actually

That's all well and good, you rush to do as he's asked and step back because the very last thing you want is to make him uncomfortable and his voice is frankly acidic, but everything is moving too quickly, you're not as aware as you should be —you smash your hand backwards into a cold cup of coffee and knock it straight into the lap of Spencer's laptop. 

"No," you gasp, grabbing the cup before the entirety of it can empty. Coffee wells between the keys and you go to grab it to– well, to do something. 

"Stop it!" Spencer shouts, voice sharp as a knife. "You always do this," —quieter, venomous— "you can't help yourself." 

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I would answer you if I had the time. I'll be busy rescuing my hard drive before an entire month of work is wasted thanks to your dire need for attention." 

He slips around you and stalks out the door, coffee dripping from the corner of his laptop in a sorry trail that shines in the fluorescent lights. 

Your first rush of tears are driven by indignation; it was an accident, you didn't mean to do that, why would you ever do that? But the second, more encompassing rush is a hot mixture of shame and guilt. What have you done? 

You take a hesitant step toward the door but don't bother following him. I'll make things worse, you think, bringing a hand to your face. Makeup marrs your hand as you wipe your cheeks. You stare down at the stains for a long, long time. 

I'll apologise, you think eventually, rubbing at the mascara like soot on your palm. Just as soon as I look okay again. 

You don't want Spencer or anyone to see you upset. You wear your makeup and your confidence for yourself, not to hide any insecurity but to embolden yourself, to be yourself. But to get to your desk you'd have to leave the conference room bared as you are, and you'd have to face Spencer, and the second option brings more tears. 

This is all so messy, and it's your fault. 

I'm such an idiot. I'm exactly what he thinks of me. 

You sit in the chair furthest from the door with a pack of tissues from the cubby and rub your hot cheeks dry, streaks of mascara in the shapes of your fingertips like soot left behind. It's sitting that gets you —the shock of tears at being shouted at by someone you care about amplifies into a distress you can't explain. It's stupid, it's stupid. You press your face into your hands and curl in on yourself at the table, ears ringing. I'm so, so stupid. 

—

The inside of Spencer's lip is bleeding, metallic on his tongue. He's white hot annoyance all the way to Penelope's office, choked as he tells her he needs her help. 

"Spencer?" she said. "What happened? Are you okay?" 

He realises what he's done. "Please, Garcia, can you do something? I really need to go." 

He doesn't hear her response beyond her surprised but emphatic Sure, spinning on his heel to walk back the way he came. He rubs at his temple, moving between a slow trudge and a speed walk as he assesses the damage of what he's said. What did he say? your dire need for attention. 

Your sniffing is something out of his fucking nightmares. Who does he think he is? You're sitting exactly where he left you next to that half empty coffee cup, a tissue scrunched in your trembling hands, visible in the small glass window of the door. You must be thinking of what he's said to have missed the sound of his footsteps, or perhaps he's left you too upset to want to look up. 

He sees the moment a sob works through you, watches you hold your breath in a painful effort to keep it down, raising the tissue to your eyes and catching your tears before they fall. You're doing a lacklustre job despite your efforts, the oily shine of mascara iridescent on your cheeks. Or maybe that's tear tracks. It's hard to tell. 

Spencer fights with himself. He doesn't know if deserves to come running back or if it would be more fair to send JJ or Derek in to comfort you. 

"You made your bed," his mom would say, not without affection. "You have to lie in it." 

Spencer squeezes his eyes closed to push away the memory, surveying the damage he's done carefully as he crosses the threshold back into the conference room. Your head lifts at the sound of the door, your stammer visible before you speak, "Spence– Spencer. Is your laptop okay? Did I break it? I'm so sorry." 

Gideon would tell Spencer to be nicer. Hotch would say Reid in that stern shade of voice that's half disapproval and half fondness. They'd both tell him to be better, but neither of them have ever had to see you as you look now, tearstained and sorry, eyes wide with worry but shoulders tense. He has his role models, and yet none of them could possibly give him a way to apologise that could ever make up for they way he's made you feel. 

