quiet, casual, like this wasn’t a big deal. Just a mild inconvenience. But to him, it was like having a heart attack in silence.

She sees my suits as jarring… she SEES ME…

They had spent much of their remaining time off together. Dates lasting hours in the middle of the day with long talks the likes of which they hadn’t done since they first became friends. There was so much of himself he’d kept from her out of necessity, so much to share, and the more he did, the more she let her guard down, telling him things about herself that she always kept close. It was intoxicating and he never wanted their dates to end. He wanted to keep peeling away at their endless layers, so he did whatever he could to make her stay. He cooked for her, they had movie marathons curled together on his sofa, they debated old cases, argued about new ones, they played board games, he painted her toenails… and sometimes they made out slowly and thoroughly, tangled together in their clothes with their mutual longing remaining unsatisfied. She spent hours with him before she returned to her condo, and he was always breathless at her exit, afraid that it would all evaporate when she re-entered the world outside. He was invigorated, enchanted, fearful, and completely hooked, but he had no idea what to do next.

And now she was standing in the Behavioral Analysis kitchen telling him in passing that she was starting to have a hard time not seeing the man who dressed as a woman whom she’d been making out with on the sly for over a week. It felt less like reality and more like a fever dream, and it was all happening at breakneck speed.

He must have been silent too long because she was giving him a cautiously worried look. He swallowed down every ungovernable thing thrashing around in his chest and stood a little straighter.

“I really wish I could kiss you right now,” he mumbled, and it made a smile flash across her face before she hid it under something more professional.

“C’mon now, that’s not helping matters.” She winked and then bumped his hip with hers as she shuffled past him with her coffee. He just smirked and felt ten feet tall as he made a cup for himself and followed her back to their desks.

Chapter Text

She was curled up in a reading chair in his bedroom watching him as he sat at his dressing table and slowly brought himself to life. She’d asked to see his ‘inner sanctum’ a few times, to watch him dress and construct his face, but it always seemed too personal, too much of a risk to him. She was patient, but it was obviously something she wasn’t going to let go, so he worked on his nerves and two months into their sorta-dating-and-working dynamic he reluctantly agreed.

“Thank you, Spencer,” she said softly, eyebrows lifting in surprise. “I know it’s private.”

“It is,” he mumbled as he led her into his bedroom and began loosening his tie after a long day at the office.

She’d been enthusiastic about his overflowing closet – my God, and I thought I was a clothes horse! – amused by his make-up collection – well, this is embarrassing: you have better make-up than me – and she’d eyed his giant, antique bed over and over when she thought he wasn’t looking at her. But she settled in the chair and remained respectfully quiet as he slipped into a robe and then sat before the unforgiving lights to slowly paint himself into reality. He fell under the mesmerism of his pots of shadows and highlights, blushes and kohl, until a luminous, smoky-eyed version of himself stared back at him from the mirror. He smiled, pleased and proud, and then she finally spoke making him jump as if he’d forgotten she was there.

“It’s more than just enhancement, isn’t it?”

He turned to look at her over his shoulder, and she was leaning forward in the chair as if afraid to come any closer and break his spell.

“It’s like… revelation,” she continued. “There’s a sort of reverence to the way you do it. It’s like a ceremony or a conjuring…”

His heart skipped painfully on him, and when the beat restored itself, his breath sped up and his grip on his brushes tightened. He’d never shown anyone this much of himself before. Not even his mother.

“Is… is that strange?” he whispered, afraid of her answer.

Emily shrugged, eyes still wide in wonder. “I dunno. I’ve just never used make-up that way before.”

“How do you use it?”

“As armor,” she admitted without hesitation. “It protects me, masks me. I can obscure myself behind it and keep people out.”

The response stung him a little, though he’d come to the same conclusion years ago when they’d started to know one another. Emily didn’t trust people and that made him sad. She had such vulnerability tucked away inside her, and he felt she’d be better off – freer – if she trusted more people with it. But in that moment, he just wondered if she used these tools against him. Did he still warrant her armor?

“Do you need to keep me out?” he asked. “Do you think I’m trying to keep you at arm’s length with this?”

She shook herself, like a mental stutter, then she sat up straight.

“I don’t want to keep you out.” It seemed as if the statement surprised her. “I try not to. And I don’t think you’re keeping yourself away from me. This seems like the exact opposite of that to me.”

Tension that had crawled into him suddenly eased. Because she was right: he was revealing himself, not hiding.

“But when you say that the male clothes you wear are a costume, it makes me think of the way I use cosmetics as a mask. Instead of adding layers to obscure yourself, you strip them away. A different process, but the same result.”

He suddenly went cold all over as she stared at him with her profiler eyes.

“I was thinking…” She hesitated, dipping her head and then forcing herself to look at him once more. “You said in the beginning that you thought I’d never want to introduce you to my friends and family in your femme state.”

He held his breath and nodded, wondering if this was the moment reality would crash into his cherished fever dream.

“Spence, you and I share a lot of friends. The people we work with. Those are the people I’d want to share you with if… if we… decided to go in that direction.”

His chest constricted so dramatically his mouth dropped open as he tried to breathe. What was happening? Was this an ultimatum? Were they ending?

“You’re afraid of showing them all of you,” she continued gently. “That renders any decision I might make about going public about us moot. I’ve been thinking about that a lot, actually…”

“You have?” he wheezed.

She nodded, still staring at him. “It took a lot of time and trust to get us here to this room today. To see you become who you are.” She gestured to him at his dressing table. “And I’m so grateful that you trust me that way, Spence. It’s beyond words that you’d take a risk on me like that.”

Her throat worked hard, he could see it even at a distance, and it touched him deep down in some forgotten place from his childhood.

“Emily,” he croaked. “I want you to know me.”

“And what if… I want them to know you?” Her voice was uneven when she said it, but outwardly she was calm. “What if I want them to know what you mean to me? All the things you make me feel…”

She took a breath and then laced her fingers together like she was fortifying herself.

“I’ve been trying to figure this out, but I don’t think the answer just lies with me.” She fixed him with an uncompromising look. “I don’t know the solution to this, and I’m not saying we solve this or it’s done. But I really think that if you can’t trust our friends, you may not be able to trust anyone, Spencer.”

He turned back to his mirror quickly, staring down at his hands shaking over his collection of brushes. His breath came too quickly, pushing him towards hyperventilation. She wanted him to risk even more. Hadn’t he given her enough already? They hadn’t even been out in public together yet, hadn’t slept together. It was all happening too fast, and she’d risked nothing for him yet.

He heard her get up behind him, her bare feet padding closer across the floor.

“You want me to risk everything – my whole world – for the chance that you might put an official stamp on us.” The words were clipped and tight, and the sudden menace must have been palpable because her footsteps stopped. “You think that’s fair? You’re just gonna discount the volumes of lived experiences I have with this, and tell me that I’m the fucking problem here and not… everyone else?”

There was a beat between them, and then he heard her breathe in.

“You can’t believe that hiding from everyone is the solution, Spencer. How would that work for us? How would it work for you and anyone?”

He was shaking, his vision getting blurry from the vibration. And his mind was on fire, in a rage of despair and misguided hope and a not-insubstantial shame that he’d designed his life to be the exact trap she’d described. So, whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was his own fault.

She’s going to leave, and when she goes, she’ll take your heart along with her. There’s nothing you can do to stop it. She’ll take your power. You’ll be ruined…

The silence must have gone on too long. Her footsteps picked up again and he twitched violently.

“I… I didn’t mean to say that you are a problem-”

“I think you should leave.”

“What?” Her voice sounded small. “I was just… what I was trying to say-”

Something vicious shivered out of him as he curled away from her and towards the inanimate objects that made him whole. He wanted to keep her desperately, but his loyalty to what he’d created won out over his heart.

“I’m not going to sit here and recount all the times I was rejected, or demeaned, or victimized just so I can justify why I have to protect myself. I don’t owe you any of that pain.” He glanced up at his reflection, and the dark make-up around his eyes made him look menacing, a fearsome creature who wasn’t afraid to draw blood. “And your tourist nonsense about how to live my life is also something I refuse to stand within my own home. You understand nothing about this, and you’ve risked nothing for it. It’s time for you to go, Emily.”

The containers on the dressing table were now clattering, his hands gripping the edges and making everything shake. He felt seconds away from screaming.

You’re ruined. No one wants the mess you’ve made.

“Spencer…” Her voice was wet now.

“Please leave,” he enunciated with venom you could feel in the air.

“I didn’t say it right,” she rushed. “I never meant-”

“Get. Out.” He pointed to his bedroom door without looking at her and waited. The quiet that fell over them felt poisonous. Every second ticking by was a step closer to the death of whatever lay between them.

Eventually he heard a wet huff and felt the gravity of her pass by him out into his living room, and then the definite click of his front door closing. Then he sat in that moment, trying to feel nothing. But a split second after she left, his heart was pounding in his chest like he was dying. He gasped, back curling to get as much air into his rioting body as he could, but it made little difference. The pain was everywhere – his torso, arms, legs, even behind his eyes – a physical manifestation of being ripped away from something life-giving. He’d lost. Again. And this time he knew it was his fault.

He staggered up and away from the dressing table, hands flailing and sending some of his brushes and containers tripping over the edge and across the floor. He stumbled, not knowing where to go or how to ease the tear in his heart. When he barked his shin on the edge of the bed, he tumbled down and wormed his way under the blankets, swaddling himself in suffocating darkness as he shook and let the anguish finally take hold. Wrapped tightly in blankets and pillows, his crying barely made any noise at all.

Chapter Text

The texts began arriving later that evening.

Prentiss: I’m so sorry, Spence.

Prentiss: I pushed you and it wasn’t fair or right. I’m pushy, and… god, I can’t think of anything better to say than I am so profoundly sorry

Prentiss: I’m a goddamned mess right now tying myself in knots because I fucked this up so badly

…

Prentiss: I’m just greedy for you and the way you make me feel. It’s incredible and I want more.

Prentiss: But you’re right: I’m a damned tourist in your life and I have no clue what I’m talking about. Maybe that’s too much to overcome.

Prentiss: I guess I was trying to fix you. Or fix a part of you that’s holding you back. But you don’t need fixing. That’s just me pushing my point of view onto you. And I’m sure you’ve had enough of that in your life already.

…

Prentiss: I’m sorry I turned out to be like everyone else who’s never gotten you.

The messages kept coming but he couldn’t read anymore, his vision blurring the text so much that he just called her instead.

“I was scared, and I lashed out,” he mumbled wetly when she picked up, dispensing with formalities entirely. “You’re not a tourist. In fact, you’re probably the opposite. You’re the only person who’s ever really known me.”

“Spencer” Her voice broke, and it sounded rough and used, like maybe she’d been crying. And suddenly tears stung his eyes at the thought of her crying over his words. “I’m sorry…”

“I know, I know,” he whispered, cupping the phone closer as a lump formed in his throat. God, he wanted her back. “You sound like you’ve been crying. Please don’t cry…”

“Today was amazing,” she choked. “It was such a thing to watch… it was so beautiful and you trusted me… and then I fucked it all up…”

“You didn’t, Em, you didn’t,” he hushed urgently. “What you said was right. I just didn’t want to hear it because I have no clue what to do about it.”

“But it’s your choice! I had no right to ask you to put even more of yourself on the line for this. And… yeah, I haven’t risked anything for you. There’s nothing to prove I have any skin in this game.”

They both went quiet for a moment, and he could hear her rough breathing over the line.

“It’s not a game,” he said eventually. “Not for me anyway.”

It never has been. I was prepared to be alone until you came along and changed everything…

“Not for me either,” she whispered back.

He took a deep breath. “Do you really want to tell the team we’re seeing each other? I mean, that’s pretty serious, and we haven’t even… been together yet.”

His face flamed and his heart sank. What was he doing? The problem was still him. This was delaying the inevitable. “What if it doesn’t work?”

He heard her breathe out. “We don’t have to tell the team. Or if we do, we don’t have to reveal your femme side to them. I was just… thinking about what you said when you assumed I’d be ashamed of you. But we don’t have to change anything if you’re not ready.”

Delay, delay, delay…

Her voice dropped away and then came back a little stronger.

“What I should’ve said to you today is that… I’m nuts about us. I love the way I feel when I’m with you and I’d be happy to tell anyone who cared to listen. What we have is so far outside of any other relationship experience I’ve had that it makes me feel brand new. I feel like I’m doing this all for the first time and none of my crappy history is tainting it. And I’m just tap dancing as fast as I can to keep up with you until you decide whether I’m worth it or not. Because today proves beyond a doubt that the risk equation here is terribly lopsided in your direction, Spence, and no matter what I do, I can’t change that for you.”

Everything in him stopped for a painful second, and then seared back to life ferociously. His chest ached, his throat ached, his brain felt like it was going to burst open…

She’s nuts about me.

His breath came out in shaky bursts, and he didn’t try to disguise it over the phone.

“Spencer,” she murmured as if she thought he might have left. “I’m really, really, really into you. Exactly as you are.”

“Christ!” He gulped and almost choked on his own spit. “How are you real? How can this be real??”

“Please don’t have a panic attack. Man, that’s really not the effect I wanted to have in this moment…”

“You’re the most marvelous woman I’ve ever met, and you just told me that you like me for all the reasons the rest of the planet hates. I’m absolutely having a panic attack about that, and you’ll be polite and wait for me to finish it, please…”

Her chuckle rolled over the line and lightened the crushing WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN feeling that was pummeling him into the floor like a finishing nail.

“Okay, well, go find a paper bag to breathe into or something. I promise I’ll still be here when you’re done.”

Her relieved laughter continued as he struggled to regain control, and he promised himself right then that he’d find a way to stand proudly next to her some day, exactly as he was.

Chapter Text

They continued on, fumbling through their strange intimacy that slowly knit them together while maintaining the veil of friendship that their team expected at work. Emily became more demonstrative in public – her hands brushing over his or along his suit jackets as they profiled – and when he had a mild freak-out about it, she pointed out everyone’s obliviousness.

“They don’t care, Spencer,” she said patiently as he tried to stop panicking. “We’ve been friends for years. In and out of each other’s go bags. No one gives a rat’s ass if I suddenly touch your shoulder.”

“I can’t decide if that’s good for us, or that everyone has such low expectations of our romantic abilities that we’re viewed as emotional eunuchs,” he huffed.

She chuckled, looking around to make sure the coast was clear before she leaned in and kissed his cheek. “I’ll take all the breaks we can get.”

So, he began to lean into it a little more at work, giving her quiet compliments, bringing her lunch during long days, and waiting on her to finish her paperwork at night so they could leave together. And she was right: no one noticed, or if they did, they never mentioned it.

He developed a hum under his skin for her, pressing gently but noticeably against his suits and the garters and corsets he wore beneath them. The closer they were the more pronounced it was, and it was only relieved when they were alone in his apartment, free of his male costume, holding her, listening to her remarkable mind, and aching for something more.

Their intimacy still didn’t include sex, and he was beginning to worry about that. He was building it up in his mind, making it an unwieldy, imperative thing he was sure he’d fail at. And even with the confidence of his femme clothes, he couldn’t find the courage to bring it up in conversation with her. Perhaps they were just stalled at romantic friendship. How would he know the difference between that and something more meaningful? When would he know the time was right to try for something further?

They flew to Cincinnati to investigate a series of murders that hit a little too close to home for him. The victims were transgendered people living on the streets or in the shelter system, obviously targeted for their otherness as well as their invisibility. The two latest victims brought media attention to the murders because they were not like the previous ones: two white, middle-class men who crossdressed on the weekends. The M.O. was the same even if the victims weren’t, so the Bureau was called in when the local police realized they couldn’t sweep them under the rug like the homeless killings. It left a bad taste in the team’s mouth from the moment they reviewed the case file, and it only got worse after they arrived. The local cops weren’t subtle in their attitudes, and not long after the team settled in, their comments became less guarded.

“There’s not much in the earlier victims’ case files,” Spencer pointed out as the team converged on the evidence boxes with the lead Cincinnati homicide detective, Brandt. “Are some of the reports missing? We’ll need everything: forensics, coroner’s findings, toxicology, trace evidence summaries-”

“Yeah,” the detective drawled, rubbing his chin. He was a slightly rumpled man with a belly, receding hairline, and five o’clock shadow, but his reputation as a detective was a good one according to Hotch. “Those earlier murders… we don’t have a lot on them. What you see is what we have.”

Spencer looked up from the box he was unpacking. “Why?”

Brandt blinked, then Spencer reached for a case file and opened it revealing two sparsely-typed pages and nothing else. “This is insufficient to draw any reasonable conclusions from. It can’t be the acceptable standard for a homicide investigation in this precinct.”

Hotch watched him carefully but didn’t step in. The detective cleared his throat and seemed to get a little rosy.

“The Watch Commander characterized the first murders as ‘homo-cides’ and didn’t push for a robust investigation. He’s since been censured, I assure you. This isn’t how we investigate in Cincinnati.”

“But he kept his job?” Morgan cocked an eyebrow from where he was flipping through another file. The detective nodded, and Morgan let out a sarcastic huff and shook his head. That wasn’t good enough for Spencer.

“Trans women are women,” he stated loudly, knowing it would carry into the squad room beyond where they were congregating. “If the victims dated men – and we don’t know anything about their personal relationships because no one bothered to look into them – they weren’t gay. And being gay, or trans, or homeless isn’t a justification to end someone’s life regardless.”

There was silence in the meeting room where Spencer stared down Brandt and everyone stared nervously at him. He could feel Emily vibrating in his periphery and couldn’t afford to give her a glance; he needed his anger right now.

“Umm, well, sure. Of course,” the detective stumbled. “We’ll go back and recanvas those scenes. Talk to the local street people and find out about the things they might’ve been into. It’s a bit of a new world for some around here – this transgender stuff – it makes some of the guys uncomfortable to ask about it.”

“Well then, I suggest you find officers who don’t find any questions in a homicide investigation too uncomfortable to ask. Being trans doesn’t make someone a sexual deviant any more so than being a crossdresser does, and as I can see by the last two victim files, your investigators didn’t have a problem delving into the sexual histories of two straight, white men…”

“Reid,” Hotch warned gently, and Spencer bowed his rigid stance a little.

“How do you know they were straight?” Brandt got his back up, letting his own biases slip into view.

Hotch stepped in smoothly. “Statistically, a majority of crossdressers are heterosexual, white males, detective. It usually presents itself as a paraphilia or an aspect of sexual pathology. It is markedly different from being trans, which centers around gender identity. Obviously, our killer doesn’t see the distinction.”

“Uh. Well, I guess that tells us something about him then…” The detective relaxed a little.

“It does,” Hotch nodded but added nothing else.

“Like he’s got the same prejudices as the cops investigating him…” Spencer mumbled under his breath, but still loud enough that he caught a Hotch glare for it.

“What’s that?” the detective asked, but J.J. was faster than anyone else, cupping Brandt’s elbow and getting his attention.

“Can you introduce me to the primaries on these cases, detective? It would be really helpful to get their first-hand insights rather than what they wrote in their reports. Everyone leaves something out, don’t they?”

She winked and the detective nodded. After shooting a suspicious glare at Spencer, he followed J.J. out into the squad room, and everyone seemed to breathe a little easier. Then Hotch was standing beside Spencer as if he’d appeared out of thin air.

“Are you okay?” he rumbled, eyebrows lowering in concern.

“Yes,” Spencer nodded. “They’re just making our work harder, that’s all.”

Hotch sighed. “The work is always hard, Reid.”

“They didn’t investigate at all, Hotch!”

“I know. But we can’t change that now, and we’re not here to educate them. The best way to fix this is to catch the unsub. And we need Cincinnati PD on our side to do that. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Spencer glared at his boss but nodded when the loaded silence between them became too much. Then Hotch’s eyes snapped away to a new concern. “Go get some coffee, Reid. It’s going to be a long day.”

“But… the evidence boxes… we have to unpack them and create a timeline and figure out what’s missing-”

Hotch quickly laid a hand on Spencer’s shoulder. “Go get a coffee,” he said softly. “I’ll take care of the unpacking.”

“There’s a Starbucks two blocks away.” Emily was suddenly next to him as well, her face a perfect mask of professionalism. “I clocked it on the drive over. C’mon, Reid, I’ll go with you. We can get something for everyone. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it more than the squad room sludge.”

Hotch’s mouth raised minutely in a smile before vanishing completely. “Make mine large and black.”

Emily winked at him. “You got it, boss.”

Then she was bundling Spencer out of the meeting room and through the maze of squad desks with shoulder nudges and hip bumps. Various eyes locked onto them as they passed, and though some seemed curious, most were critical. He heard snippets of conversation as he passed.

“Feebs swanning in… typical.”

“Betcha lunch he’s not old enough to drink…”

“Cute though. For a fag.”

“… public service crimes… don’t see why the FBI cares…”

“…if you got a dick, you ain’t a chick. That’s what I say…”

He stiffened again but Emily’s hand landed against the base of his spine and steered him towards the street exit. Once outside and safely out of earshot from the cops lingering in the parking lot and the front steps, Spencer let loose.

“Narrowminded bastards!”

Emily’s hand began to smooth circles into his back while still steering him towards caffeine. She said nothing.

“They fucking… they didn’t…” His mind sputtered out and he began to shake with supressed rage. Her hand drifted up until it landed where the seam of his corset would give way to his skin under his jacket. She traced that invisible line gently as he huffed and seethed for the next two blocks.

Once they were queued up at the café surrounded by people on a similar midday energy boost, he turned to face her. He knew his hurt was on full display.

“They don’t care. Those people were killed because of who they were, and those idiots don’t even care! How can… how can so many be so indifferent to hatred?”

His voice was low in the café’s bustle, but he was shaking hard, blinking too fast as he began to wonder how he’d keep from having another outburst during this case. It slipped under his carefully managed layers and messed with him mercilessly. He felt damaged, helpless against his level of personal involvement. Emily stepped close, her fingers finding his and lacing through them. It shocked him out of his fury, making him quickly glance around for any faces he might know.

We’re in public.

Her expression was pained, the professional mask abandoned once they were by themselves. And then she dipped in and took his lips in a shuddering, soft kiss right in the coffee line. He gasped against her, his mouth falling open, and then she breathed, “I know”. Then he was breathing in wet gulps and pressing his forehead to hers, and he didn’t give a damn who saw them in this Cincinnati Starbucks.

“You’re gonna go back to that precinct and use every inch of this rage to harness your intellect and help us find this fucker,” she whispered. “That’s what we do for these people everyone else threw away. And you won’t be doing it alone, Spencer. We’ll all be beside you – your friends. Me.”

She gave him a meaningful look before one side of her mouth lifted in a patented smirk. “Right after we get coffee.”

He was still trembling, but she’d taken the edge off it with her vulnerability, her promise, and her sass, all in quick succession. It was everything he’d come to expect from her through their years of friendship and this hesitant period of something more. She knew him: his secrets, what drove him, and what he needed when he became overwhelmed. He suddenly sighed and felt like he’d drop to the floor. Then he pulled her closer and nuzzled next to her ear.

“Sometimes,” he breathed. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

She shivered once as his breath warmed her, and then he backed away to a respectable distance, giving her hand a squeeze before letting it fall away.

She blinked and seemed a little rosy. “You’d figure it out.”

“Maybe,” he smiled and then turned around to face the front of the line again. They stood in silence for a moment as the café carried on with its day around them, then he reached back and clasped her hand in his. And they shuffled forward in the interminable coffee line holding each other’s hand.

Chapter Text

They found the unsub. Morgan later said it was a foregone conclusion they would given the sheer level of determination Spencer invested in the case. And the killer wasn’t all that smart – bright enough to give the indifferent local cops the slip, but no match for FBI profilers with a sensitivity for pattern recognition. But despite their success, it became a case Spencer regretted because he almost lost Emily to it.

They identified their suspect and got an arrest warrant. Converging on his home, it should have been easy – there was one of him and a team of them. No hostages, no outstanding victims. No problem. But when they breached the house, it wasn’t what they expected. The place was a shell, empty room after empty room, and they let their guard down. Hotch called Garcia and got her searching for other possible locations the suspect could be hiding, and Spencer seethed in his Kevlar, feeling uncharacteristically frustrated and murderous that they’d missed him.

“This doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense!” he growled.

“Maybe we missed something,” Morgan suggested, checking his weapon.

“We didn’t miss anything,” Spencer snapped. “You saw the same evidence as me. Do you honestly think we overlooked something that could lead us so far down the wrong path? He’s not smart enough for this…”

“Maybe there’s a partner?” J.J. suggested.

“Nothing suggests that,” he rebutted.

“Well, we missed something.” Emily stepped forward ready to take on his irritation. “Because we’re standing here holding the bag and he’s gone.”

Spencer shot her a resentful look, but she shined it on, arching one eyebrow as if to say, don’t be petulant, let’s admit it and move on, and then everything exploded into chaos around them.

A uniformed Cincinnati cop walked through the front door behind them and slammed it, leaving Hotch out on the front stoop talking to Garcia, and the rest of them team crammed into the house’s narrow hallway. Their attention drawn by the sound of the door, they all saw the cop shift his jacket and pull out a 9mm machine pistol. Morgan shouted and grabbed J.J., shoving them both through the living room doorway for cover, but Spencer and Emily were boxed in the hallway with nowhere to go. Spencer pulled his .38 but Emily was quicker, stepping in front of him just as the cop fired. The bullets made snapping sounds around them, splintering the plaster and framing of the hallway into shrapnel pieces.

Emily dropped and Spencer screamed, falling with her and scrambling to get a bead on the cop. Then the hallway boomed with the crack of Morgan firing from the cover of the living room doorway, and the cop turned, smashing through the front door and back out into the daylight. More gunshots followed, and Spencer heard Hotch yell for back-up as both J.J. and Morgan leapt over them and raced after the suspect.

Spencer dropped his gun and manhandled Emily against him from where she fell across his legs. He handled her too roughly, searching for wounds as her eyes rolled and she gasped.

“No, no, no! Emily! Where are you hit?!”

She reached out blindly and clasped one of his flailing hands, rough nails digging into his skin to prevent him from pulling away. Her mouth worked but no sound came, and then she arched and drew in a painful breath before hissing, “vest”. He tore at her vest straps with his free hand, and when they released, she groaned and coughed, curling on her side as her chest moved for air and she found enough space to cry out. The vest caught four bullets in a downward trajectory as the suspect strafed the hallway, but their falls had really saved them. They had cuts from the shrapnel, and Spencer saw redness rising along Emily’s chest from the force of the bullets, but otherwise they were okay.

His free hand moved over her torn shirt as she coughed and twisted, still trying to catch enough air. His other hand clasped in hers tight enough to ache as he bent over her.

“Why did you step in front of me?” he whispered painfully, pulse pounding so hard in his throat it almost didn’t make it out. She rolled to look up at him, eyes wide in terror and mouth agape as she searched for air.

Then Morgan crashed back through the front door and landed on his knees next to them.

“You guys okay?” he gasped.

Spencer nodded and shut down into information mode only. “I’m fine. Emily was shot. The vest caught it though.”

Morgan muscled his way closer to inspect, but Spencer curled around her as she gasped and held onto him with a white-knuckled grip. Morgan’s glance flicked between them and then he sat back on his knees and let some of his tension go.

“EMS is en route. We’ll get her checked out but… it’s good. The vest caught it… it’s good.”

He seemed a little dazed.

“Where’s the suspect?” Spencer asked, and Morgan snapped back into reality.

“Hotch winged him on the way out. The guy ran but Hotch and J.J. went after him like dogs with some of locals.”

“Is that wise? The suspect is a cop.”

Morgan shook his head. “He isn’t. He’s wearing a CPD cap and windbreaker, but the dude was in khakis and old sneakers. I saw it when he took off.”

“Christ!” Spencer shook his head, and then the shaking transferred to his body. In his lap, Emily twisted to look up at Morgan.

“Go,” she croaked, but Morgan shook it off. “ ‘M fine. Go. Hotch needs… you.”

“I’m not leaving you,” he grumbled, but her hand tightened around Spencer’s noticeably.

“I… got Reid. EMS coming… Go.”

Morgan looked torn and then glanced at Spencer. “Is she fucking with me?”

“I don’t think so,” he blinked back. Then footsteps mounted the stairs outside, and two paramedics darkened the doorway staring at the collection of people sprawled in the hall.

“Go!” Emily hissed again, and with the arrival of the medics, Morgan figured his work was done there. He nodded and got to his feet quickly, palming his gun again and mumbling, “I’ll catch up to you later”. Then he was out the door as the medics were hustling in.

“Where’s she hit?” one of them asked.

“The chest,” Spencer gulped as his guts turned watery. “The vest took it.”

The medics quietly assessed Emily, and as he watched their hands move over her and she struggled to answer their questions, he was overtaken by the horror of almost losing her. In the blink of an eye, she could’ve been gone, and his world would’ve fractured apart again. Suddenly, his anger over the victims being left alone and forgotten got very personal, and he realized he couldn’t move on in his life now without her. He’d have to find a way to keep her in it, whatever that entailed. It became an all-encompassing thought as she lay across him holding his hand until the skin turned white.

Chapter Text

They were packing up at the precinct. The suspect was in custody, Emily was getting checked out at the local hospital, and everyone on the team was extremely pissed off. The Cincinnati cops were relieved the case was over and the FBI were leaving. Even Brandt wandered over to apologize to Spencer for their earlier awkwardness. But no apology was forthcoming about ignoring the victims in the case. Spencer couldn’t wait to get out of town, but because of the day’s excitement Hotch told everyone to get some rest and they’d fly out in the morning. It was probably the wise move, but Spencer just wanted to start putting some miles between him and this case. He was dismantling their whiteboard and missing the buzz of Emily’s hum under his skin when Morgan suddenly appeared in the meeting room.

“Hey, kid. Need some help?”

“Not really.” He shoved a map into a banker’s box, creasing its corner in uncharacteristic carelessness that Morgan was sure to notice. He felt Morgan move further into the room.

“Today was messed up.”

“Yep.” Spencer turned back to the whiteboard. What more could he say?

“I know that… this one got under your skin,” Morgan drew a noticeable breath and Spencer decided to shut him down before he got started.

“Listen, Derek. I appreciate the offer to talk, but I’m just really tired and I want to finish this up and get some rest.”

He looked Morgan in the eye because anything else in that moment would suggest he was hiding something, and Morgan nodded his agreement. Spencer went back to packing.

“She’s gonna be alright, you know,” Morgan murmured a moment later. Spencer spun to face him.

“I know that.”

“Yeah, your brain knows it, but does your heart?” Morgan pointed to Spencer’s chest and cocked an eyebrow. His expression was serious, and Spencer froze.

Does he know?

Morgan sighed and stepped a little closer, leaning a hip against the conference table and folding his arms over his chest, like he was about to explain something to a very dim child.

“Listen, you guys are tight. Everybody knows that. But she was holding onto you pretty hard today at that house. Like she didn’t want anyone else. Not me, not the medics. No one but you, Pretty Boy.”

Spencer chafed under the nickname but couldn’t say anything in response that wouldn’t give himself away to his insightful friend. Morgan sighed.

“Look, it’s okay, man. Friends can be primary people. You don’t have to hide that you care about her. That you care about each other.”

Spencer blinked. “What’s a ‘primary person’?”

“You know, like, the first person you call,” Morgan explained. “When you have news to share, or when you need cheering up, or a laugh, or a shoulder to cry on. The person who’s always at the top of your list, whatever that list may be. The person you tell your secrets to. Stuff like that.”

Spencer continued blinking as this new idea flowered in his brain.

“I guess it’s usually a spouse, a girlfriend, boyfriend… whatever. But it could be a friend too.”

“A… primary person,” Spencer mumbled.

Morgan shrugged. “Yeah. I think you’re Prentiss’s primary person. And I think you want her to be yours as well, but you’re worried about it.”

“Since I’ve only just discovered this concept, I think you’re wrong about the second part, Derek.”

Morgan rolled his eyes. “Semantics. You wanna be the one she counts on, and you’re fussing over how it looks to the rest of us. What I’m saying is: you don’t need to worry. So, go ahead and be the person she needs and don’t bother hiding it. Like I said, we all know you two are tight friends.”

Friends. Well, he was half right.

“I’ll, uh… consider what you’ve said.” He felt his cheeks getting warmer.

“Well, that doesn’t sound promising,” Morgan rolled his eyes again, but he was smirking this time. “But you do what feels right for you, brother. To my eyes, you two are already over halfway there.”

“Derek,” Spencer grumbled in warning, and Morgan backed up making a showy display of his surrender while smiling beatifically.

“Okay, okay, I’m steppin’ off.”

“Don’t you have things to pack up, or reports to file, or… flirtatious salvos to create for Garcia?”

Morgan’s eyes became huge. “What a great idea! So, you keep packing and I’ll go butter up my Baby Girl…”

“Great, so glad I could help,” Spencer deadpanned as Morgan made a hasty exit before he was asked to help.

Morgan waved over his shoulder and Spencer went back to his banker’s boxes. For a moment, he wondered if Garcia was Morgan’s primary person and decided without a doubt she was. So, friends could fulfill that role. But then his mind flew across the city to an ER where his ‘primary person’ waited without him, and decided no matter what their description was, Morgan was right about them too.

Chapter Text

She called him when she was heading back from the hospital, and he was waiting for her in the hotel lobby when she pulled up in a cab.

“How’d it go?” Spencer asked as he directed Emily to the elevators. She shrugged half-heartedly; it probably hurt.

“Bruised ribs. Again. But other than that, I’m good.”

They rode the elevator in silence until they got to their floor, then Spencer walked her to her room and waited. His room was at the opposite end of the hallway. She glanced at him as she fumbled for her key card.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Nothing wrong physically,” he mumbled as the lock buzzed open. He followed her in without hesitation. “Let’s get you settled.

“I told you, I’m fine,” she said with a faint edge that felt more like exhaustion than annoyance. Spencer secured the door and turned back to face her, waiting.

She stared at him in the dim light, and then bowed her head and shuffled to him, wrapping her arms around his back and sighing like it would be her last breath. His arms closed around her automatically, and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head as they swayed together.

“I’ve been waiting hours to do this,” she whispered wetly against his tie, and he closed his eyes and held her tighter. His primary person.

“Me too,” he breathed, and then began rocking them gently.

He didn’t know how long they stayed that way, but when she spoke again, she sounded less fragile.

“Stay tonight. Here. With me.” She didn’t look at him and it wasn’t framed as a question, though it undoubtedly was. His anger and frustration from the case woke up something lonely deep inside him, and his mind whispered, why not now?

“I’ll stay ‘til you fall asleep.”

He wanted to keep things contained and not let the day’s turbulence push them to something they might not be ready for. But when he lay down beside her in the crisp sheets and still fully clothed, his body became painfully aware of her in a way it never had before. He held her close and ignored her wiggling that seemed like a half-hearted attempt to lead him elsewhere. She eventually sighed, perhaps too tired to fight his better nature, and went still against him. Within minutes, her chest was rising and falling evenly, and he sighed with relief that he’d held himself in check. It was time for him to go.

But he didn’t.

When his eyes flicked open again in the gloom, it was to fingers tracing his shoulders, his pecs, his stomach, and as he mumbled in confusion, lips closed over his with a contented moan. He leaned into it without thought, the wet, hungry searching firing him to life instantly as he reached out, grabbed, and rolled them over. Her lips broke away long enough to make a surprised hum before she pushed back in deep, a hand now clutching his jaw as she worked him.

“Em?” he hushed in the darkness, but her lips silenced him once more. And then they were both rolling across the sheets, hands skimming and clutching whatever they could as they went mindlessly at each other in the secret warmth they created together.

Spencer got lost in it, giving his anxiety over to the roar of pleasure now firing through him, so much like all the times they’d messed around together, but this time was more pointed.

It’s time. Surely, after today… you need this.

One of his hands wiggled between them where he pressed against her and began unbuttoning her blouse. She made a humming noise he could feel through her chest as his hand did its work, and it poured gasoline over his fire, making his kiss deeper and his hands shake. He got the blouse mostly open, and then he snaked inside to cup her through her bra, forcing her mouth away from his as she gasped and arched up into the touch. She made a brief moan that sounded painful, and his brain burped up, ribs.

“Hurt?” he whispered, preparing to put the brakes on everything if she was in pain. But she shook her head and clutched him closer.

“Don’t stop,” she hissed back, and that’s all his body needed to hear.

He licked his way down her throat as she squirmed beneath him, his fingers spidering possessively over the flimsy material that kept her breast hidden from his grasp. He plumped and massaged her, imagining the warmth of her against his mouth, the moans she’d make, they way she’d harden with excitement on his tongue… And then he moved in a flash, sucking her through the bra as his fingers tangled in the strap and drew it over her shoulder and down.

She arched hard into his mouth, pillowing around his searching lips that darkened the fabric as his hand tried to peel it out of the way. He groaned when he pulled back for breath; it was already better than he imagined with her rolling into him, her hands in his hair keeping him to her breast, and he hadn’t even really touched her yet. Then his hand roughly pulled the cup down over her fullness, and he licked her naked nipple into his mouth in a rush. Emily made a surprised keening noise and then rolled them to the side, hooking a leg over his thigh and shifting so she could curl closer to his mouth. He moaned loudly, pulling on her as she panted his name and turned him molten all over with it. His limbic system fired spectacularly, and he ground his hips into her, thinking of nothing but hearing her moan his name as he pushed into her, curling together in slick, heated tension that made his guts flip and his balls ache.

She mumbled something tender that sounded like, baby, and he pulled away for a second to figure out if it was real or something he imagined, and it gave her the opening she needed as one of her hands began fumbling at the front of his shirt too.

“What?” he gulped.

Her eyes found his and her pupils were so blown out they almost seemed black. Then her hand was inside, against his chest and flicking over his nipples and the firm confines of his corset.

“Wanna try that too,” she slurred, and before he could ask what she meant, she’d ducked into his chest and curled her tongue over one of his firm nubs.

He gasped so hard his throat ached, and then he couldn’t help himself. He arched his chest towards her, seeking the heated, lavish pressure of her mouth like he was freezing to death. One of his hands fell into her hair as she worked him, the other absently playing with her breast while she mewled. Her blunt nails raked down the corset boning making soft scratching sounds that went straight to his dick and made him so stiff it hurt. The panties he wore weren’t helping. They were satin and quick to soak up his excitement, making them wet enough that soon he was trying to fuck them against her in a tease destined to drive him mad. She rolled her hips back into him until they settled into an uneven give and take, and she pulled her mouth from him with a huff of delight when they synced up.

“You’re so bound up…” she whispered, lips curving against his pecs. “How can you stand it?”

He had no answer but a strangled gurgle as he rolled his trapped body into hers.

“Turns me on…” she hushed back before licking his breast like it would be her next meal.

He squeezed his eyes shut and held on as a wave of want crashed into him.

“Wanna unlace you… untie you… wanna get under your layers, Spence…”

He cried out softly, arching his body until it stretched as far as it could, pressing it towards her as an unconscious gifting.

“Would you like that?” she whispered. He nodded his head frantically, hands clutching her hair like a lifeline.

“Look at you… giving yourself over to just words and touches…” she gusted. “Christ, I can’t wait to have you inside me…”

Her free hand scrambled and then she was roughly massaging him through his dress pants. He yelped at the sudden shift, but she shushed him with warm breath against his chest. He moaned and curled around her, hands skimming down her back and pulling her almost too close for either of them to move.

“Em…”

“S’okay… I’ve got you… s’okay, baby…”

The tension at his groin eased microscopically and then he heard the gentle ‘rrr’ of his fly opening. Her fingertips brushed what she could reach through his pants, and then the tension roared back again at twice the strength. He felt like he’d burst right there in her hand still fully clothed and pressing into her like he was trying to make them one person.

“Oh Em, don’t…”

“Why?”

“Close already… wasn’t ready for this…”

She breathed something satisfied into his chest and then began attacking his nipples once again, her hand giving up on his cock and skimming around to grab a handful of ass instead and yank him against her.

“Fuck, you’re magnificent,” she gasped as if she was suddenly on the brink as well.

She rolled her hips into him over and over again, making her back undulate under his hands as he held onto to her for dear life. He was on the verge of letting her down – too wound up to exercise any kind of finesse as his body raced ahead on its own timetable. He desperately wanted her to know how singular this moment was for him. In the length of his love life, from Patty Bernbaum to now, he’d never wanted someone as much as he wanted Emily. She saw him. He wasn’t hiding who he was from her – all of it was on display. Her hands grasped his ass and knew there was lingerie under his clothes, her lips licked along the seams of his corset, she’d seen him in his make-up and told him he was as beautiful as he was handsome…

“Waited my whole life for someone like you,” he gasped. “To want me as I am… I never thought it would happen.” He curled against her as hard as he could, whining a little at the ache and bliss blending together as he did it. “You’re the magnificent one, Em.”

She made a desperate sound, and then the hand pinning him to her shifted. She buried it in the V of his fly, fingers tracing him viciously through the damp panties. Her mouth kept attacking his nipples, suckling and scoring them just above the edge of the corset, and he stretched to give her more with bitten back whines at how torturous and great it all felt. His fingers dug into her ass, wanting to glue her to him as he rubbed and ground and pleaded for mercy.

“Please…” she breathed into his tormented chest. “Fuck… please, Spence…”

Then he had a terrible thought of ripping his way into her pants and burying his cock in her without preamble, pumping like an animal as they both moaned and rolled together completely out of control. He was going to come so hard in her it might wake their neighbors. Their curious, intelligent, professionally suspicious neighbors…

The phone on the bedside table rang with such brilliance and clarity that they both yelped at it. Then Emily was trying to disentangle herself and reach for it before it went off again like a bomb.