Little dramatic, Morgan would say. Start with a hug, loverboy. Can't go wrong with a hug. 

He should ask but he doesn't, a second transgression against you. Spencer pushes past chair and the sodden circle of carpet to your chair, pausing in case you're going to tell him to shove it. You lick your lips. "Did I break it?" you ask, as though resigned for a yes  

He can't temper that amount of self-hatred on you. It doesn't suit you. He much prefers you the way you like to be, confident in everything, flirty and funny and soft, in both touch and touches. He takes your face into a careful hand, tilting it toward the light and weary of your shallow exhale. "I…" He begins and ends, stroking your tacky cheek with his index finger, as though brushing away an eyelash. If it were real he'd say make a wish, and you would wish for him or some similar sweetness, salacious smile to boot, or earnestness fit to fill a mountain. I wish you'd realise how pretty you are and stop denying me the pleasure of a beautiful boyfriend, you'd croon. 

His fingers collect at your jaw and slip behind your ear as he cleans your skin with the side of his thumb. You lean into the touch, slashing his hesitancy in two. 

"Sorry," he says, pulling your head toward his neck gently as he leans down to hold you. "I'm sorry. Don't be upset, please. Don't be upset " 

"I'm an idiot–" 

"No," he says, with the facts to back his denial. "I'm an idiot, I should never have upset you like this–"

"I broke your computer, it's just like you said–" 

"I shouldn't have–" 

"–I'm so needy I could've ruined all your hard work," you say, wriggling with guilt like you attempt to pull away. 

Spencer really doesn't want to let you go now he has you, not until he's sure you'll stay in one piece. "If it's ruined, it's my fault for failing to back it up." 

He should tell you that he's sorry for what he said. He knew it wasn't right he moment it escaped him, to speak to you like that, and accuse you of what he did. He basically called you selfish, uncaring. He implied it and worse, and for what? An accident? A mis-step that he practically forced you into? 

"I never should've said that to you," he says, breaking his hug to crouch in front front you, searching blindly for your hand as he holds eye contact, looking up. You deign to frown down. "And I walked away. And you're crying," —his voice fries with sympathy— "because of me." 

Your hand is limp in his. "I'm sorry," he says. 

"It's okay." You sniffle and nod, lips struggling into a smile. 

"It's not okay." 

"Well, I hit your coffee over, so we're even." 

"You accidentally spilled my drink, you didn't deserve to be mocked." 

"Spence…" Your eyes half-lidded, you wince down at the cradle of his hand where it holds yours. "Did I break it?" 

"I don't know. I got to Garcia's office and I knew I did the wrong thing, so I came back." 

You swallow audibly. "I just wanted to make you feel better." 

"I know, angel." He stands again as your eyes well with tears to hug you, kissing the top of your head. "I'm sorry. That was all me, okay? I shouldn't have snapped at you." 

What follows is agony. Spencer patting your back through a panicked bubble of tears, wretched in knowing he caused it, and worse is the look you give him as he wipes your messed up make up away in want of a mirror, like you're grateful. 

"Does it look really bad?" 

"N–no. You look really pretty," he says. 

"Are my eyes puffy?"

A little. "No. You look great." He can't apologise anymore– it won't help you feel better now, it'll just assuage his own worry. What you need is a different reassurance. "It's hard not looking at you, sometimes, you look that nice. But you know that already." 

"I don't mean to do that. I didn't mean to." 

Spencer puts his hand above your heart. "I know you didn't. I really, really shouldn't have said it. I was being cranky and I struck out like a kid." 

"...You're not just saying I look nice to get back in the good books, are you?" you ask. 

Spencer leans in, nearly nose to nose with you. "Of course not." 

You tilt your head as though you might kiss him. He knows you won't and he's delighted anyways. It means you're feeling okay. He's nearly forgiven, or, at the very least, you're not actively upset. "I thought I liked seeing you pissed off, but now I'm not so sure." 