“Yes, what?” she barked with breathy irritation, then blinked and hung up, sinking back into the pillows with an enormous sigh. “It’s our wake-up call.”

He groaned and rolled away, trying to reel his arousal back in. He attempted to zip himself back into his pants and his cock brushed angrily at the wet panties forcing him to bite back a cry of frustration. So close…

“Hey,” she rolled towards him as he curled away. Then her hand found his jaw and turned him to face her. “Hey, it’s okay…”

Her lips fell over him, lush and wet, and he gave in without a struggle, opening to her and cradling her face in his hands as he let her go deep. She wiggled and got more of him, rolling him until he was on top, kissing her until he heard her toes curl in the sheets. So. Close.

“Em,” he gasped away, then licked her back in immediately with a whine. “ ‘S not fair… want you so much…”

She clasped him close, fingers buried in his hair, kissing him with such effort it felt like a substitute for fucking.

“I know.” It came out breathless and pained, which turned him on even more. “But we’ve gotta meet in the lobby in forty minutes… there’s no time…”

He took her mouth like he was going to consume her, body pressing into her meaningfully and arms bracing either side of her.

“Just so long… as you know… what you’ve done to me.” He pulled away from her mouth with a loud pop and then descended her neck to leave a showy mark there. “Kicking me out of your bed, with an enormous erection… like an unfortunate stray animal no one wants…”

“How can you imagine I don’t want you?” she hushed as she arched her neck under his teeth. He sank them into her as she keened, not wondering how she’d hide it later.

“Gonna be slack-jawed and horny for the rest of the day…” he muttered as she wriggled for him. “Intolerable.”

“I’ll make it up to you,” she breathed.

“Promise?”

“You know I will.”

“I don’t, actually.” A cheeky smile spread across him as the feral animal receded a bit. “But I’m aching to find out.”

She gave his back a light slap. “A lotta sass going on here for a Nice Guy…” Her voice was warm and amused, and he buried his face in her throat as he enjoyed it.

“But I’m your Nice Guy.”

She went quiet for a moment and lay still under him. Then her hands curled up into his hair and dragged him back to her mouth for a fierce embrace he wasn’t expecting.

“Yes. You. Are,” she growled into their kiss, and something serious and heavy settled comfortably into place at the core of him. He let her have her way with him until she was done, and then he pushed himself up, watching her sit and fuss with her tangled, slept-in clothes.

“Listen.” He cleared his throat. “I, uh, I wanted to ask you something.”

She glanced at him over her shoulder in the dimness. “Yeah?”

“I was… I mean…” He sputtered out and sighed at his uselessness. Then he sat a little straighter and got on with it in his gaping shirt and too-tight pants.

“Morgan pulled me aside after the scene at the house, and… he said he thought you might think of me as your ‘primary person’.”

He waited a moment, but Emily didn’t move an inch, just staring at him instead.

“He said we’ve been friends for so long, it would be natural for us to see each other as the person we depend on more than anyone else. He thought the way you acted after you were shot – holding onto me and telling him to leave – was evidence of that. He suggested that a primary person is usually an intimate, but that a friend might qualify in certain cases. Little does he know…”

Spencer smirked at their mutual dishevelment while Emily blinked at him.

“Is that what you want, Spencer?” she breathed. His smirk dropped immediately, and he shifted a little closer to her on the bed.

“I want…” he sighed and curled towards her. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

Emily seemed frozen in her stare, and his pulse picked up.

“You’re already that for me, you see,” he confessed, bowing his head a little. “You were probably that person for me long before we started this. But when Morgan explained it to me today, I kept thinking, yeah, that’s who Emily is, and then he spent time telling me I didn’t have to hide wanting that because people would think it’s natural for us. Just a progression of who we are.”

Emily took a moment. “What did Morgan say a ‘primary person’ was?”

“Well, he said it’s the person at the top of your list. For anything. The person you rush to tell news to, the person who lifts you up when you’re down, holds you together through tough times, makes you laugh, gives your life joy… The person you trust with your secrets…” He fixed her with a serious stare. “That’s you, Em. That’s always been you.”

She finally dropped her eyes from his and seemed to shake a little. He edged a fraction closer, reaching out and curling his hand along the back of her head.

“If it’s okay with you, I’d like you to be my primary person. And, if you trust me that way as well, I’d like to be yours.” He leaned forward and laid a soft kiss on her forehead. “If what Morgan says is true, we don’t have to hide it either. People think we mean that much to each other already, even if they assume we’re still only friends.”

“Spencer…” Emily whispered, and then her mouth was on his, pulling deeply and softly enough to tell him it was anything but casual. When they popped apart with a gasp and mutual expressions of surprise, he felt as if the kiss had been a doorway they’d passed through and what lay beyond was unknown and very, very different.

“You’re…” She knocked her forehead gently to his and her eyes slipped closed. “If that’s the name you want to give it, that’s fine by me.”

His pulse thundered in him, and he found himself holding onto her just to keep steady. He tried to keep it under control and all inside, but he couldn’t stop himself from nudging her lips with his and murmuring his gratitude.

“Morgan’s right,” she breathed. “I didn’t want anyone but you in that house. I was scared and… I just needed someone’s eyes on me who knew me.”

“I can’t tell you how that makes me feel. I don’t have the words for it.”

“That must be a first.” She smirked against his mouth, and he smirked back.

“Give me time and I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

She gave him a quick kiss and then pulled out of his arms and off the bed. “I’d love to fall back into bed with you and feel this until we’re wrung out, but we don’t have that luxury.”

When she glanced at him, her expression was pragmatic, and he silently wished he was as good at shifting emotional gears as she was.

“I suppose we don’t,” he grumbled and rolled off the bed, trying to make himself presentable for the brief skulk down the hall to reach his room.

Her hands landed on his shoulders and turned him to face her, then she helped him button his shirt over the corset. She patted his chest afterwards, circling one of his nipples through the fabric with a fleeting tease in her eyes.

“Go get ready before the others start wandering the hallways.”

He cupped her jaw and kissed her, just because he wanted to and he could. His primary person.

“One day we won’t have to hide this. We won’t have to hide anything.” The words shocked him as they came out, both because they were spontaneous and because he meant them down to his bones. Emily’s eyebrows rose and her mouth formed a shocked ‘o’, but then she hid it all by ducking her face harder into his hand.

“You gotta go, babe…”

Warmth radiated through his chest, and he found himself smiling like an idiot. Then she sighed and gave him a gentle shove towards the door, and he found himself wearing his idiot smile down the hall and into his own room. He changed and packed quickly, soon hearing the knocks and thumps of people in the hallway as the hotel began to wake for the day. Before he stepped out and into his professional guise again, he fumbled with his phone, quickly typing something as he smiled. He stared at it and his warmth lingered; Emily’s contact info now proclaimed, Primary Person, rather than her full name. He stared and stared, and eventually began to feel very differently about a lot of things.

Chapter Text

Emily showed up to his place for dinner looking much fancier than an invitation for a home-cooked meal ought to solicit. He stared in awe for a moment as she bustled into his living room, adjusting her diaphanous wrap around her shoulders and her midnight blue evening dress that made her look like a sinuous shadow.

“Wow,” he blurted, unable to find something more sophisticated. He felt extremely underdressed in his silk blouse and pencil skirt. She gave him a glittering laugh as she glanced at him over her shoulder.

“Thanks.”

“What’s the occasion?”

She gave him a look that said he was being silly. “Dinner, of course.”

“Well, yeah, but… I feel underdressed.”

“You kinda are. But we still have time. The reservation is for eight o’clock.”

He blinked in confusion. “Reservation?”

She nodded, not explaining further, and he continued blinking unable to make the leap she obviously had. She sighed and then smiled patiently, walking towards him in her strappy heels and clutching his hands in hers.

“Dinner was my idea, remember? I didn’t expect you to cook for us. And then I thought this would be a great excuse to try this new Moroccan place I heard about downtown. But it’s a bit high end, so you’ll have to dress appropriately.”

“Dress appropriately…” he parroted back, having no idea what she meant.

“Yes,” she nodded again. “Now go on and find something stunning and throw it on. Chop, chop… we don’t have a ton of spare time…”

She wanted to go to a restaurant with him. In public. They’d never done that before and she was acting so casual about it. He must be misunderstanding her. Or she expected him to dress male for their date. His heart lodged in his throat, and he cleared it brutally before he could choke out his next sentence.

“My, uh, most of my best suits are at the cleaners…”

“No, Spence,” she said gently and crowded close, hands squeezing his. “No suits. I want to see you in something pretty. The finest dress you have.”

He didn’t process anything for a second, and then it all crashed into him at once and he began to breathe too fast, and his mind raced.

She wanted to take him on a date in public. In his femme clothes. To be seen together that way.

“Are… are you sure?”

She shuffled until her nose bumped his. He just continued blinking and hyperventilating, stiff as a board.

“I’m sure, Spencer. We have to take this step eventually. Why not now?”

“But… but…” His mind was just blank. Excited, panicked, and blank.

“We don’t have to if you aren’t ready,” she murmured, thumbs stroking circles into his hands. “But I am ready, Spence. I want to take you out and show you off a little.”

“S-show me off?” He choked on his dry mouth. This couldn’t be happening. He must have fallen into a psychotic break or something.

She caught his lips in a quick kiss that reeled him back to earth a little. Then she pulled away and held his astonished stare. “C’mon. Go put on something that will put this rag I’m wearing to shame. Please, Spencer…”

And the plea in her voice overrode his dumbfounded paralysis. If she wanted this so much, he’d do it for her, even if he wasn’t confident he could handle it. He stuttered uselessly for a few more moments, and then stumbled from her as he fled to his bedroom with his brain screaming, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO WEAR? He didn’t have a lot of time to decide, which was its own stress because he usually dressed with luxurious slowness, enjoying every sensation fully having no one waiting on him. But the answer came quickly after rifling through his closet for two minutes in pure terror. He smiled when he reached for the dress, something classically demure with simple, tailored lines and a hemline short enough to show off his legs. His toenails were already painted to match the dark burgundy fabric, so he selected some open-toed heels he loved. It was quick to slip into and did a lot of heavy lifting in terms of sophistication and allure. That left him plenty of time to make his face as flawless as possible.

When he re-emerged into the living room, he found Emily draped in one of his worn armchairs, looking too dazzling for his cozy room of books. Her eyes washed over him, and she stood up quickly, color rising to her face as she moved to stand in front of him. Her stare fixated on his legs.

“Is… is it too short?” he asked crestfallen, but she shook her head, no, dark hair swishing around her.

“You’ve got great legs,” she murmured. “That’s so not fair…”

“Not fair?”

Her eyes flicked back to his face, and there was something in it he didn’t anticipate: desire. Then she cupped his jaw and pulled him in for a kiss deep enough that they’d both have to fix their lips afterwards. He hummed in surprise and let his body lean into hers, his hands skimming over her sheer dress just as hers moved over the rich fabric of his. He imagined what they looked like in his mind: Emily in dark blue, her dress hugging every curve as her hips pressed into him and her wrap draped off one naked shoulder, and he in burgundy dark enough to seem almost black, disguising his lankiness while showing off his legs. His heels made him even taller, so he had to curl around her to keep her close, his too-long-for-the-FBI-hair tickling his neck as they adjusted and reconnected. She was gorgeous, and though he was too tall and a bit too big to be entirely feminine, she made him feel beautiful as well. They were amazing together, in his mind’s eye anyway.

Pulling away in mutual wonder, Emily collapsed into a grin.

“I messed up your lips.” She pointed to his face, and he smirked.

“I messed up yours too.”

“Well, we can’t have that. We’ll have to do some repairs…”

Then they were side by side staring into his dressing mirror reapplying their lipstick while trying to sneak in quick glances at one another. The whole situation melted something at the center of him into a gooey, warm mess. Emily pulled back and assessed herself, and then watched Spencer make his final adjustments before turning to her.

“You ready?” she asked.

“That’s a much bigger question than usual.”

Emily’s expression softened. “You look amazing. I’m officially jealous, turned on, and impressed all at once.”

He swallowed down his dry mouth. “Do you… really find me attractive dressed as a woman? You wouldn’t just say those things to put me at ease, would you?”

The question had dogged him from their first kiss. It took him five months to find the courage to ask it, but he finally did. He watched as Emily’s softness melted into something far more serious, then she stepped close so he could feel the heat of her up his body though they weren’t touching.

“I would never lie to you about that, Spencer, because I know what it means to you.”

His heart did an excited squeeze-expand thing in his chest that made him a little lightheaded.

“If you need to hear the words,” she continued. “I genuinely find you sexually attractive no matter which way you dress. But I’ll admit I’ve been surprised by how much I’m drawn to you in femme clothes.” Her eyes flicked over him slowly again, landing on his exposed legs and lingering. “This wasn’t something that was in me before. It’s been… confusing.”

“Well, welcome to that club,” he offered, wanting to buttress something that seemed fragile in her. When she looked up again, he gave her a smile. “Thank you for being honest with me.”

“You’re welcome,” she murmured, letting the fragility continue. “You’re beautiful, Spencer.”

His vision got watery then, and he reached forward to cup her cheek. In his memory, he heard his mother’s delighted command, twirl! twirl!, and felt the same weightless freedom he experienced that day. But now he stood under the gaze of a woman who wanted him, and his clothes were no longer a talisman of power or becoming. This was simply who he was, and his confidence in that brought Emily close. It was the culmination of his childhood dream.

“Please don’t make me mess up my mascara too,” he mumbled wetly and offered her a lopsided smile. “Let’s go to dinner.”

“Agreed,” she nodded and pulled herself together. Then they grabbed their things and were out on the street before either of them could change their mind about it.

Chapter Text

“Oh my God,” Emily moaned quietly as she took a bite of Spencer’s baklava from his fork. He flushed at the way she rolled her eyes and the tip of her tongue flicked out to catch a drizzle of honey on her lips. It was warm in the restaurant, and cozy in their booth, but the heat had been building throughout their dinner and now he felt almost on fire beneath his understated dress.

“No offense to my meskouta, but that’s otherworldly,” she murmured when she finished, giving him a look that seemed to say she’d enjoyed more than just a good meal. Spencer could barely catch his breath.

The meal was amazing, far better than Spencer anticipated having no experience with Moroccan cuisine. The restaurant lived up to its vaulted reputation; the dining room was warm and dark, with curved booths offering privacy to its patrons. The customers were mostly couples, everyone dressed to impress in the public lens of D.C. society, and the wait staff catered to that with their discretion and quiet knowledge of the menu and wine list. They were greeted at the host stand with unflinching grace, which nevertheless caught Spencer off guard.

“Good evening, Miss Prentiss. We have a lovely table set aside for you and your partner, as requested. Very romantic.” The host dropped a there-and-gone-again wink and sailed smoothly through the room to deposit them at their booth. He handed them the menus and wine list before bowing a little. “Your waiter will be with you momentarily. I hope you have a wonderful experience tonight, ladies.”

Spencer was stunned. There hadn’t been any hesitation on the host’s part. His hand flicked up to land across the neckline of his dress, and the patter of his pulse beneath, and he told himself to breathe. Emily noticed and looked up from the wine list.

“Hey. Everything okay?”

He nodded slowly, glancing around to tables nearby and their shadowy occupants lit only by flickering candlelight. No one was paying them much attention.

“I thought it would be harder,” he mumbled.

“Harder?”

“To blend in, I mean,” he gulped. “But no one seems to notice.”

There was a gap where all he heard was the muted music and the gentle clatter of silverware and click of glasses around them.

“Spencer, have you never eaten out before?”

He met her worried glance and saw the implied, like this, in her question.

“No, of course I have,” he sighed. “Just never in such a sophisticated place. The scrutiny is greater in a place like this, the gatekeeping is more intense. Plus,” he gestured to his outfit. “I’m quite exposed in this. The attributes I don’t have, the aspects I could usually hide under layers… that safety isn’t there.”

She reached for his hand on the tablecloth and squeezed. “If I’ve pushed again, we don’t have to stay.” Her voice was even and calm, as if leaving before the wait staff arrived was a valid option. He softened and smiled back, leaning a little closer.

“Absolutely not. You’re right: we’d have to try this eventually, and I’m ready for it too. Ready for the next step.” He raised their linked hands and brushed a kiss over her fingers. “I’m just amazed that no one bats an eye at me. Or maybe they think I’m just a weirdly tall, flat-chested woman.”

He grinned and she shuffled in the booth until she was next to him, her warmth leaking through their layers to heat him.

“I think you’re exquisite,” she whispered, blushing a little in the flickering light, and he was charmed in a way he’d never be able to put into words. That someone so beautiful should find him beautiful as well… “We’re two attractive people out for an evening of splendor and fine food. That’s all anyone sees.”

He leaned in quickly and gave her a chaste kiss, too full of feeling to let it go to waste. “Thank you, Emily.”

His stare was far too earnest, and she ducked her head and then looked at the wine list with too much focus, still clutching his hand tightly. “Well now, what to drink… there’s too much on this list, honestly…”

He knocked his sleeved shoulder against her bare one as they chose the wine, and later, their meal. It felt less like a public debut and more like two aliens in disguise quietly observing the locals in their natural state. Spencer felt stable at Emily’s side – reinforced – and for the first time, he didn’t worry about accidental exposure. Because she knew; she shared his secret. It gave him the kind of strength none of his clothes ever had.

The food was strange and flavorful, served by a waiter who seemed to know when to appear and then tactfully retreat. Spencer got lost in the cocoon of their booth, in the focused attention of Emily’s gaze and the surprising desire behind it. He leaned into the experience: glancing at her lips and withstanding the delicious denial of kissing them, or luxuriating in the way his fingers kept finding the fabric hugging her waist and the small indulgence of skimming it. He stared too long and unabashedly because he knew he had the right to now, and his breath stalled in his chest when she did the same as she laughed or flicked her hair or savored something about their meal. He suddenly wondered, could it always be like this? Could they have a lifetime of huddled enjoyment and just dismiss those who didn’t understand it? The thought made his chest ache, but it was probably too much to ask.

They drank their dessert tea and pushed the remains of their sweets around their plates as their legs tangled beneath the table. By the end of the meal, there wasn’t any meaningful space between them, and their faces loomed dangerously close as they spoke and smiled and basked in a perfect night out. Spencer’s hand was now across Emily’s back and curled around her waist, tracing the seam of her dress hypnotically. She was flushed from the wine and laughter, eyes sparkling every time they caught his, and he could barely keep himself from kissing her. He wanted to tell her all the ways she’d changed his life, and that he hoped he might change hers as well some day. Her joy was dazzling.

“Tonight has been amazing,” he murmured, squeezing her waist just a little more. She grinned at him in satisfaction, hand landing on his thigh under the table.

“I’m glad. You have no clue how nervous I was about this.”

“Nervous? Why?”

“Because I really wanted it to be positive, and it’s surprisingly hard to arrange perfection,” she laughed. “But somehow, against all odds, here we are…”

He thought about that for a moment. Against all odds, here we are…

“It didn’t need to be perfect,” he murmured eventually. “It just needed to be authentic, which it was. Which you always have been, Emily.”

He forgot himself for an instant and nuzzled into her cheek, leaving a kiss and a whispered, thank you, before pulling back to look her in the eye once more.

Suddenly, a gentleman with an ample paunch and a florid face appeared at the edge of their table, drawing their attention. Spencer took a moment to refocus but didn’t recognize him.

“Excuse me,” he announced with the authority of someone who was accustomed to being obeyed. “My companion and I are having dinner across the way.”

He gestured to a booth that mirrored their own, and to a petit blonde who sat there staring in a stunned sort of way. She was considerably younger than her dinner partner and seemed unsure of what was going on. Spencer’s gaze was brought back to the man in front of him when he stepped closer and frowned.

“We would appreciate it if you two would… stop carrying on.” He said it like the words tasted bad in his mouth. Spencer’s spine stiffened and a familiar dread raced over him erasing the evening’s warmth. “We’re paying a lot of money to dine here, and we shouldn’t have to witness you putting on a show.”

Spencer felt tongue tied, too many responses fighting for supremacy inside him. But Emily stepped smoothly into the fray instead.

“I’m sorry, what kind of ‘show’ do you think we’re putting on exactly?” Her voice was calm and ice cool, like when she dealt with obnoxious LEOs. The irked diner rolled his eyes at her and huffed.

“You know what I’m talking about, Missy. And don’t bother with some woke song and dance about equality and tolerance. I don’t care what you two do in private. I really don’t. Just don’t do it in public. Have some decency and self-respect.”

He crossed his arms over his stomach as if he’d made his argument airtight, but Emily sighed in a long-suffering way.

“Sir, we are on a date, and it’s going well. A little ‘carrying on’ isn’t out of the ordinary. Not that it’s any of your business.” She glanced around him to look at his date, who now seemed mortified. “Perhaps your date isn’t as successful…”

“Listen, just keep your unsavory perversions to yourself. That’s all I’m asking. No one wants to see two dykes shoving their tongues down each other’s throats over a two-hundred-dollar meal.”

He sneered with disgust, then realized he’d stepped closer to them and backed away, like they might be contagious. It was only then Spencer realized the guy thought they were lesbians, not a woman with a crossdressing boyfriend. He was about to correct the mistake when Emily spoke again, loud enough to be heard over the hum of the restaurant.

“I’m a paying customer the same as you,” she said crisply, all business. “It’s a romantic spot. It’s reasonable to expect a little romantic behavior. I certainly wouldn’t begrudge you if you kissed your dinner companion.” Emily peered across to the other table again. “Unless she’s your daughter…”

“Leave her out of it,” he growled and pointed threateningly at Emily. “This isn’t about us. I came over here to ask you to restrain yourself, as any decent person would, and you’ve been nothing but rude. This isn’t how a civilized society works, Missy, and you’d be wise to learn the rules. We let you have your degenerate lifestyle but keep pushing and we can take it away again.”

“Excuse me?” Emily’s question was like a drawn blade. Spencer reached for her leg under the table and squeezed.

She didn’t have to do this. He could come clean and admit what he was. Sure, maybe she’d still have to weather the stain of being seen with him, but she wouldn’t have to defend her sexuality to this bigot. He’d fought plenty of these battles in the past; he had energy enough to fight another one.

“You heard me,” the man sniffed with a hint of smugness. “This age of liberal permissiveness is going out of fashion, dear. Maybe not in the big cities, but in everyday hometown America God-fearing people don’t want your kind around.” He looked down his nose and seemed almost elated by his righteousness. “Get with the program, or some man who’s tired of militant feminist lesbos sounding off at every opportunity might decide to teach you a lesson.”

“Are you threatening us?” Emily bristled. Spencer became diamond-hard all over as his instincts kicked in. He wouldn’t let someone harm her. Not his Emily…

“No, I’m not.” The man waved his hands and stepped back again. “I don’t advocate violence in any situation, no matter the provocation. Jesus told us to turn the other cheek, after all. But what I’m saying is other people might be less Christian than me.”

“Get away from our table,” Emily growled.

“Will you cease and desist with your immoral display?” He peered at her haughtily expecting agreement.

“What we do or do not do in this establishment isn’t up to you.”

The man sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You don’t want to make this a police matter.”

“Go ahead, call them.” She sat back into the booth and crossed her arms. “We haven’t broken any laws here tonight. In D.C. or anywhere else in America.”

“My dear,” he began with withering condescension. “That will not go well for you, trust me. I’m an important man in this town and both generous to and a friend of the law enforcement community.” He leaned on the edge of the booth, too close for Spencer’s liking. “Who do you think the cops will believe? A decent, well-known member of the community, or two horny slashes who are being disruptive in public?”

Emily stared at the man’s arrogant expression and vibrated under Spencer’s grip. Then she sighed like she was exhausted by the matter, and the tension drained from her instantly. Spencer glanced at her in shock at the change, but she fished through her purse until she found her credentials. Smoothly rising to her feet, she flicked the creds open and pushed them into the light so he could see them.

“I think the local cops might take the word of an FBI agent over that of a ticked off bigot.”

Color drained from the man’s face as he squinted at Emily’s i.d. “You’re… you’re FBI?” he gasped incredulously. Spencer came alive then, fumbling his credentials into view as he stood next to Emily.

“She is,” he murmured. “And so am I.”

Spencer was gently shaking, and he couldn’t tell if it was from fear or rage. But he stood unwaveringly next to Emily because it wasn’t just his job to do so, it was increasingly his want as well. His personal choice. He wasn’t looking to run or hide from this; he had to stand up and fight for what he wanted. Emily’s gaze didn’t shift from the red-faced man in front of them, but he sensed her confidence swell a fraction as he took his place at her side.

“I’m not sure if you’re aware of this but the first director of the FBI had a bit of a dubious rep as well.” Emily smiled like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. “That didn’t stop him from building the most respected and powerful law enforcement agency in the world. We’re not the sort of people you want to threaten.”

The man blinked back and forth between Emily and her i.d., then stepped back as if she’d lashed out with something sharp.

“Especially in front of witnesses,” she added as an afterthought, putting her creds back in her purse. Spencer glanced around and discovered several phones pointed their way. Oh God… we’re being filmed… He instinctively shook hair into his face and took his seat again where camera sightlines would have a harder time finding him. Emily stayed on her feet.

“Now, as a friend of law enforcement and champion of decency, I think you should go back to your table and mind your own business. Especially when I’ve been so politely disinterested in your dinner companion, Senator.”

The man blanched so fast, Spencer thought he might faint on the spot. But he kept it together long enough to choke out, “Y-yes, of course…” and then quickly scuttled back to his table and blew out the candle at its center plunging the area into gloom. Emily sat down again with great dignity, back ramrod straight, and stared calmly at her hands as she folded them across the tablecloth. He was impressed by her nerve and restraint.

“You know who he is?” Spencer leaned close and whispered.

“Yes. I recognized him the moment he walked over. And the woman he’s with is most definitely not his battle-axe of a wife.”

And then a new face appeared at the table’s perimeter.

“Ladies, I apologize for the disturbance.” The host’s face was creased, and he rubbed his hands together nervously as he leaned close and kept his voice low. “His views aren’t the views of this establishment.”

Emily’s gaze snapped to his and held him like a trap. “But neither you nor your staff stepped in to deescalate the situation, I noticed.”

The host’s expression turned ashamed. “He’s a regular, Miss Prentiss. And he’s brought in a lot of business since we opened.”

“He’s a homophobic, fundamentalist hypocrite who’s riding the wave of folksy fascism because it’s politically expedient. And he doesn’t even have the good sense to keep a low profile when he’s off breaking his own rules of acceptable morality.” Emily nodded her head in the direction of the senator’s table along with his conspicuously young guest as they hid in the dark. “I’m no restauranteur, but that doesn’t seem like the sort of patron you want to become known for. Just my take.”

The host took a bracing breath and let it go as if it pained him. “I am only the manager, miss. What I can tell you is… I don’t believe in that, and my staff doesn’t either. All we can say is we’re sorry – the servers and back-of-house staff – and your meal will be on us this evening for your trouble.”

He blinked and waited, and to Spencer, his apology seemed genuine. Emily held his gaze a moment longer and then sighed. “Apology accepted.”

The host took a step closer and offered a small smile. “Thank you. And know that the staff are going around to the other guests asking them to delete any video footage of this incident. To maintain your privacy.”

“That’s not my concern but thank you for the consideration.”

“Of course. Enjoy the rest of your evening, ladies.” The host nodded once in respect and then moved on to help his staff calm the rest of the diners. Emily just stared at the candle flickering in its holder at the center of their table.

“Em?” Spencer mumbled after a moment, not sure how to move into a space beyond all of this. She broke her stare and looked at him, hand grasping his tightly.

“Wanna get out of here?” she asked. “I think… I think we should go. Don’t you?”

His heart deflated in his chest. She’d seen what it was like being with him now. She’d had a brief taste of the backlash he’d lived with his whole life. The senator was wrong in his assumption, but his behavior would’ve been the same if he knew the truth, and that was the reality of Spencer’s existence. It wouldn’t get easier with time or if humanity suddenly became kinder towards one another. Maybe she thought she could handle it until she’d faced what it actually was. That illusion was gone now, and he thought, she won’t stick around after this – who would? They should’ve stayed in his home where it was safe. He wouldn’t have started dreaming about a lifetime of companionship with her, of acceptance and defying the odds…

“Sure,” he choked, and clumsily helped her into her wrap.

They collected their things and rose from the table with their heads high, holding hands as they walked out into the D.C. night. As they stood on the curb in silence waiting for an Uber, the suffocating inevitability that she’d drift away from him – from the inescapable difficulties of his life – permeated him like a noxious gas. He wanted to say something soothing, to show her that they could overcome this, but he couldn’t lie to her so blatantly. And then he thought about just thanking her instead for everything she’d given him – the acceptance, the intimacy, and the fleeting joy of being seen. He’d always love her for trying so hard. She deserved so much more.

He straightened his back and cleared his throat. She caught the noise and looked up from her phone.

“You… uh… you should’ve told him,” he mumbled, and then tried again with more confidence. “You could’ve told him.”

Emily blinked, confused. “Told him what?”

“That you’re not a lesbian. You could’ve told him I’m a man. It probably wouldn’t have made things any better but… you didn’t have to sit there and get verbally gay-bashed.”

“Are you kidding?” Her confusion turned to irritation in a heartbeat. “I couldn’t care less what strangers think of my orientation. It’s nobody’s business. He’s just a fragile fucknut who thinks his opinion merits everyone’s attention. I mean, he was so goddamned performative. It’s like he couldn’t help it – he had to make a show of it to prove what he believes to himself. It made my blood boil. I don’t give a damn if he thought I was queer. I know who I am – other people’s impressions are their problem, not mine.”

Her expression was pissed off, but then it shifted again as she reached out with her free hand to grasp his and pull him closer. “God, Spence… you don’t think that guy got to me, do you? I wouldn’t be much of an FBI agent if I let some hayseed bigot get a free pass at bullying me. I was worried that… well, that you might have felt violated. I mean, you told me how exposed you felt in what you’re wearing, and I pushed for this evening to happen, so…”

“No, Emily.” He squeezed her hand urgently and leaned in until they were against each other. “No. It’s not the first time someone’s tried to impose their values on me. I’ve been dealing with that, and worse, since I was a kid. Honestly, I’m more surprised when it doesn’t happen. What that man said, or the spirit behind it at least, is the price I have to pay to be me. I’m not saying it’s okay, or that it didn’t hurt, but I’m used to it and… I’ve accepted that I’ll always have to fight those battles. I can’t afford to be breakable in front of those people.”

Her hand flashed up to his jaw and drew him in for a soft kiss, and when she pulled back, her expression seemed pained. “I hate that, Spence,” she mumbled damply, fingers tracing the line of his jaw. “I hate that you’re always on the lookout for people like him.” She took a shaky breath and then soldiered on. “But with two of us in the fight, we have better odds. It’s always easier to go after the loner…”

His mind went blank for an aching moment. “The two of us… together?”

“Well, sure. You think I’m gonna stand by and let some jerk go after someone I care for? Over my dead body. Literally.”

A car horn caught their attention, and Emily pulled away as their ride eased to a stop on the street.

“That’s us,” she glanced at her phone and then hustled them into the car. Spencer had gone inconveniently numb and didn’t do much more than let himself be manhandled into the backseat.

She wanted to fight with him. She wasn’t scared off. She didn’t even care if people thought she was seeing a woman. He stared at her in wonder. He just stared and stared as the city zoomed past the car windows. Emily fiddled with her phone, purse and her dress, then relaxed back into the car seat, and only then noticed Spencer’s gaze. Her determination faltered momentarily.

“What’s wrong?”

He made a nonsensical noise as he tried to get the words out but couldn’t squeeze them past his heart lodged in this throat. He loved this woman. He’d probably loved her from the moment she’d declared him ‘cool’ and decided to become his friend no matter how difficult he made it. She knew his joy, his shame, she thought he was beautiful and worth fighting for. When she looked at him, he imagined she saw the person he’d always aspired to be, even if somewhere along the way he’d half given up on that himself. He felt stronger, safer, and more fundamentally understood with her than with any other person he’d ever met. She was more lovely, funny, dangerous, passionate, intelligent, and vulnerable than he could hope to merit, but somehow, he sat next to her, chosen over all others, and it made him almost insensate with possibilities. But she started to look worried as the silence went on too long, so he rallied his chaotic nervous system and tried again.

“I’ve always fought alone,” he stuttered, and a strange expression came over her. Something like doubt.

“You don’t have to,” she offered softly.

“Don’t you think if that were true, I’d have found some allies by now?”

Emily glanced away quickly, turning to face the window instead.

“You don’t have to,” she reiterated, but with less conviction.

Somehow that hadn’t been right at all. He was trying to tell her how hard it was for him to believe in people, how trust had been yanked away from him time and again. But his bruised and battered heart kept reaching for her, it kept telling him, here’s someone who will stick with you, and despite his history, he’d come to believe it. He wanted to tell her what a glorious feeling it was to be seen and loved just as he was – that he couldn’t imagine the feeling until it actually happened – and now he’d experienced it, he didn’t want to live without it again. But, as always, his awkwardness got in the way, and it all remained in his head.

It was a short ride back to his apartment, and they spent it in silence as she stared out the window and he struggled with himself. When they were deposited on the street and ambled to the front foyer, he finally found a pocket of courage and reached out, turning her to face him.

“Emily,” he stumbled, blinking to her and away again over and over. “My life is hard. It will always be like this. There will always be another guy like the senator out there waiting to put me down. There’s no mythical place where I’ll fit in and be accepted. And I’ve made peace with that.”

Light streamed out from his building throwing long shadows across Emily’s face. But even so, he saw her body sag and he watched as she twitched away from his truth. He swallowed and felt a warm kind of sadness in his gut that she honestly believed in a better reality than he did.

“What that guy said tonight… being mistaken for a lesbian couple and suffering hate speech in public? It’s tame. I’ve been chased, blitz attacked, I’ve had bones broken, been threatened with rape and castration… there was even one time I thought I was gonna die because a group of guys beat me so hard.” He blinked back those searing memories and the way they flooded his body with the fight to survive them. “It’s not something you can realistically ask anyone to share.”

His hand tightened on her arm, and she stumbled closer, a wet, “Oh, Spence” falling out of her and messing him up completely.

“I’ve always fought alone,” he whispered, then stepped into her and gently knocked his forehead to hers. “Because there wasn’t any other option. No one cared enough to take on all that responsibility.”

He closed his eyes and swallowed down the surging feeling in his chest. “No one’s ever stood up and fought for me before.” His eyes flicked open and pinned hers with all of his pain and love and hope. “But you did.”

Then Emily’s hands flashed to his face and held it tightly as he watched her struggle with what he was saying. And just witnessing that made it almost impossible to get the next words out.

“You make me… hope that… you might want to… take it all on with me?” he wheezed and then blew through the rest before he lost his nerve. “The world is ugly and cruel, and it takes and takes and takes until the parts of you that are bright and good and worth protecting get chipped away into meaninglessness. But when your eyes see me, I feel bright and good again, Emily. Maybe not as I once was, but…”

His voice gave out and when he pushed through it, he was barely whispering. “I love you.”

Her fingertips traced his lips after he said it, and she began to shake in his grip.

“Can you do this?” he asked, hands curling up her arms to brace her. “Will you do this with me? Now that you know what the road ahead looks like…”

Her fingers kept moving over his mouth, skimming as if he were fragile enough to break. And perhaps he was fragile because his heart felt like it was fracturing inside him as he waited on her answer.

“Take me inside,” she murmured suddenly. “This is private.”

He blinked at the neutral response, but his body acted on instinct as he took her arm and led her through the security door towards the elevators. He stared at her in the unforgiving light of the lobby while they waited, and she was a picture of sadness in her amazing dress.

Oh, he thought. I guess that’s her answer…

The elevator dinged and they shuffled in, taking opposite corners in the cab as the doors closed and they zoomed upwards. He sagged and watched her, his own sadness settling over him like dust. How would he become accustomed to loneliness again? Where would he ever find another who saw him the way she did?

“You’re the most beautiful man I know. Inside and out,” she said without warning, and it was if the words drew all the light and energy in the elevator to crowd around her. “You’ve no idea how long I’ve waited for someone like you to come along…”

She swallowed as if holding something huge at bay, and he was profoundly confused. His pulse raced at the things she said, but she still seemed sad and defeated. Then she slipped it off like a coat and stood tall until she was like an angry goddess swathed in silk and shadow.

“I’ll stand and fight with you until we make the world bloody, or until it becomes a better place. Whichever comes first.”

He began to shake, his pulse racing so fast he was having trouble breathing. Surely, she didn’t mean it…

“Emily…” he choked, blinking so much it felt like the lights in the elevator were flickering. She took a step toward him and raised a warning finger.

“Don’t, Spence. Don’t start making arguments in your head to dismiss my choice. Not after you said you love me like it was all hopeless and doomed.”

He coughed as her warning caught him flatfooted. “What makes you think I’d do that?”

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Experience. I’m very familiar with you.”

The elevator made a little hop and dinged as they reached his floor and the doors slid open. They both stood there staring at each other, until Spencer roused himself and collected one of her hands in his.

“C’mon,” he murmured, and pulled her from the cab, down the hall to his apartment door.

She followed him quietly, fingers lacing in his as he fumbled with his keys to let them in. He fussed over the locks when he got the door closed, and then she spun him and pinned him to the door with a powerful kiss that came with no warning. He dropped his keys at the same time she tossed away her purse, and then her arms were around his neck as his slid automatically to her back and pulled her close.

He opened and let her in, moaning when her tongue slid against his. It wasn’t hurried – there was a satisfying ache to the slow thoroughness of it. He licked into her, taking her lips in leisurely pulls that made him feel molten and hard at the same time. One of his hands reached up along her back and gently pulled at her wrap until it slipped over her shoulder. Then his lips were mouthing that skin and tracing it with his teeth as he thought about tasting her, and she trembled against him. He pulled harder at the wrap until it dropped to the floor, and then he collected her tight against him, fingers curling over her bare shoulders as she arched in his grasp. He made a hungry noise along her neck and then nosed up until he could catch her mouth again.

“You need to take me to bed.” She arched away from his mouth, her hair falling across her back and tickling his hands as he licked over her chin and down her throat again. “After everything you said to me… it’s time, Spence.”

He whined at that. It was time – long past time. His primary person. Who loved him and was determined to stick it out with him in his hostile reality. Suddenly he ached everywhere: his chest, his balls, his mouth, his arms… He dragged her from the door, stumbling backwards as he tried to kiss and lead her at the same time. Then he kicked off his heels with a growl and listened to them clatter across the wood floors as he continued manhandling her. She laughed against his cheek.

“You gonna get frustrated with the dress too?” she mumbled. His grip on her tightened as he pulled her close; he was hard, and the dress didn’t hide it. She groaned when she realized. “Fuck, that’s hot…”

“Nothing and no one is hotter than you,” he growled, pulling them insistently until he bumped into the bedroom doorway with a thud. He held them there, hands searching all over her, panting against her mouth. “I’ve thought so for years…”

“Years?” She pulled away from him with a soft pop and a look of surprise. “What do you mean ‘years’?”

He felt his face heat in the darkness. “The day we met when I didn’t shake your hand and couldn’t even say my name? I thought you were the most stunning woman I ever saw. And that opinion has never been disproven.”

“Spencer…” She just blinked at him in wonder.

“I know,” he whispered, his arms circling her waist to keep her close. “I’m hopeless. But at least you understand that about me now.”

“You gave me the cold shoulder for a year.”

“I honestly didn’t know what to say.” He shrugged. “If you hadn’t come out and asked to be friends, we might never have made it here. I’m legitimately bad at this.”

“Oh my God…” she chuckled and then kissed his confused confession away. He moaned quietly that she found his awkwardness amusing in hindsight rather than embarrassing.

“You’re an epic dumbass,” she husked when they came up for air, and she was wiggling meaningfully against him which dimmed his humiliation in favor of other instincts. He wanted her in his bed wiggling under him as soon as possible.

“This entire relationship is your fault,” he bit into her lips and then pivoted them into the room, shuffling towards his end goal. “It’s all you because if it had been left to me, I’d still be hysterically dropping coffee in your presence and fearing to make eye contact.”

“Is it weird that I find that a little hot?” she grinned against his mouth, fingers skimming up into his hair.

“Yes,” he groaned, eyes rolling back at the pleasure of her fingers. “And thank you.”

She leaned her head back and laughed, and then his mouth was on her throat lapping up that joyful movement. “I want you so much,” he licked into her skin.

“Then get me out of this dress.”

“First things first…”

His hands slid to her waist and pushed her back a step. She made a confused noise, but he quickly kneeled down and skimmed his fingertips along her calves. They settled on the strap of one shoe and went to work on the tiny buckle.

“Oh…” she murmured above him, and he smirked. He popped the strap free and bent to kiss the skin it revealed. Then he gently pulled it from her and did the same with the other foot. “That’s sweet…”

He wasn’t aiming for sweet, so he slowly mouthed a wet trail up her calf to her knee and just under the hem of her dress. He made sure she heard the slip of his lips as he moved and felt the rasp of his tongue completely before he inched higher. His fingers danced along her other calf, so she’d be assaulted by two different sensory experiences simultaneously. Above him, her breathing got louder, and her legs trembled under his fingers. He smiled when he thought about how his touch moved her.

“Okay?” he whispered, nosing the edge of her dress.

“Mmmm, umm-hmmm,” she agreed.

He chuckled and stroked the back of her knees, staring up at her in the dimness. “Have I silenced your sass?”

“Get up here,” she murmured, and when he did, she took his mouth so hard he thought it might leave a mark.

“I want to do that everywhere,” he whispered when she let him up for air. She groaned and then turned in his arms so her back was to him.

“Unzip me.”

He did as he was told, dragging the zipper over the widest part of her back and slowly freeing her until it rested where her back curved into her hips. His fingers slipped inside to the heated skin beneath, tangling in the fine fabric and gently tugging it down until it pooled around her waist. Then his hands rose to her bra, a strapless, structured thing that held her in check, and he unhooked it, letting it fall away to the floor as she sighed, and his hands moved to take up its position. His fingers skimmed the warm arcs of her breasts as she momentarily tensed and then leaned into the touch. Then he spidered out his grip to hold her firmly, the pads of his index fingers flicking across her nipples. She sighed and he stepped closer, just letting her rest in his hands and dipping a chaste kiss to her shoulder.

“You are glorious,” he murmured, and then licked at her throat as she stretched under his attention. “The way you looked at me during dinner tonight… all I could think about was this. Would I get to kiss you, hold you, taste you…”

He cuddled her closer, bringing her flush against him, and she shivered, her hands reaching up to cover his and making his grip tighter. “You’re so… tactile. That’s a nice surprise.”

“Well, nerds, you know…” He sucked a mark into her neck that made her whimper softly. “We think about sex a lot. Probably too much.”

“Doesn’t everyone think about sex too much?” she gasped, then turned and kissed him with a wet wantonness that temporarily shocked him. He crushed her to his chest, her breasts pillowing against his dark dress.

“Maybe. But do you always imagine it with the same person? Do you obsess over it? Do you drive yourself mad with it?” His lips bit into hers, one hand rising up to cup her jaw and keep her close.

“Spence…” she whined back, and then her hands fumbled blindly at her crumpled dress, wiggling and twisting until she got it over her hips, and it dropped to the floor around her feet. Then she was pressed against him in nothing but a flimsy pair of black panties. His free hand flashed down her back and grabbed her ass. She smiled against him and bit his lip. Two fingers slipped under the barely-there fabric, and he groaned. He was imagining ways to get them off her.

“Can I repay the kindness?” she asked with a smile in her voice. He pulled back enough to see her eyes, and the lines around them crinkled with mischief.

“Kindness?”

“May I undress you, Spencer?”

He hadn’t expected her to be so formal, but his mouth went dry at the request and all he could do was nod enthusiastically. She chuckled and then made a twirling motion with her hand. “Lemme get at the zipper…”

He turned his back to her and waited. She didn’t linger with it as he did, parting the dark fabric quickly and slipping it off his shoulders so it fell to his hips. He wore a silk slip underneath the color of smoke, and she hummed her approval when her fingers slid over it on the way to his hips.

“Nice.”

“You like it?”

Then he felt the heat of her press into him through the silk and nearly lost his mind when she began to gently rub against it.

“Lovely,” she whispered into the back of his neck, then her fingers slid under the dress at his hips and pushed it until it dropped to the floor.

Her hands flicked back up his chest, her fingertips outlining his nipples through the sheer fabric. He held his breath and closed his eyes, giving himself over to the barely-there touch as she traced him. Her breath was warm and even against his neck as she wandered blindly, moving from nipples to the subtle outline of his pecs, down the center of him and arcing out along his ribs. He gasped when he couldn’t hold his breath any longer, and her lips skimmed the back of his neck.

“Too much?” she whispered.

“Don’t stop,” he wheezed. She chuckled.

“Such a nice surprise from the guy who used to twitch every time I touched him…”

“I always wanted you to touch me.” It came out sounding desperate, and he leaned his head back as he stretched under her fingers. “But I was hiding so much…”

Her fingers drifted lower along the silk until she outlined the jut of his hips, and then down towards his groin. He was straining against a pair of especially delicate panties under the slip. Emily circled his shape, and he shook in her arms. She made a hum of pleasure against his neck and outlined him thoroughly as he bit his lip and fought to control himself.

“Yes, you were definitely hiding things…” she said darkly, her fingers teasing through the double layer of fabric, and he made a stuttered gasp as he pulsed in the panties that were already warm and sticky. “Christ… I almost feel sick admitting how hot your touch starvation is…”

“Please, Em… please…”

“Please what?”

“Want to… feel you… feel your skin… please.”

She left a wet halo along the back of his neck. “Okay, baby…”

He shook noticeably at the way she said it – warm, indulgent, proud. He’d never experienced that during intimacy before. Then her fingers creeped, slowly collecting folds of silk and making the slip hem rise up his body in its own maddening tease.

“oh god…” he breathed as it slid over him, revealing his skin to the air as he leaned back into her for support, giving himself over to whatever she wanted.

“I love this so much already, and all I’ve done is touch you,” she murmured, taking the gathered slip in her hands and pulling it up until he raised his arms, and she freed him from it, letting it sail away into the darkness. “Turn for me. I want to see you.”

He did as he was asked, panting as he struggled with the twin feelings of lust and embarrassment at being on display. It was very dark in his bedroom, a small nightlight in the far corner producing long shadows and muted colors. But she stepped back, and he saw her eyes move over him in the gloom. He weathered it and tried not to feel self-conscious but standing before her for the first time nearly naked and in tortured panties, his face flamed anyway. He attempted to focus on her instead, naked except for her black underwear as well. He found himself staring at her curves, the shadows under her breasts, the flare of her hips from her waist, the way she bit her lip as she watched him… He couldn’t believe he was allowed to see her this way.

“Wow, you’re grooming regimen is… next level,” she murmured.

His eyes shot down his body and then he realized she was talking about his hairlessness.

“Uh, yeah. I-is it…”

He didn’t get a chance to finish. She closed the distance until they were pressed together, skin to skin. He gasped at the sudden heat of her and the way she gripped him tightly with her arms across his back. He mimicked it instinctively, curling his arms around her as he blinked in confusion. Her mouth landed on his, forceful and urgent.

“You’re so fucking beautiful, Spence,” she licked into him. “And patient. Most guys would’ve jumped me by now.”

“Trust me, I really want to do that,” he husked back, taking her mouth until she moaned. “Still kinda stunned that I get the chance, I guess.”

“You’ve earned everything you have,” she whispered, one hand tangling in his long hair and pulling just enough. “Don’t kid yourself.”

“You’re the only person who’s ever made me believe that.”

He kissed her fiercely then, carried away by the moment, the feel of her pressed against him, and the knowledge that he stood before her as his whole self. His desire shifted, no longer satisfied playing a passive role, and he released her, dropping to his knees.

“What…” she gasped at the change, but he looked up at her with adoration. Time to make her feel it the way he did.

“Luminous,” he mumbled. “You don’t need anything to make you that way. Just standing here like this – with no camouflage – you’re perfect.”

He reached out a hand and slid two fingers under the hem of her panties. She looked down at him in wordless surprise, and he smiled at it; it was hard to catch her off guard. His other hand joined the first and together they slowly dragged the panties down her legs. But he never took his eyes off her face.

“Has anyone ever told you that?” he asked, nudging her feet until she stepped out and stood before him completely bare.

“No.”

“Good.” Heat washed over him. “I’m glad I’m the first one.”

“You’re… a real romantic, aren’t you?” She said it like she just realized it herself, and another wave of heat assailed him as he shuffled closer to her on his knees.

“Respect is the cornerstone of every relationship.” His hands curved around the back of her thighs, skimming up until they rested just under her bum. “Without it, we’re giving up our vulnerability for nothing.”

He leaned in and breathed across her skin where her thigh met her hip. He heard her exhale above him at his touch, and then his lips haloed that spot in a lingering kiss.

“If ‘romantic’ means I respect you and the intimacy you’re sharing with me, well… yeah, I guess I’m a romantic then.”

He heard her chuckle, but it cut off in a gasp when his mouth moved lower, tongue circling her sensitive skin as he descended.

“Trust me when I say there’s plenty of lust in my heart as well…”

“I hope so…” she said airily, and he felt her fingers dive into his hair, trying to push him where he was going anyway.

He licked down her center in tight, slow circles until he was hunched between her thighs with the tip of his tongue flirting with the top of her seam. He heard her breathing change, felt her body still against him, her fingers slowed their massage in his tangles. It was as if she held herself quietly… waiting… He canted his head and slid his tongue into the seam, just curious to explore her. Her fingers tightened in his hair and her thighs shifted, giving him more room to move. His tongue slid a little further, following her heat blindly. The tip of his tongue tripped across her clit by accident, and he heard her gasp. Then he circled the shape gently, trying to get his bearings. Her hand in his hair twisted, and it felt like a demand, but she said nothing. The room was silent except for the creak of the floorboards when she widened her stance again.

Spencer smiled and then slowly pushed his tongue against her, flat and with pressure so he parted her even more and forced her to feel friction everywhere she was most sensitive. She made a weird noise then – something that she cut off quickly – and her legs shook against him. His hands flashed down to her mid-thighs to support her, but then he withdrew his tongue and pushed it in again just as slowly as the first time. She shook harder, and he felt a swell of something primal at it.

He shuffled once more, ignoring how the floors bit into his knees, and curled his back so he could duck closer. One of his hands drifted to her inner thigh, fingertips tracing upwards gently as his tongue slid deeper, past her excited bundle of nerves to flick along her lips. He kept retreating and pressing deep, each time a little further, so she felt his passage like the drag of a lazy finger. Meanwhile, his fingers found her and echoed that slow drag as they drew shapes along her opening.

She trembled and gusted out his name, fingers digging into his skull as the tension increased inch by inch. He was tight everywhere, desperate for what he’d been dreaming of for five months, but he shoved it down, losing himself in the heat of her skin, the taste of her on his tongue, and the sound of her erratic breathing. A questing finger slipped inside her for a moment before retreating and lining her with her own wetness. Emily made a small, high sound, and his eyes flicked open for the first time to glance up her body. Her head leaned back as she gazed, open-mouthed, at the ceiling. Her chest moved dramatically though her gasps were small, quiet things, and a tension infused her, made obvious in her arms as they flexed when she moved her hands in his hair. It looked as if every inch of her wanted to break free, to use him hard for her own pleasure, but she kept all that energy tightly bound. He swallowed reflexively at the sight, tasting her musk everywhere, and she trembled intensely at the movement and the way he slid back into her to sample her again.

Jesus…

His cock throbbed in his panties, the lace edges digging into his skin when he tried to shift and ease the strain a little. They were uncomfortably wet now and he wanted to be rid of them, but he didn’t dare move from where he was and break the hypnotism he held over her.

What if I could make her come just from this? Just from teasing touches and my mouth?

Heat flashed through him like a brush fire leaving his skin oversensitive and making his balls ache. He swallowed again at the overwhelming feeling, and his tongue arched up and curled over her as it retreated into his mouth, forcing a moan from her. He watched as her head rolled until she could look down at him, and her expression floored him. She was flushed enough he could make it out clearly in the dark, and her eyes were hooded, her mouth lazily parted as if she were dying for air. He pulled back a fraction to gage her, but his fingers still traced her, now sticky from where they’d dipped in and out of her. She twitched against him as she stared, and she seemed lost for a moment. But then she called to him, breathily and a little hesitant, and his heat surged telling him, NOW, like some dumb creature awaiting instructions.

“On the bed,” he whispered. Her lost blankness returned, and he said it again more forcefully. “Lie down. You’re shaking.”

“But… I’m okay…”

“I know,” he said gently, rising up on his knees. “But lie down anyway.”

She did as she was told, stumbling backwards to the bed with that awed look on her face. He got to his feet as he watched her climb into the center of the bed, his knees aching from the abuse of the floor. Emily settled herself across the scatter of pillows and then stared at him as she shifted her thighs wide. He hesitated as they stared each other down, half delayed pleasure and half something else as his body silently screamed at him. While she held his gaze, she slowly bent her leg and planted a heel to the mattress to open herself more. Then she slid a hand down her body and almost casually began teasing herself. Her teeth flashed at her lower lip as she held something back, and then she slipped a finger inside herself almost to the knuckle, and she huffed out a soft moan that made his cock throb uncomfortably.

“Do you want to watch?” she whispered.

“No,” he growled back.

“Then what are you doing over there?”

He activated then, stepping to the bed’s edge. The panties rubbed him mercilessly and it was distracting, so he quickly shucked them off with a frustrated noise. His cock bounced free and there was immediate relief that he was no longer restrained, but then the coiled tension in his balls flared and he had to bite his tongue to give himself something else to focus on.

Emily smiled at him. “Angry at every stitch of clothing tonight it seems. Too bad. I was looking forward to peeling you out of those.”

“Some other time.” He kneeled onto the bed and crawled up her body to take her mouth roughly. He bled off some of the terrible energy in him through the kiss, and when they slid apart, she was blinking and rosy all over. He licked her lower lip into his mouth and sucked it until it was plump, then gasped away and began moving down her body again. “The discomfort was becoming urgent…”

“I’m not surprised,” she said breathily, leaning back into the pillows with an expectant wiggle. “You had a lot crammed in there.”

His cheeks scorched at the comment, but he stayed the course, motivated to do the same to her until she cried out from it. He quickly settled between her thighs, spreading her wider as she sighed above him. His tongue flicked over her again quickly, re-establishing his right to her, and then he pressed himself flat against the mattress as he nuzzled in, his feet dangling hilariously off the edge. Emily murmured as he took up his slow rhythm once again, but after a few passes, she changed to airy whimpers almost too soft to hear above the creasing of the sheets. Somehow that fired him even more than moaning could – to hear how soft and secret she could be when treated well.

His hands braced her thighs as his mouth moved across her in lascivious, wet paths, and he felt her low-level trembling return. It rippled through her in waves, and he fell into her rhythm without thinking, matching her responses when they intensified. Her hips rolled as much as they could under his grip, and as he briefly looked up her body, he saw her writhing – flushed and strained as her fingers clutched the sheets and she gasped for breath. His cock throbbed, trapped beneath his body, and he rubbed it into the mattress without noticing as a poor substitute for what he wanted.

He turned back to his focus, gently licking her clit between his lips and then sucking until she whined. She was smeared across his mouth, her scent all he could breathe, and the harder he pulled, she began to mewl for him. The sound went straight to his dick – the helpless way she cried out, as if he were breaking her but she’d do nothing to stop him. He gasped away for a moment, overwhelmed and grinding himself against the sheets. She moaned at his loss, and then he felt her fingers in his hair forcefully pushing him back into her. He swiped her roughly, and her pelvis twisted under his hands. He growled a warning, but did it again, allowing one hand to wander to her center and tease her edges. She cried out again, but it was clearly his name this time, and he murmured her name back into her oversensitive skin until she started shaking.

He pushed a finger into her, pulsing gently while she whined and twisted. It came away slicked, not creating enough friction, so he added another, and was rewarded when Emily’s hand abandoned his hair to clasp his wrist forcing his fingers deeper. Her thighs shifted, trying to close around him, trying to pull him in, and he kept up his assault, his tongue moving across her with renewed pressure and authority. He twisted his hand under her grip, curving his fingers inside and up, and her nails immediately bit into his skin as she did her best to bounce onto them. The bed creaked as she shifted, her heels digging into the sheets and then slipping as her movements became more driven. Above the creaking and the slide of linens, she breathed in soft, short whines, randomly stuttering out a syllable of his name or a weighted ugh.

He throbbed everywhere, the urge to find relief almost more than he could think around. He wanted her every way he could have her, and his brain was flooded with vibrant imaginings of how that could be done. His back curled and he began pumping against the mattress in earnest, though he kept lapping her and pushing her further almost as mindlessly as she tried to curl around him.

“Please… please…” It fell out of her in wet gasps, and when he looked up at her again, her eyes were clamped shut as her body rolled, soft ellipses twisting and curving in a libidinous invitation that made him choke a little.

“Em…” he murmured against her, in wonder at how out of control she was. I did that… Then something instinctive took the reins, and he went at her roughly, wanting to see how hard he could push her.

She cried out and arched her back away from the bed. He kept licking, sucking, lining her with his tongue even though his jaw began to ache from it. He gasped for breath in the shelter of her thighs, her heat making his face flame as he desperately tried to get her there before he got too dizzy. He added a third finger, and it slid easily as he aggressively pushed her while she whined and rolled. It felt like she closed around him, as if she swelled to protect herself and push him back. But his instincts made him react with more intensity, diving into her mindlessly though his lungs screamed for air, and he was viciously fucking the mattress.

Then she cried in a way that felt wrenched from somewhere dark and very private within her. Both of her hands dove into his hair and held him too close to breathe or see. And then her whole body pulsed against him, clutching around his fingers and throbbing against his tongue in tiny waves. She made breathy, painful sounds as it happened, and she rolled her hips to her own rhythm, rubbing against his mouth – using him – until the waves receded. Slowly, her shaking turned to twitching and her thighs sagged away from him. Her panting sounded as if she’d just been in the fight of her life. He gasped away from her core and took a huge breath, then he glanced up at her. She was lazily spread out with her head turned sideways in the pillows as her chest heaved for air. Her hair lay tangled across her face, fluttering when she breathed, and her body seemed to have gone liquid on her. His cock pinged painfully where he’d trapped it against the bed, and he swallowed her taste down reflexively as he soaked in this soft, spent version of her.

I did that…

He pulled his hand away, and she made a gentle ngh sound from it that felt like an afterthought. Then he absently licked her from his fingers and wiped his mouth as he watched her roll to her side with her legs slowly scissoring in the sheets and her hands flicking across her skin to soothe her down.

He rose up along the bed, spooning behind her, cock leaking and balls aching. She mewled when she felt him press against her, hard and eager when she was tender and sated. He kissed the back of her neck, tongue flicking across the salt that rose with her heat. He was blind with his need to have her – almost choking on it – so he closed his eyes and just kept kissing her skin while she gasped against him as she came down from her high. One hand skimmed over her waist and across her chest to pull her tight against him. His fingers found her breast and massaged it absently, trying to ease some of his need that way. God, she was so warm and soft…

She whined his name, and he glanced over her shoulder at her half-hidden face. Her tangled hair left her obscured by shadows, but he noticed her eyes were closed.

“What is it?” he whispered, trying to keep the roar in his body in check.

Her hand fumbled until she sightlessly found his hip. She wormed her way between their bodies, clumsily searching while she tried to breathe. Then her fingers found his cock and circled it, tugging once unambiguously but nearly setting him off in her hand.

“Emily!” he wheezed, squeezing his eyes shut.

She didn’t say anything. Her chest moving against his arm banded over her, and she wiggled her bum against him in invitation. He gasped hard, satisfying the rush of want by squeezing her breast in his grip and making her moan from it. Then he sucked a hard mark into the crest of her shoulder until his speech center came back online again.

“May I?” he husked, hoping like hell she said yes. I need you so much…

She nodded her head against the sheets, still clearly non-verbal, and then rubbed her ass against him for good measure, making her answer plain.

He made an involuntary whine in the back of his throat and shuffled down along her back as quickly as he could; his restraint was gone. He skimmed his hand on her breast down to hook under her knee and shift her to a better position. Then he rubbed himself along her wet seam like some animal in heat. They both whined at the contact, and he closed his eyes, pressing his face into her back as he blindly lined them up and entered her too suddenly.

Emily gasped his name, and it was damp and pleading, like she hadn’t already been gratified. She clumsily slapped her hand against his hip and gripped him until he was flush against her. He choked into the skin of her back, breathless from her heat and closeness as he rested deep within her.

Too much… it’s too much… I’m gonna burst like a teenager on his first try…

She twisted around him, and he groaned loudly in warning, his hand clutching her hip to still her before he embarrassed himself. Then he gulped down a few breaths and slowly pulled out completely. She turned in the sheets, clearly confused, but he clamped his eyes closed and gripped her hip even tighter to keep her from moving. He rubbed her with his cock again, both of them slipping easily over one another. He kept it slow, like the teasing drag of his fingers earlier, and he did it over and over until the burn in his balls felt like all he’d ever know.

“Spence…” she gasped, and it sounded too loud in the room that had only heard the crease of the sheets and their hysterical breathing before. That one syllable sounded completely out of control, and he began ravenously licking her skin to keep a little of his restraint intact. He spelled out the words, love you, along her back, but didn’t know if she’d understand that before he gave in and thrust into her again knowing that he couldn’t hold on any longer.

He pinioned himself up on one elbow and hooked her bent leg a little more to open her wider, and then his hips went to work. The rhythm was steady but slow, so he felt every inch of their movement together, and it was worth it. The press of her around him was maddening. Their combined heat washed over him making him pant, and their soft slapping joined the quiet noises of the room. She made gentle sounds as he worked her – like a kind of satisfied ache – and he bent over her curved body to leave open-mouthed kisses on her hip, along her spine, pressed to the underside of her breast…

She whined his name without sound, just air, and he raised a hand to clumsily draw her hair from her face so he could see her expression. She rolled to stare at him, her lips parted, eyes dark as she watched him struggle. He moved relentlessly, frenzied and aching for her – who knows what it looked like to her. But she reached for him, trying to pull his swinging hair from his face, fingers brushing his heated cheeks. She mouthed something like, feels… so good, then she closed her eyes and arched back against the mattress as if that’s all she could manage until the feeling consumed her again. Her fingers curled tightly in the sheets to anchor herself against his thrusts, the bed creaking along the old floor once again.

It was perfect; better than any prurient imagining he had over the years, and suddenly a thought popped into his lust-crazed brain fully formed.

It’s because it’s not just sex.

And, of course, it wasn’t. Their body heat, and soft moans, and tangled mutual pleasure was one thing. But there was another part that held just as much weight and urgency as the sex: thankfulness. He was moved powerfully by her willingness to see him as he was – her acceptance felt like the most tremendous gift she could ever give him. Coming together like this was just one way to show his gratitude. And he’d spend the rest of his days finding other ways to show her what it meant if she let him: he’d love her this fiercely, this deeply, forever if she chose it.

He stretched up suddenly, his hand rising to clasp her chin and drag it to his mouth. He slowed his movements as he kissed her, clamping down on the needs of his body to make everything soft and lavish. His lips moved over hers, tongue sliding gently until her hand found his jaw and held him close as well. She moaned when they separated, and her grip brought them together again. He throbbed from the stalled progress, but the kiss was sweet, expansive, never-ending and he became mesmerized by it.

This is how it should feel, something in him flared brightly. You were always meant to love this way…

He pulled away enough to catch his breath, and his eyes flicked open to find Emily giving him a half-lidded gaze of fulfillment that temporarily stole his breath again. And in the next second, he wanted to know, he had to know…

“Okay?” he gulped, face flaming and body tense as he curled around her. She gave him a brilliant smile, and her hand slid into his hair to tug it.

“A romantic,” she hushed, and pulled him to her mouth again. “I’m very lucky…”

“Lucky?” His mouth popped away from hers, and his heart stuttered as he thought, maybe she’s been waiting for someone to feel right too…

She nodded, and then rolled her bum against him as he pressed over her, making him shift inside and rouse the urgency that got sidetracked for a moment. “Now, finish what you’ve started.”

He pressed his forehead into her side, and his hips picked up where they left off. He curled his back and shifted his legs to gain better leverage as he fought to keep his rhythm deep and slow. Her fingers thread through his hair and drew it away from his face as he struggled, and the movement felt unbelievably tender. Somehow, her care drove him to the brink. Then he closed his eyes and gave himself over to his body completely, turning his face against her side as his hips hitched and she continued soothing him.

“That’s it…” she whispered. “Your turn now…”

The sentence lit him up like a lightning strike. Heat raced across him, pooling at the base of his spine as he tightened all over. The tension forced a whine out of him, and then he grappled her, hooking one leg over hers to change their angle, and his hand racing up to grasp her breast, tugging it blindly. Then he curled, almost climbing onto her as she lay half-turned under him, and thrust over and over without a plan, just chasing the ache he felt deep inside. The slapping got louder, and each pulse forced a soft gust from Emily that poured gasoline on his fire. The intensity stretched him too taut – the sounds she made, the willing softness of her against him – and suddenly he felt saturated by an impossible need that couldn’t be met. He moaned against her, licking her skin and squeezing her breast like it was all he would get. Then her hand reached down to his hip again and held him flush to her throwing off his frantic rhythm.

“C’mon, Spence… for me… I need you…”

Whether she knew he was stuck or not, she saved him. Suddenly he had a drive greater than his own, and he continued on with her hand digging into his hip, relentlessly pulling him close when he sank into her. He kissed every inch of skin his mouth could reach as his hips worked on their own, pushing him closer to his breaking point. Emily twisted, squeezing her legs to tense around him, and he bit his lip and whimpered. Then his tension raced forward, jumping any barriers he had, until he was pumping recklessly, hand clasping hers at his hip. She shuddered under him, the movement shivering into him, and he groaned as his legs scrambled against the sheets and he pushed in as far as he could. He buried his cries against her back as he let go. It became an electric wave of relief that he gratefully poured into her, taking the edge off of years of unwantedness in the process. He trembled and shook, hips slowing their wild movements as he choked out sated, animal sounds into her skin. Then the shaking started, energy draining from him along with everything else, and he couldn’t hold himself up any longer. He flopped to the bed pressed to her back and half sliding out of her, his hand still clenched over hers.

There was just silence and hoarse breathing for several seconds. Then his body gave up as he slid free and began to melt into the mattress alongside her, drained to the core.

“Baby…” she gusted, and he felt her turn slightly. She sounded soft and satisfied all over again, and he was astonished by that. She said his name and he found the energy to blink his eyes open. She was smiling at him over her shoulder, like his state amused her. “Hey there. Are you alright?”

He closed his eyes again and sank into the full-body bliss he was experiencing. He sighed deeply, taking in her scent, then he licked his lips and cuddled as close as he could get.

“I love you,” he breathed, and heard her chuckle in response.

“Afterglow.”

“Yes, but no.” He dipped his face to kiss her shoulder, and then got lost in the slow, lazy journey he made across it and up her neck into her hair. “I love you,” he whispered again in her ear, and she rewarded him by shivering.

“I know you do,” she whispered back. “I feel it from you all the time.”

He blinked his eyes open again. “You do?”

“Of course, Spence. I’ve never felt so wanted.”

There was something about her expression then – a little mischievous despite her fatigue.

“Do you think I’d wait five months for a guy who felt ‘meh’ about me?”

His blinking went into overdrive then and his mind fell silent. Emily chuckled softly, brushing her nose to his.

“You needed the time to feel safe,” she murmured. “I get it.”

“I do feel safe,” he choked around the wet lump forming in his throat. “For the first time, maybe. I know I’m safe with you, Em. It’s not a guess or a hope… I know it.”

She nodded slowly, expression turning serious. “And I know I’m safe with you too.”

“Always.” He surged forward and captured her lips, pulling them gustily with his non-existent energy. “I promise. Always.”

She turned to face him, cupping his jaw and drawing his lush kisses in deeper while their legs tangled together. Then she wiggled until her chest was flush with his and her body heat felt like a flame against his skin. Her fingers slid into his hair and messed it up while she made contented sounds against his mouth. It felt like heaven – it felt like… home. Eventually, he had to gasp away to catch his breath, but he leaned until his face met hers and he could alternate between breathing and littering her cheeks with quick kisses.

“I love you,” he whispered one last time, hoping she understood everything that underpinned it. She’d broken him out of his self-made prison. She’d lit up his life and made it seem worthy. She’d changed everything for him. Loving her was the only way he could thank her for it.

Her arms shuffled around him and squeezed him painfully close, her words huffing damply back across his cheek. “It’s so much more than I thought, Spence. I didn’t know I would feel this much…”

He sighed in her fierce grip, his body shuddering as he set it free.

She got it.

Chapter Text

He walked her to the door before the sun rose, he in a floral peignoir and her in her wrinkled dress. He wanted her to stay, asked her as much, but her argument was irrefutable.

“I can’t go into work wearing a messed-up cocktail dress and smelling of sex.”

She said it with a smirk to take the edge off it, but he deflated anyway.

“You could borrow one of my outfits,” he suggested half-heartedly. She drew him close and kissed him until he could barely remember his name.

“I’d love that. You have great taste. But we aren’t exactly the same size.”

That was true. She was curvy and he was lean. The waistlines wouldn’t fit, the tops would be too tight, the lengths would be off… it wouldn’t work at all. But the idea of her in his clothes… He kissed her back, as hard as she had but for different reasons.

“You’re making this tougher than it needs to be,” she moaned, a little dazed by his enthusiasm, which went straight to his ego and fanned it. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours at the office.”

He sighed. “This is gonna make hiding at work suck even more.”

“We’ll figure it out like we always have.” She cupped his cheek, brushing his nose with hers. “We don’t have to come up with all the answers today.”

“I want to spend time with you. To hold you, to touch you… I don’t want to worry about being careful.” He nipped her.

“I know,” she nipped back, and there was an ache in her voice that flipped his stomach. “But we have to be smart about this. No short-term thinking.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, unconvinced. “Will you come over after work?”

“If we don’t catch a case,” she nodded, and he sighed. At least he had that to look forward to. “Okay so… let me go, spaghetti arms…”

She wriggled and he wrangled her back for one last kiss and a quick buss to her bare shoulder. She swatted him with her wrap and dropped a quick wink when she finally got free.

“Love the enthusiasm. Save it for tonight.”

“It’ll be another day of being slack-jawed and horny, I see…”

“But I’ll make it up to you. And you know I’ll keep my word on that.”

She gave him a brilliant smile and he couldn’t help but return it despite his mood. She chirped, “chin up!”, and then was out the door before he could respond. He stood there staring at his shut door when the thought finally settled into him: Emily Prentiss was his. It buoyed him until he broke the surface of his gloom and felt his altered reality warming him from the inside out. He’d hang onto that the whole day until he could hold her again.

Chapter Text

Luck hadn’t broken their way and they’d been called to South Carolina to participate in a manhunt for two escaped convicts instead of having a boring day of paperwork in D.C. It was seventy-two hours of bad coffee, fast food, and profiling by the seat of their pants while withstanding a lot of inter-agency dick-waving. They barely had time to nap let alone have any meaningful conversations. But from time-to-time Emily pulled him aside, into a utility closet or a private office somewhere, and kissed him until his lungs gave out. Then she’d quickly wipe her lipstick from his face and head back out into the field office squad room like nothing happened. He took a little longer to collect himself, but it made him feel good to know he might be messing with her restraint as much as she messed with his.

Three days later, with fugitives apprehended, they curled together side by side on the jet ride home, too exhausted to worry about perceptions. Spencer reminded her that they were each other’s ‘primary person’, so it was totally fine and reasonable to be as close as they wanted after an exhausting case. The team didn’t bat an eyelash just like Morgan said they wouldn’t. When Spencer jerked awake as the jet’s altitude changed when coming in for landing, he caught Rossi smirking at him.

“What?” he mumbled, trying to untangle his hair.

“You drooled on her,” Rossi said, and went back to his book.

Spencer’s cheeks flamed and he tried to clean up the evidence before Emily woke up.

The team stumbled into the BAU prepared to file their paperwork and call it an early day, but when Spencer and Emily dropped their go bags at their desks, Garcia appeared from out of nowhere looking worried.

“Glad you guys are back,” she said, twisting rings around her fingers as she glanced at both of them and then the bullpen around them.

“Us too,” Emily sighed and dropped into her desk chair with relief. “I think I could sleep for a week. How is it possible that three days’ sleep deprivation feels like I’ve been awake for a month?”

“That’s your acetylcholine levels being petulant,” Spencer smirked at her, and she smirked back.

“You wanna do my case report for me?”

“Nope. My acetylcholine levels are ticked off too.”

Emily rolled her eyes at him and went to open her laptop in defeat. Spencer chuckled and sat down to do his own report.

“Listen, guys…” Garcia hustled a little closer to Emily. “I have something to tell you. Something happened while you were in South Carolina.”

Emily glanced at her in concern. “What happened? Are you okay, Garcia?”

“I’m fine. It’s not me.” She shook her head until her blonde curls bobbed. “It’s about you, Emily.”

Spencer sat up straighter, exhaustion forgotten.

“What’s about me?” Emily asked just as Morgan arrived. He sauntered over with a cheeky smile for Garcia, then saw her worry and immediately mimicked it.

“What’s going on?” he rumbled.

“Oh man…” Garcia sighed. “Boo, I love you, but you can’t be here right now. Please.”

“What?” Morgan’s eyebrows popped in surprise.

“Garcia, what’s going on?” Emily leaned forward, catching one of Garcia’s hands and stilling it to draw her attention back. “I can’t imagine anything so bad that Morgan can’t hear it.”

Spencer wasn’t as confident about that as Emily seemed, but he was too anxious to delay this information any longer. If Emily was in trouble…

“Are… are you sure?” Garcia did a doubletake at Emily, and Emily nodded still holding her hand.

“What’s going on?” Morgan leaned in to make the group a little more private.

“Okay, well…” Garcia sighed and then got on with it. “I have a bunch of programs running all the time searching the web for key terms, you know, so I can stay on top of all the ick we deal with.”

Everyone nodded. This wasn’t a secret to any of them. Garcia worried.

“So, I get pings all the time. A lot of it is nothing – the web is a dark, weird place after all. But I also have personal searches going on. On, uh, all of you.” She made sheepish eye contact with all of them.

“You do?” Morgan asked.

“Yeah. Because tons of bad stuff happens to you guys and… I wanna be on top of things if something happens to one of you in the future. It’s the only way I can protect you. I don’t have a gun or…” She began flailing her hands around in what looked like an attempt at martial arts. Morgan stepped back and Emily rolled her chair out of slapping range.

“Okay, Baby Girl. It’s a little creepy but we get it. And I appreciate that you wanna keep us safe.” Morgan captured her hands and held them safely.

“Yeah, we do,” Emily agreed. “So, I’m assuming one of your little bots pinged about me, huh?”

“Exactly,” Garcia turned back to Emily. “You went viral.”

Nobody said anything, and Emily just blinked a lot. “Uh… how? When? I don’t think I’ve updated my Facebook page in over a year…”

Garcia’s expression collapsed. “It happened the day you went to South Carolina.”

Emily continued blinking. “But how could I go viral? I haven’t done anything.”

Garcia shook off Morgan and hustled into Emily’s workspace. She tapped a url into her laptop’s browser and suddenly they were all huddled around it watching a dark, grainy video on someone’s Instagram. Spencer froze in place when he recognized Emily’s dark blue evening gown.

“I think the local cops might take the word of an FBI agent over that of a ticked off bigot.”

Oh God.

Spencer squinted at the screen, but the camera angle was bad and poorly lit. Emily was clear enough as was the senator, but Spencer was half out of frame and shot from behind. All you could tell was Emily was having dinner with someone in a dress.

“Is that…” Morgan paused. “Senator Belzile?”

“Yeah,” Emily drawled as one of her hands went to her forehead and worried it.

“What were you doing in the same place as Belzile?” Morgan persisted, not getting it. Garcia turned to him.

“The video’s gone viral because LGBTQ2+ influencers picked it up and ran with it. They identified her. It probably wasn’t hard… you guys have had lots of media coverage over the years…”

“Identified her?” Morgan’s forehead exploded into confused wrinkles.

“Yeah. I guess they wanted to hold her up as a hero, but none of them thought that maybe they were outing her when they did that.” Garcia frowned. “Honestly, if they could figure out who she was, they could’ve dug a little deeper to look into her status.” She turned to face Emily. “No one had the right to out you, honey. I’m so sorry.”

“Out her?!?” Morgan was staring at Emily now.

“Boo,” Garcia pointed at the now frozen video. “Senator Belzile threatened Emily and said all sorts of homophobic garbage while she was on a date with a woman. That’s what the video shows. She’s gone viral because she wouldn’t stand for his nonsense. Like the Amazonian goddess she is.”

Garcia turned back to Emily and gave her a proud, watery smile.

“The clip got so popular Senator Belzile was forced to call a press conference to address the incident. He hit the usual talking points… the video was edited, it doesn’t show the whole story, he’s a good Christian and won’t stoop to answer the demands of ‘cancel culture’…yadda, yadda, yadda.”

Garcia’s hand made a quacking duck motion.

“But he did say and do all those things,” Emily said absently, staring at the video on her laptop. Spencer’s chest ached. It was one thing to shine on the opinions of a couple dozen diners in a restaurant. It was another thing to do it to the entire population of social media.

Morgan watched her. “You’re gay?”

Garcia slapped his arm, and he stumbled back. “Could you be a little more sensitive, D? Jeez…”

“I’m just sayin’… I’ve seen her go on dates with guys… she’s flirted with me… I just… I’m surprised.”

“Maybe she’s bi. Quit being judge-y,” Garcia murmured. Spencer felt as if he were moments away from spontaneously combusting. Garcia turned back to Emily, who just seemed numb. “I’m sorry, honey. I wish I could take care of this for you. But once something’s on the web…”

“It’s forever,” Emily said flatly.

“Yeah.” Garcia’s frown came back in spades. “I thought the best I could do was give you the head’s up. I’ve done what I could to stop copies being posted, but the damage is done, I’m afraid.”

“It’s not your fault, Penelope.”

“I hope your… partner is okay,” Garcia said gently. “Luckily, she wasn’t identified, but that also means that I couldn’t check to see how she was doing.”

“She’s-”

Spencer shut the laptop closed. “Emily wasn’t with a woman that night.”

Emily’s eyes came alive and found his. Her mouth set in a firm line as if warning him off what he was about to do. But he had to do it. He couldn’t ask her to live a lie for him, especially when he was tired of that lie himself.

“Oh, SuperBrain, I love the loyalty but… there was obviously a woman with her at her table.” Garcia’s expression crumbled again for new reasons.

“Yeah, kid. I mean, Prentiss’s business is her own – she doesn’t have to explain anything about this. But it’s pretty clear there was another woman there.” Morgan took on a paternalistic stance that immediately got Spencer’s back up.

“It wasn’t a woman.” Spencer stepped towards Morgan, lifting his chin. Morgan looked confused and backed off a step. Emily’s hand shot out and caught Spencer’s shirt cuff, trying to rein him back.

“Reid, it was clearly a person with long hair in a dress. What other conclusion is there?”

“Spencer, don’t,” Emily warned, but he was past caring.

“It was me,” he nodded, and both Garcia and Morgan went instantly owlish on him.

“What?” Morgan asked after a moment.

“Emily and I are seeing each other.” Spencer straightened his shoulders.

A painful silence followed as the bullpen bustled around them. Everyone stared at him not knowing how to move forward.

“Kid, listen… I know you want to protect her but that’s just not plausible-”

“The dress-” Garcia blurted. Spencer closed his eyes and took a bracing breath.

“It was me. I prefer to wear women’s clothes.”

“Spencer…” Emily’s voice was wet, and he felt her suddenly standing beside him still clutching his sleeve. He turned and looked into her anguished expression.

“S’okay.” He leaned close, too close for friendship. “It’s time, Em. You were right when you asked if I couldn’t trust my friends, would I ever be able to trust at all? I want to trust the people I love.”

“I would’ve done this for you,” she murmured back, face hovering close enough to kiss. “I don’t care what people think.”

“But I do care, Emily. I won’t let any more of me get chipped away and I won’t fold you into my lie. It’s time to fight for what I want.” He wriggled his fingers to catch hers in his sleeve, and then he raised her hand to his lips. She let out a wet sigh and then folded him into a tight hug, burying her face in his collar.

“Okay, babe. A fight it is then.”

“What… is… happening…” Garcia’s voice quietly cut into the scene.

Spencer and Emily turned and found both her and Morgan gaping in a completely unsubtle way. Then Morgan pointed at Emily, then Spencer, and back to Emily again.

“You’re…”

“Dating, yes,” Emily finished for him. Garcia began blinking rapidly, and after a moment, busted out a tremendous grin.

“For how long?” Morgan still looked astonished, and Spencer didn’t know how to take that.

“Does it matter?” Garcia hushed, and then ran forward to collect Emily in an effusive hug. Afterwards, she victimized Spencer the same way while he sputtered. “This is so great, guys!”

“Okay, okay…” Morgan glanced at his feet and seemed to space out a little. “So… you’re a couple…”

Emily stepped forward, taking pity on his confusion. “We’ve been together for five months. We’re happy, Derek.”

Morgan looked up at her and then slowly nodded and pulled her in for a hug. “Okay.”

Garcia shuffled next to Spencer and clasped his hand tightly in hers. When he glanced at her, she was grinning and tearful. “I love it when great stuff happens out of the blue…” she murmured.

Spencer squeezed her hand back and smiled, his chest filling suddenly. “Yeah.”

Garcia looked at him and then pulled him in for a wet kiss on either cheek. “Be good to her,” she mumbled and tried to wipe off the lipstick she’d left behind.

“Always, Garcia,” he said damply. “She’s my primary person.”

“What’s that?” Garcia’s face wrinkled up.

“He means that Emily is his first call, Baby Girl.” Morgan stepped forward and laid a hand on Spencer’s shoulder, smiling. “She gets him, and he gets her. No explanation needed.”

“I think a little explanation’s needed because I still don’t get it…” Garcia grumbled.

“So, uh… dresses…” Morgan’s face transformed with caution. “Are you, uh… are you…”

He couldn’t finish his question and Garcia slapped him gently in the chest and made a shushing face at him. “Another thing that’s not our business, Boo…”

Spencer decided to short-circuit this. “I’m not trans. It’s also not a kink or something I do as performance.”

“It’s part of who he is,” Emily stepped in smoothly, coming to rest at his side and linking her pinky finger with his. “He’s a cisgendered, heterosexual man who feels most comfortable expressing himself through feminine clothing, make-up and female-related signifiers. It’s a little complicated to sum up in a sentence or two.”

Garcia and Morgan went quiet again as their faces became sort of blank as if they were really contemplating this.

“It’s uh…” Spencer gulped, a little afraid of their silence. “It’s something I’ve done for a long time. Since I was a kid, really. It’s… not something that I’ve felt safe being open about for obvious reasons.”

“Oh…” Garcia peeped and started to look watery again. “But we’d never judge you about this…”

“Everyone judges this when they see it the first time, Garcia,” he murmured kindly to soften it. “I’m used to that.”

“You couldn’t trust us,” Morgan said flatly, making Spencer’s gut tighten.

“Derek,” Emily drew his attention back to her. “He doesn’t trust anyone with it. He has his reasons. I mean, I found out about it by accident nearly six months ago, and we’ve been best friends for years, haven’t we?”

Morgan shuffled a little looking guilty. Spencer squeezed Emily’s finger until she looked at him. In that moment, he was horrified by the way he treated her when that moment of revelation had arrived.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I was awful to you when that happened. I was just so scared it would change everything-”

“I know,” she hushed back. “I understand. I didn’t at the time, but I do now. Don’t beat yourself up over that, babe.”

“Babe,” Garcia mimicked as a triumphant smile spread over her face. “Oh my God, I love this so much already. You need a cute couple name. Like Reintiss. Or Spemily. Oooooh, Spemily!”

“Christ, no…” Emily groaned.

“The point is,” Spencer attempted to deflect from the dreadful couple moniker debate. “I’ve lived alone with this secret for a long time. It’s made it difficult to get close to people. In the process I’ve… lessened the joy of my life by protecting myself so closely.” He looked at Emily – a look they no longer had to hide. Her stare told him he was exactly what she wanted just as he was. “Emily’s shown me the power of trust. It’s… miraculous. Transformative.”

He started blinking too much and had to take a moment to swallow it all back. Then he glanced at Morgan and Garcia who seemed amazed at what they were witnessing. “And she sorta pointed out that if I can’t trust you guys with this… the team, I mean… then maybe I couldn’t trust, period. Because the team is my family, my chosen family. You gotta trust the people that your gut tells you are true and decent and good, don’t you?”

“Of course, you do,” Garcia beamed. “That’s so great, you guys…”

“It’s gonna take me a minute to figure this out,” Morgan added. “But you’re my brother, man. I love you no matter what. And I’ll stand up for you against anyone’s b.s. that wants to keep you down. I hope you know that.”

“Thank you, Derek.” Spencer choked over the feeling trapped in his chest and felt Emily’s fingers lace through his and squeeze. “Deep down, I’ve always trusted you guys. It’s just… hard, you know? I’ve kept this secret my whole life.”

His eyes flicked away guiltily, and then Morgan surprised everyone by stepping forward and pulling Spencer in for a hug. Garcia made a wet noise at the sight and Spencer didn’t know what to do.

“I’m sorry you had to do that, Spencer,” Morgan muffled into his shoulder. “It’s not right, and it hurts to hear you couldn’t be yourself. Even around us.” He pulled back and gave Spencer an intimidating glare. “But that ends today. We can’t change the way the world treats you, but we can be there for you when you need us. The team’s got your back, Pretty Boy. I can’t imagine anyone here having a problem with this.”

Spencer was overwhelmed. His throat closed up and his eyes stung. He wanted to tell Morgan how much his words meant, how it shattered his long-held notions about the world around him. It wasn’t just Emily now – he had a small collection of people prepared to stand by him in his defiant otherness. It was something he never, ever thought would happen.

Emily reached for his hand and squeezed again. She shushed him as he collapsed back against her. Morgan looked upset, but she brushed it away.

“This is a really big deal,” she explained gently. “He’s had a lot of bad experiences. Acceptance isn’t something he’s very familiar with.”

“Oh,” Garcia peeped, and started to look weepy. She clutched Morgan’s arm, and he curled it around her to offer comfort.

“We understand,” Morgan said gruffly, obviously moved himself. “I guess… everyone needs time to adjust.”

“He just needs a moment to collect himself,” Emily assured them. “We’re all sleep deprived after all.”

Spencer needed a quiet place away from observant eyes. He needed it like oxygen. But all he could do was cling to Emily and shake his hair into his face to hide. Emily shifted into pragmatism on a dime, and looped her free arm around his waist, preparing to guide him to safety.

“I think we’ll go get some water and calm down a little. Then we’ll crank out these reports and get the hell outta Dodge for a while.”

He saw her give them a sassy smile and their body language relaxed immediately. She was so good at that – reading and disarming people.

“Sounds like a plan,” Morgan nodded.

“Yeah,” Garcia added. “And don’t worry about the Belzile video. I’m gonna go back to my den and do some questionable things on the internet.”

She wiggled her eyebrows, and Morgan groaned beside her. A chuckle burst from Spencer against his will as he imagined her creating havoc across social media like the glittery ninja she was.

“I love you guys,” he whispered, pulling Emily close.

“We love you too, honey,” Garcia whispered back. “Oodles and oodles.”

“It’s gonna be fine, Reid,” Morgan offered. “You’ll see.”

Spencer nodded. “If you said that to me a week ago, I wouldn’t have believed you. But now… I think I do.”

Garcia and Morgan smiled at him; sort of relief mixed with contentment.

Emily murmured, “okay then…” and steered him towards the hall that led to file storage. When she got them shut in with the dusty banker’s boxes and gentle whirring of the archive servers, she turned him to face her, cupping either side of his jaw.

“Not so bad, right?”

He shook his head. “You’re still a famous lesbian though. We didn’t solve that problem.”

Emily rolled her eyes and huffed. “Everyone will grow tired of it soon enough. I’ll be forgotten.”

“Not by me,” he breathed just before he kissed her. It was so light, like they were whispering to each other. He did it over and over and over again. They eventually slipped apart, and she gazed on him indulgently.

“None of this would’ve happened without you,” he murmured, feeling grateful for her in a new way.

“I don’t believe that.” She shook her head, fingers stroking his face. “I think you would’ve found a way to tell them eventually. I know you know they love you…”

“Sure, but would I have trusted that enough to reveal myself? I don’t know, Em. I really think you opened me up to this possibility. And you were right – this feels so much better than hiding.”

“Good,” she smiled. “Now you just have to loop in Hotch, J.J. and Rossi, and we’re golden.”

Spencer whined a little. “Rossi will be insufferable about it.”

“He might surprise you.”

Spencer arched a disbelieving eyebrow at her.

“Alright, he’ll be a menace,” she conceded. “But only for his own amusement. Not because he’s a bigot.”

“I’m sorta more concerned about how he’ll feel about us…” Spencer waved his hand between them.

“Oh, I think he knows already,” Emily smirked.

“How?”

“How does he know anything?” she shrugged. “He’s been shooting me meaningful glances for a while now. That’s all I know.”

“Great,” Spencer huffed.

“But it’s so much better that they all know, Spence.” She was quiet and serious. “About you, and about us. There’s strength in numbers. You won’t really know it until you feel all of them backing you up. When that hits you, it’ll really change things.”

He felt a little watery again because she was right: he didn’t know what that felt like yet. But he was eager to find out.

“You matter to them.” She took a step closer. “You matter to me. And I’m secretly relieved I don’t have to hide that anymore.”

“Yeah?” An amazed grin broke out across him making her smile in return.

“Yeah, you’ve done a number on me, Doctor. I’m in deep.”

He pulled her in and kissed her like his survival depended on it. She clutched him back and moaned softly, the two of them fumbling among the dusty boxes as they momentarily forgot themselves. His heart raced: he’d found someone who loved him, and a place to make a stand in life. His past dimmed for a moment in favor of the potential brightness of his future. All he wanted was to hold her close forever, to see her looking at him like there wasn’t anything unusual about him at all.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” he gasped without thinking, still clutching her as close as he could. He felt her smile against his lips.

“Believe it, Spencer Reid. You’re handsome, brilliant, brave, funny, entertaining, impressive-as-fuck at your job, steadfast, beautiful, and you’ve completely swept me away. Me falling for you is entirely your own damned fault.”

Chapter Text

Two days later he got the call to see Hotch in his office. Spencer had found the time and the nerve to tell Rossi and J.J., but he was still working up the courage to face his scowling boss. He shot Emily one last glance over the partition between their desks and stood up to face the music.

“It’ll be fine,” she murmured calmly, giving him a meaningful ‘chill out’ stare. “Just keep it to the point.”

He nodded, swallowed down his nerves, and marched towards Hotch’s office. He closed the door behind him when he got there to give them the illusion of privacy, but he could feel the subtle stares of everyone in the bullpen focusing on Hotch’s office windows.

“Sit, please.” Hotch waved towards the chair opposite his desk, shuffling files until Spencer got settled. Then he gave Spencer an uncomfortable glare. “Rossi and I had an interesting conversation about you last night.”

Spencer swallowed noticeably. He should’ve told Hotch first. God knows what Rossi said about everything. Hotch didn’t give his whirring brain a chance to overreact, raising a hand to calm him instead.

“But I didn’t call you in here to talk about that.”

“You… you haven’t?”

One side of Hotch’s mouth curved into something resembling a smirk. “Dave likes to gossip. I think he was hoping to shock me somehow. But he forgets how observant I am.”

“You are… observant,” Spencer said carefully, wondering if Hotch saw something before everyone else knew and kept it to himself for whatever inscrutable reasons.

“Your personal relationships are your business. They aren’t relevant to your job performance in my opinion.” He paused. “I’ve been meaning to tell Prentiss the same thing.”

The room fell silent again while Hotch stared, giving nothing away. Spencer let out a long, nervous sigh.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

“For what?” Hotch raised an eyebrow, looking as if he were completely clueless, which they both knew was untrue. Spencer just smiled at him, and Hotch moved on. “Rossi’s prurient imaginings about the team’s interpersonal dynamics aside, the conversation reminded me that I intended to have a talk with you about a different matter.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I want to discuss some nuances about the Bureau’s dress code with you.”

“D-dress code?”

“Hmmm,” he nodded. “Do you know the history behind it?”

Spencer’s mind went blank. Surely this was something he knew – he knew everything about the Bureau – but he just sat there stunned under Hotch’s patient gaze.

“At the Bureau’s inception, it was an all-male organization. Director Hoover felt that law enforcement work was unsuitable for women. However, he soon realized that men of his generation weren’t good at typing, amongst other things, and he made concessions for women to fill clerical roles. But not research or field work.”

Hotch sat back in his chair and gazed at Spencer conversationally.

“Times inevitably changed, and eventually it was no longer expedient or politically acceptable for this sexist practice to continue. Thus, the dress code had to be expanded where it had previously only been a footnote in the training materials. One could argue that broadening the dress code rules was itself an exercise in sexism, since no one really cared before, but that’s the sort of semantic debate lost on those who enjoy the mechanics of a sprawling bureaucracy.”

Spencer was trying to remember the last time Hotch had said so much to him. Or if he’d ever heard such an underlying tone of irony to his voice before.

“Originally it dictated suits for men – hats optional – and office professional attire for women, meaning skirts ending below the knee, blouses, heels no higher than two inches, and a bare minimum of jewelry.”

Hotch crossed his legs behind his desk and picked a piece of lint from them.

“This quickly became impractical once women were promoted to field agents. As you and I both know, field work can be strenuous and demands one to be more sensible. As the 60s transitioned to the 70s, female field agents made their own adjustments which were eventually codified in the employee manual. They didn’t wait for someone to give them permission to be more practical and comfortable, and rightly so. Today, the rules are part of basic training, but really have returned to the glorified footnote they were in Hoover’s heyday.” Hotch suddenly leaned forward to rest his elbows on his desk. “That is to say, they are guidelines rather than edicts.”

Spencer just blinked at him.

“This is why Morgan gets away with henleys and combat boots, or Rossi wears jeans every day. It’s why I haven’t bothered you about your hair in a long time.”

Hotch held his gaze as Spencer silently panicked wondering where this was all headed.

“I’m sure both J.J. and Emily have plenty of advice about how to dress practically and professionally while still retaining their individual style and femininity in what is still a very sexist, male dominated environment. They make it work for them without giving up who they are.”

Silence descended over them again.

“I thought you might find that interesting,” Hotch murmured.

“Interesting?”

“Yes. I would never tell Jennifer or Emily what to wear. I trust them to be professional. The rest is none of my business. Just because I prefer wearing suits doesn’t mean they have to contort themselves into female-shaped manbots. So long as any of my agents are dressed appropriately for the work they are doing, I don’t have any right to dictate style or preference to them. That applies to all agents, Reid. Do you understand?”

He couldn’t be hearing this right. It sounded as if Hotch was giving Spencer leeway to decide how he’d present himself at work.

“But… suppose an agent’s preferred style made those he or she came in contact with uncomfortable?” he asked hesitantly.

“That’s where personal judgment comes into play. An agent – any agent – has to make choices about where to compromise. We all realize there are some things that aren’t appropriate for work, and we make choices around those things. If I can’t trust agents to make those basic calls for themselves, perhaps they shouldn’t be agents to begin with. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Spencer nodded. “So, if an agent were to present themselves… in an unexpected way, so long as it was professional and work appropriate…”

“I wouldn’t have any issue with it,” Hotch concluded. “And the Bureau wouldn’t be able to penalize the individual without opening themselves to some uncomfortable legal consequences. Independent expression still holds weight in our democracy, even in the current political climate.”

Hotch fell silent again and stared at him. Spencer didn’t know if he was meant to respond or to use this as an opening to explain his situation in detail to his boss. But he felt as though Hotch wasn’t fishing and he found that both pleasant and puzzling. Surely, Hotch had questions like the others did…

“I just thought I’d mention it,” Hotch summed up after a moment. His eyes flicked back to the folders on his desk, and it felt like dismissal.

“Yes… umm, yes…” Spencer stammered. He got up and stood before Hotch’s desk waiting for something, but when Hotch didn’t look up, he thought, I guess the meeting’s over… He headed for the office door when Hotch cleared his throat behind him, forcing him to turn back. Hotch was regarding him with a neutral expression that somehow made Spencer relax at the same time. He wondered how Hotch did that: infuse his non-expressions with feeling when he chose.

“I wear suits all the time, but that’s not who I am,” Hotch said softly, eyes analyzing everything as Spencer stood by the door and listened intently. “With Jack, in my private life, I’m not this.” His hand swept over his immaculate suit dismissively. “But because work is such a large part of my life, people might assume this is who I am.”

Spencer swallowed and waited as Hotch stared at him.

“We all wear our own armor,” Hotch murmured, following it up with a flicker of a smile before it disappeared again. Suddenly Spencer felt the same way he did when Garcia assailed him with an unexpected hug: vulnerable, warm, bolstered. A smile of his own spread across his face before he could stop it.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, and Hotch’s eyebrows popped in surprise.

“What for?”

“Inviting me here.” Spencer arched an eyebrow. “The haberdashery history lesson. All of it.”

Hotch huffed like he was smirking, but his mouth didn’t give it away. “I could discuss regulations and men’s fashion all day, but we have cases to solve. Thanks for indulging me.” He waved his hand towards the bullpen. “Now, let’s get back to it.”

Spencer nodded, his smile becoming a full-blown grin, and he hustled out of Hotch’s office with an added bounce to his step that dumbfounded Emily when he sank back into his desk chair. She leaned around her laptop and kept her voice low.

“So? What did he say?”

“Nothing of note,” Spencer smirked as he turned to his computer and woke it up. “Just some Bureau trivia he thought I’d enjoy.”

“Trivia?” Emily asked incredulously.

“Yep,” Spencer chuckled back and didn’t explain any further.

Chapter Text

One Year Later

They stumbled into the hotel room in a fog of exhaustion. Spencer kicked off his heeled boots and shrugged out of his jacket before flopping face-first down onto one of the beds in the room. He let out a muffled sigh of relief as Emily puttered around behind him. His hair was longer now – well past his shoulders – and it haloed around his face as he breathed in the over-starched hotel linens.

“I’m so tired, I’m not sure I can find the energy to make it to the airport tomorrow.”

“Well then, I guess you get to stay in Wyoming forever,” Emily chuckled. He felt her move and then her hand was rubbing his satin blouse along his back in soothing circles. “It was nice being your girlfriend.”

He made a dismissive sound and then rolled to look at her through his tangles. “You’re much more than a girlfriend. We live together. There has to be a better word for that.”

Emily shrugged, sat down on the opposite bed and flopped back on it dramatically. He smirked as she wiggled her feet out of her shoes.

“You okay?” he asked gently. This case had been a tough one. She lifted her head to glance at him.

“Sure. I mean, tired-beyond-all-belief, but… okay, I guess.”

“You guess?” Spencer rolled and propped his head up with a pillow. Emily sat up again, untucking her blouse like she was tired of the way it felt on her. She ran her fingers through her hair in a patented move of frustration, and suddenly he was focused on trying to figure out what was wrong.

“In terms of this case, I’m fine,” she confirmed.

“You’re sure,” he said cautiously. “Because it was a real quagmire, and I wouldn’t blame you if you had unresolved feelings over it. I’m not sure I’m completely okay with it…”

She looked him in the eye. There were dark circles under them, which was unusual, but she seemed just genuinely tired, not hiding or deflecting anything.

“I’m okay with the case, really. I don’t know if that’s good or bad – it just is.” She sighed again. “I have other things on my mind.”

His gut tightened slightly, and he gripped the pillow under his head a bit more. “What other things?”

She glanced away quickly, then smoothly got up from the bed and began changing out of her clothes. He watched her back as she did it and didn’t answer him. Then his stomach knotted, and he was suddenly wide awake, sitting up on the bed and watching her intently while she pretended to ignore him.

“What other things?” he reiterated, pulse accelerating enough to make him lightheaded.

She got out of her clothes and packed them away, slipping into a Pretenders t-shirt and a pair of worn FBI joggers. When she turned to face him again, her expression was guilty.

“Love,” he gulped, now certain that she was about to tell him something horrible. He patted the mattress beside him. “Talk to me. Please.”

She huffed and shuffled over to the bed, sitting next to him and leaning against his side in a heartbeat. His arms curled around her immediately as he tried to edge away from his panic. One of her hands reached up and traced his fingers as he held her. His nails were painted – she’d done them herself the day before they flew out for this case – and the edges were now chipped from wear and tear. Then she turned to face him, and that hand rose to brush his hair from his face. She traced a fingertip slowly around one of his eyes. His foundation disguised the habitual dark circles he sported, and he knew the subtle mascara and eye shadow he wore possibly made him look less tired than he actually was. A smile flicked across her as her eyes swept over him; her gaze was always warm when they were alone like this. He guessed that was something, and it notched down his anxiety a little. Waiting for her to speak was killing him, but he fell under the mesmerism of her hands as she outlined his features. That always happened, and he wondered if she was doing it on purpose this time.

“You’re tired,” she murmured. “We don’t have to talk about it now.”

“I think we do,” he choked out, her fingers outlining his lips as he spoke. “Otherwise, I’ll spin it into something awful and I won’t be able to sleep.”

“Okay,” she sighed, and ducked her gaze, hand moving to land on his blouse just over his heart. “I haven’t been feeling myself lately, so I went to Dr. Maizri last week to get some bloodwork done.”

“You never told me that. Why didn’t you say you weren’t well?” His panic edged away from himself and became fixed on her. He cradled her cheek in his hand, forcing her to meet his eyes. “What did the doctor say?”

Emily’s mouth thinned for a second before she sighed and nuzzled against his hand. “Maizri called yesterday with the results. Thank God she didn’t call at the start of the case… my focus would’ve been completely shot…”

“What did she say?” he tried again. She stared at him, and he watched as her pupils got bigger and her expression seemed to tighten.

“She said I’m a little bit anemic and… I’m pregnant.”

And everything about him stopped. His breathing, his heartbeat, the caress of his fingers along her cheek…

Emily watched him carefully and then let out a long breath. “I know we’ve never talked about the possibility of children, and we probably should’ve. I mean, we’re in a committed relationship and we’re both still young enough to become parents…”

He really wanted to say something, but he was paralyzed by a quiet, internal onslaught of feeling. It was too much to handle, and his body inconveniently shut down. Emily kept going, and part of him was impressed by her courage in the face of his nothing.

“Obviously, I didn’t plan this. I’ve been stuck in my head ever since Maizri called trying to come up with a defining emotion about it. But I’m just getting swamped with stuff, over and over, and it’s always changing… I’m surprised, scared, anxious, in denial… I don’t know if you even want to be a father-”

“I want to,” he blurted on a strangled wisp of air.

He didn’t think about it before saying it – the response felt triggered, like an instinct. Emily’s eyebrows rose to her bangs and her mouth fell open. But almost immediately the doubts set in. He glanced down at himself in his demure, cobalt blouse and women’s-cut dress pants. He felt his earrings move when he shrugged hair out of his eyeline, and his sides pressed against his bustier as his breaths came short and fast. How could he be a suitable parent when he was this messed up? Wouldn’t he screw up that tiny little life as he or she tried to make sense of the world and a father who was so clearly apart from it? It didn’t matter that the idea of making that little life with Emily was almost mind-blowingly perfect…

He felt her hand move to the center of his chest and press a little harder. He glanced back at her, and her face was creased with worry.

“What?” he wheezed.

“You’re hyperventilating.”

“Oh,” he choked. How embarrassing.

“Take a deep breath and hold it. Then blow it out slowly.”

He did as he was told when she told him to do it, and after a minute of controlled focus, he seemed to come out of his numbness.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and he wondered what she was sorry about. He looked at her and the sadness behind her eyes, and suddenly he welled up to overflow.

“What if… what if it’s a boy?” he gasped, and she looked puzzled. His heart went into overdrive as his body caught up and screamed, I WANT THIS, while his brain sandbagged it all with his experiences. “How… h-how can I teach him to be a man w-when I’m like… this?” He gestured to his clothes as the tears spilled over his cheeks. Emily sat up in understanding, and then both hands rose to brush his face clean.

“Well, if it’s a boy, I think you’ll show him that a man is defined by what he does and whom he loves and what he chooses to stand for, not by how he dresses. He’ll see that his dad is an intelligent, empathetic, brave person who isn’t turned away from doing what’s right even if it’s hard. I think that’s a pretty good role model for a boy to have.”

“Y-you do?” He clamped his mouth shut before he completely lost it, but the tears wouldn’t stop, and he was shaking all over. Emily ducked in and urgently brushed her mouth over his.

“Of course, I do, Spence. You’re my fucking hero, you know. I can’t imagine how a kid wouldn’t follow you around like you hung the moon.”

He latched onto her and kissed her boldly, like he’d never done it before and wanted to leave a good impression. He was Emily Prentiss’s hero, and they were going to be a family, for real. It was so far beyond the scope of his modest dreams growing up that it felt surreal. But people did this everyday: they fell in love and had children. It was shockingly normal – perhaps it was the only normal thing about him.

He broke away from her mouth and erupted in slightly unhinged laughter. When his eyes met hers, she was confused but smirking at his antics, and his brain burped, she’s perfect for you.

“How are you doing?” she asked. “You’ve just cycled through a wild variety of emotions about this in front of me. It was daunting to watch.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” He shook his head as he gained control over the laughter. “I’m a mess, I know… and I haven’t even asked how you’re doing… but this is simply amazing, Em. It doesn’t feel real. I never thought anyone would want to have children with me…”

“So… you want this? We’re doing it?” She broke into a grin that was edged with caution. He decided to kiss her again until he wiped that caution away for good.

“I feel ten feet tall. I’m going to have a baby with the best human being I know.” He kissed her deeply, wrapping her up and against him like he was trying to put her behind his ribs next to his heart. “This baby is gonna be beautiful, Em – made from an improbable love…”

“Not so improbable, Genius,” she mumbled into their kiss. “Remember I thought you were cute from the beginning…”

He pulled back and looked at her, hands cradling her face and drinking in her expression of amused adoration. “That’s lightyears away from hitching your wagon to a skinny nerd who likes women’s clothes and has shoddy interpersonal skills.”

He smiled to soften it, but it was still true. Emily could’ve had anyone she wanted. And now she held him close and told him she wanted him enough to raise a child with him with all the complications that might entail. Typically, Emily shrugged his self-critique away, and his grin got wider.

“Take that, Patty Bernbaum,” he mumbled.

“Who?”

“My first girlfriend when I was a teenager in college. She discovered my secret and broke up with me because she thought I was gay and trying to pass as a heterosexual.”

Emily’s joy dimmed for a moment, but then it flared back stronger than before. “You’re definitely not gay. I think we’ve proved that conclusively.”

He felt his cheeks heat, but he wasn’t ashamed. One of his hands slid down to rest across her abdomen, fingers spreading out possessively. “Definitely not,” he whispered, feeling roused and fearless because of her.

“You’re gonna be a great dad,” she whispered back, expression getting soft in a way she only did for him.

“I hope so. My dad wasn’t very good.”

“We’ve got time to figure it out,” she assured him. Then he pulled her close once more and just held her, rocking gently as he marinated in this new gift she’d given him.

“I can’t imagine being brave enough to do this with anyone but you, Em,” he said after a long silence. “You’ve made so much possible, and now you’re making a whole other person possible. This kid is so lucky…”

“Spencer,” she sighed, squeezing him as tight as she could. His tears threatened once again.

“I’m lucky you found me when I was hiding away from everything.” His voice was damp, and a tear dropped into Emily’s hair, but it was the sincerest moment he’d ever experienced. She’d saved him from a life of erasure and despair.

“Hold me tonight,” she mumbled against him, sounding watery as well. “Don’t let me go until we have to leave for the jet in the morning.”

“Yes.”

He rolled her back into the mattress, giving her a soft kiss before he quickly got out of his work clothes and tucked them both under the hotel linens. They curled tightly together, breathing each other’s air and words as the world moved on without them for an evening. And when they rose in the morning, Spencer felt like everything was new. It was like the moment Emily pushed her way into his apartment after the cabin explosion, or the first night they spent together – everything seemed surprisingly possible. They sat side by side on the jet as they flew home, fingers tangled the whole way, and they didn’t try to hide it. Even when the team joined in with Rossi’s gentle razzing about ‘what was up’ with them, they just smiled and remained contented outsiders, comfortable in their secret together. They kept it a secret for a few more months until it could no longer be hidden, but it was a joy not a burden, and one they happily carried together.

When their son arrived, Spencer only hesitated over holding him for a moment. Emily, sweaty and panting, whispered, “go on… he needs you…”, and that’s all it took. He clutched his swaddled son close to his chest and fell immediately and irrevocably in love. From that day forward, Spencer was never too far away from him, and as Emily predicted, their son came to believe Spencer hung the moon. Spencer was sure their child couldn’t be more perfect, while Emily theorized that Spencer was simply destined to give anyone he loved more than he was given, which made his love boundless. Regardless, Noah was adored by both his parents, and whatever mistakes they made were done out of love and enthusiasm. Their family was unique, and it felt like a warm knot of unbreakable connection to Spencer. He was grateful for every moment.

One evening when Emily stumbled through the front door and found him on the sofa, reading, with Noah tucked into his side fast asleep, he realized he no longer measured his reality against that of everyone else. He’d given up worrying about someone declaring him an unfit father because he wore women’s clothes, and he didn’t fear explaining his differences to his son. The team accepted him as he was, and he presented as female more often than not now. The complications of his life were still very real, but he spent less time fruitlessly agonizing over things he couldn’t change. He just got on with living instead. And when he glanced up to see Emily’s doting smile for her two ‘boys’, he realized this new, stable state of being was only possible because of her belief that there was nothing wrong with him in the first place.

“What’s all this then?” she mumbled warmly, dropping her go bag quietly in the hallway.

“He wanted to say goodnight in person, but he fell asleep.” Spencer lightly ran his fingers through his son’s hair and watched him snuffle at his side and go still once more. “I didn’t have the heart to wake him, so I thought we’d both wait for you instead.”

Emily came to the edge of the sofa and bent over the ridge to leave a soft kiss on Noah’s forehead. “Little monkey…”

“How was Denver?”

Emily switched to drop a quick kiss to Spencer’s mouth before backing away and sighing, looking exhausted. “Cold and grey. And mostly pointless. The case review was a bust – lots of cold leads and not much that could activate the case again. Rossi made the call. The BAU won’t be participating unless there’s a new victim.”

“I’m sorry, love. It’s always hard when that happens.”

“Yeah,” she huffed. “And the weather was bad, so our flight got delayed. That’s why I’m so late.”

“No worries. I had it all in hand. Some of our dinner’s in the oven for you if you’re hungry. You just need to reheat it.”

Emily bent and kissed him again, this time deeper and with her fingers tangling in his hair. When she pulled away, she licked her lips, sending a spike of something warm through him.

“What was that for?” he murmured, feeling his cheeks get rosy.

“Just because you’re you, beautiful.” Her mouth curled in a smirk. “Been thinking about you all day.”

“Really…” He couldn’t hide the interest in his voice, then he checked himself because his son was right next to him. “I’d love to hear more, but maybe you could help me get the monkey to bed first?”

She arched an eyebrow. “Are you telling me you can’t lift him on your own? He’s only three, Spence…”

“I can do it, but he’ll wake up. If you help, there will be less fuss.” Spencer began gently shuffling to sit up, carrying Noah with him. “Besides, he’s big for a three-year-old…”

He stood with a crack of his knees and cradled Noah to his chest with his son’s cheek pressed to his shoulder. Emily came up behind them, her hand landing in Noah’s dark curls just before his eyes flicked open.

“He’s gonna be tall like you,” she murmured, leaning into Spencer’s silk robe and rubbing her free hand along his back.

Noah blinked sleepily and then seemed to recognize her. “Mommy…”

“Hey there, little man.” She left a quick kiss on his nose, and he wrinkled it. “Did you con Daddy into staying up past your bedtime?”

“Daddy said it was okay,” Noah mumbled and then yawned into Spencer’s shoulder.

“I did,” Spencer assured him. “But Mommy’s home now, so it’s time for bed.”

Noah lifted his head and wrestled his arms free, making grabby hands at Emily over Spencer’s shoulder. “Mommy…” he whined.

“Okay, tiger, let’s go…”

Spencer turned and gave Noah to Emily. She balanced him on her hip, his head dipping to her shoulder almost instantly as his eyes closed. She shuffled a bit and kissed his forehead again.

“So tired, aren’t you? And you’re almost too big for Mommy to carry anymore…”

Noah snuffled and Emily cuddled him closer. Spencer’s chest got tight watching her as she smiled and whispered to her son, rocking him gently. Then they moved together, quietly, until they reached Noah’s room, Spencer helping Emily as they laid Noah down in his bed and tucked him in.

“Mommy, can I have a story?” Noah’s eyes were barely open, but bedtime was something he always tried to avoid. Emily crouched down to sit on the edge of his bed, her fingers brushing his hair from his forehead.

“Didn’t Daddy tell you one already?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you’ve had your story. It’s dreamtime now.”

“But you’re home, and I’m not tired.” Noah yawned hugely, and Spencer bit his lip to prevent himself from smiling.

“I tell you what. We can start a story right now – all of us – and you can think about the ending and tell us about it at breakfast tomorrow. Okay?”

Noah blinked in sleepy confusion, and Emily took advantage of the opportunity.

“I’ll start. Once upon a time, there was a little boy with the heart of a tiger. A real tiger. He didn’t know how he got the tiger heart, but it made him brave and eager for adventures. He wanted to try everything, go everywhere, and his parents couldn’t stop him because he was part tiger and that made him restless.”

“How could he be part tiger?” Noah asked. Emily shrugged.

“We’ll have to finish the story to find out, won’t we?” She looked up at Spencer and winked, so he took over.

“The tiger boy had so many questions, but the most important was what happened to the tiger who gave him his heart? He decided he would go on a quest to find the tiger, even though he was told tigers were very dangerous to little boys.”

Noah looked to Spencer. “But Daddy, what if the tiger eats him?”

“That’s a very good question,” Spencer smiled, then raised a finger. “But the tiger boy was smart and knew he couldn’t go on this quest without protection. So, he went to see a famous wizard to get some magic spells that would help along the way.”

“Did the wizard wear a dress?”

Spencer blinked. “He could have. What do you think?”

Noah shrugged and yawned again. “If he’s a special wizard, he probably wears a dress like you. Because special means different, but different is okay, right Daddy?”

Something wet lodged in Spencer’s throat and his heart felt like it grew to twice its size under his ribs. He blinked and then nodded, unable to find the words, but then he felt Emily’s fingers lace through his at his side, and he glanced to see her beaming up at him.

“That’s right, Noah. Different is perfectly okay.” She glanced back at her son. “So now, the rest of the story is up to you. You can lie here and think about it since you’re not sleepy. But in the morning, Daddy and I want to hear what happens to the boy on his quest. We’re leaving the most important part of the story to you, so make it the best you can. Deal?”

“Okay, Mommy, deal,” Noah agreed but his eyelids were already drooping again. Emily smiled and leaned in to leave one last kiss on Noah’s forehead.

“Night-night, little man.”

Emily got up and Spencer took her place, brushing his son’s cheek as he wriggled into the pillow.

“Night, kiddo,” he said, his voice quietly wavering. “Love you.”

“Love you too, Daddy.”

Noah rolled on his side and clutched a ratty stuffed dinosaur close, looking for all the world as if he’d forgotten about his task and was accepting bedtime instead. Spencer would have to remember Emily’s sneaky con the next time she was away for a case and Noah refused to go to sleep.

Emily and Spencer backed out of the room, turning on a light that threw stars across the bedroom ceiling to keep Noah company. Then they lingered in the half-shut doorway, watching their son, with their fingers laced together.

“He’s so…” Spencer whispered, swallowing hard and unable to finish his sentence. Emily turned to face him, smiling.

“He got you good just now, didn’t he?”

“He didn’t mean to. He doesn’t understand yet.”

“But that’s the point, isn’t it?” she countered, waiting for his eyes to leave their son and find her instead. “To him, you’re not weird or different, you’re just Daddy. He already knows that you’re unique to other daddies, but to him you’re normal. It’s the only way he’s seen you, and he accepts it because he’s never been told that he shouldn’t.”

The clog in Spencer’s throat got bigger and he blinked hard at Emily to keep it all in check. “It just… gets to me. Every single time, ya know?”

She cupped his jaw and drew him in for a lingering kiss. It was tender but thorough, one knowing pull after another. When she drew away from his lips, he let out a long, thankful sigh. She leaned her forehead to his and held him for a moment in silence, smiling as if his flustered surprise was the best thing ever.

“We’re going to have another,” she whispered eventually.

Whatever exhaustion or surprise he felt vanished in an instant. He stared at her, saw the quiet excitement in her expression and the wicked ‘gotcha’ curl to her mouth. He felt his grin break across his face, and then he was cradling hers, pulling her in for a lavish kiss this time as his heart raced. She opened under his eagerness and let him in, chuckling at his reaction and then falling under his quiet pulls when he stole her breath away. They eventually slid apart. She leaned against him, fingers curled in his robe, and he breathed hard into her cheek, grinning like he couldn’t stop.

“When?” he gusted, pulling back to look her in the eye.

“Well, I have an appointment with Dr. Maizri tomorrow to confirm it. But I did a quick home test while I was in Denver, and it was positive. I mean, I’m late, and the symptoms are all there like last time, so I’m pretty sure about it.” She blinked at him, flushed and cheeky in a way she hadn’t been when she told him about Noah. Because this time there wasn’t any uncertainty, only joy. “Are you happy?”

“Am I happy?” he huffed in surprise, his arms wrapping her close. “Happy is too modest a word for what I’m feeling.”

He kissed her again soundly. “Are you happy?”

“Yes,” she said quietly, and it undid his heart even more. “It’ll probably be bedlam for the foreseeable future with two of them creating havoc, but… I’m excited, Spence.”

“Oh, Em…” He kissed her – her lips, her cheek, her nose, her chin, down her throat as she laughed softly at his enthusiasm. “You make my world go ‘round. You and Noah…” One of his hands slid down to her belly and rested there. “I didn’t think anything would bring me this much joy. What we’ve created is so joyful…”

She chuckled at him. It should have felt dismissive, but it wasn’t. Her laughter felt like an extension of his joy that she could no longer contain, and that drove him crazy. It would always seem an improbable miracle that he made Emily Prentiss his, and he made her as recklessly happy as she made him.

“I hope we get a girl this time,” he murmured, brushing it to her lips. “I’d love to have a little girl…”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she grinned back, fingers threading through his messy hair to untangle the man bun he’d tied it into. His hair flowed down over his shoulders, and she grabbed a handful, rolled up on her toes and took his mouth decisively. “We should celebrate,” she hushed when they popped apart.

His eyebrows rose in surprise, but he pulled her painfully close. “Aren’t you tired?”

“Not that tired,” she rolled her eyes at him. “I’ve been thinking about you since the stick turned blue, and now I’m sorta… worked up. That’s why I waited to tell you in person.”

She waggled her eyebrows and he laughed, heating all over with both embarrassment and pride. “How worked up?”

“Well, I thought I could take a quick shower and you could put on that purple negligee that drives me nuts, and then we could be very, very quiet while having some good old-fashioned fun together.”

“You’ve obviously given this some thought,” he said, face flaming. “Who am I to argue?”

“Yay,” she whispered while raising her arms and rubbing against him in a teasing victory dance.

He pulled her against him, off her feet, and twirled her away from Noah’s doorway. She let a whoop go free in surprise, and then she was laughing in his arms as he set her down and manhandled her towards their bedroom. By the time they made it there, he was licking her neck and trying to get her out of her blouse backwards. She reached back to cup him close as he mauled her, her throat moving as she continued gently laughing at him.

"The beautiful man is horny…”

He sucked a mark into her neck that made her go limp and soft against him, just as he planned. His hands landed across her belly, under her half-tucked blouse, to hold her. “I’m just profoundly in love with the woman who changed my life.”

“You changed my life too, you know,” she said breathily, trying to unbuckle her belt. “Sensitive men and kids and crazy fucking personal happiness was never part of my plan…”

“Then thank goodness we both learned to set our sights a little higher.”

He spun her in the dimness of the bedroom and slowly began to unbutton her blouse while she gazed at him with flushed bemusement. When he flicked it off her shoulders and pulled her against him, her amusement had changed to warm indulgence. She rolled up on her toes again and gave him a soft kiss, slowing his ardour into something knowing and teasing instead.

“You’re the best man I know, Spencer,” she whispered haltingly, but she was still smiling. “Being with you… somehow became everything I needed. Even being a mom. Because I never pictured myself as anyone’s mom…”

“You’re a fantastic mom. A real natural,” he breathed into her cheek, squeezing her close.

“But you brought that out in me.” She tugged a strand of his hair to emphasize her point. “I wouldn’t have wanted children with someone else. Probably not, anyway. But I wanted yours. I knew that the moment I found out I was having Noah.”

Spencer’s breath caught and he went still against her.

“You keep telling me I gave you license to be yourself, that I opened up your life…” she whispered as she brushed her nose against his. “But you did the same thing for me, and you don’t even know it, do you?”

Her eyes slipped closed, and her lips curled in a look of such utter contentment it broke his heart and then quickly reassembled it again. He did that. His brain shut down on him.

Emily’s mouth found his again in another tender kiss and then she pushed away from him. His eyes flicked open as his hands slid from her, and her wicked mischief was back in place.

“Go get pretty for me,” she jutted her chin at him, grin spreading over her. “I’m gonna take that shower, and when I come back, I’m gonna take you.”

His whole body sagged in gratefulness while he burned for her under his robe. How had he managed to carve out this happiness when the exact opposite had always looked like his destiny?

“I love you,” he whispered with too much feeling and his heart rabbiting in his chest. “You know how much, don’t you?”

“Oh,” she uttered gently, her expression changing from mischief to tenderness quickly. “Of course, I do, you handsome, brilliant, brave, funny, entertaining, impressive-as-fuck at your job, steadfast, beautiful man. I always feel it. Every day.”

He began blinking too much, but his grin returned in spades. She flushed and chuckled, then waved him off while dabbing at her eyes.

“Now go on, scoot. Before you incite the hormones to make me a flustered mess who’s useless for anything but emotional sex.”

His eyebrows lifted. “What’s wrong with emotional sex? That’s my favorite kind…”

“Okay then, you’re in luck… add a box of Kleenex to the nightstand and prepare yourself. This session might be a doozy,” she smirked.

Fireworks went off in his chest, and he grinned while rolling on the balls of his feet with glee. “Can’t wait.”

“Ridiculous,” she huffed through her own grin and headed for the bathroom. “Give me five minutes – you can time me.”

She shut the bathroom door and he heard her muffled, love you!, through it which made him laugh out loud. Then he quickly shook himself out of his lovesick haze to get ready.

Reaching into the closet for the lingerie she preferred on him, he idly mused on how normal this all seemed now. His becoming was a reality, fleshed out unexpectedly by love and a family; things he didn’t dare dream of as a frightened teenager in Las Vegas. Somehow, he’d found room for himself in the world, even if that room was only made possible by another helping to shoehorn it into existence. But he pushed all of that aside as he changed and got into bed, waiting for his primary person to appear and reinvent his world once again. In his heart and his head, he heard the words, twirl! twirl!, and felt as beautiful and carefree as silk.