"It's not a good look on me," he murmurs. "But it looks great on you, if you want to get angry with me."

"Well now I can't. I know it's what you want." 

"Can I give you a hug?" he asks. 

You drop all your acts and slide your arms around his neck. He wraps you up slowly, one arm at a time, careful to put all the pressure exactly where you like it. 

"That feels nice," you mumble. 

He bends into you and rubs your back. "Yeah?" 

"Don't," you warn. 

He draws a shape into your back with his fingers, slow, tiny things that make you squirm. "Don't what?" 

"You're tickling me." You don't sound unhappy about it. 

"What?" he asks. "I can't hear you over the sound of me being a huge jackass. Sorry, angel." 

You make it up the stairs quickly and he's already sitting at his desk waiting for you. Penelope's right about it being a similar feeling to being called into the principal's office. When she had made the comment, Spencer, of course, denied it, citing all his favorite visits to his principal's office.

"What can I do for you?" You ask, trying to not sound sarcastic.

Thankfully, Hotch has never been one to beat around the bush. "The brass wants you to run the LA Field Office."

You can't control your shocked expression as your eyes widen at his words. It's not something you expected at all with where you are in your career. Even in your unit, there are more experienced agents.

"That's why I've been pushing you harder these past few weeks." He explains, and suddenly it all clicks. The increased workload did start right after you got right back from a case on the West Coast. "It would be a shame for this team to lose you, but this is a huge promotion, congratulations."

"When do I have to decide?" You ask, finally finding your words. You're not even sure why you're not turning it down immediately, maybe some part of your brain just wants to run with the fantasy for a moment.

"They want an answer by the end of next week." He informs you before handing over an envelope with your name on it that you're sure has all the necessary information.

You're really not sure what to say to him, so you settle with, "Okay, thank you."

Thankfully, he must notice that you're overwhelmed, so he nods. "Have a good night." He tells you.

It's your cue that you're allowed to go, and he doesn't need anything else, so you stand to do so, getting to the door before you turn back to look at him. "You too, Hotch." You say.

You walk down the steps and across the bullpen on shaky legs, still trying to comprehend it. Spencer's near the elevator and you walk to him.

He immediately notices the change in your demeanor and the envelope in your hand. "What's up?"

You bite your bottom lip, pressing the button on the elevator and drawing out a little bit of suspense. Maybe there's no point in even telling him, it's not like you'll actually take the job.

"Are you okay?" He asks when you don't say anything but step into the elevator instead. He follows, but he's concerned because you kind of look like you're about to cry.

"I got offered a job at the LA Field Office." You blurt out. "I got offered the job to run the LA Field Office."

His jaw drops as well, but when he picks it up, he's smiling, not doing the deer-in-the-headlights look that you have. He wraps his arms around your shoulders, bringing you into a hug which he's done, like, thrice at work.

"Congratulations, that's amazing!" He cheers when he pulls back. "You're amazing."

"I'm not actually going to take it though." You quickly defend.

Spencer frowns. "What? Why? I'm not questioning your judgment, but that's a big promotion. They want you for a reason."

"It's just... at the BAU, we can still have our personal relationship. If I lived in LA, you'd be all over the country half the time, and across the country for the other half. I just don't think long distance would work for jobs like ours." You explain, hoping he isn't offended by your pessimism. It's because you want to be with him so badly that you would happily give up a job that wouldn't give you that opportunity. A year ago it would have sounded insane to you, but there's more to life than work now.

His confused expression only grows. "Wouldn't I... go with you?"

Now, apparently, you're as confused as he is. "You'd seriously uproot your entire life and career to move across the country if I accept this position?"

He nods without a second of hesitation. "Yes. If you let me, that is."

It does make sense when it clicks in your brain. Just like you would stay at the BAU for him, he would leave it for you. He fully reciprocates your love.

"That's a big call." You warn.

Spencer shrugs. "We can talk about it over dinner, but I'm sure that I'd move tomorrow if you were. I liked living in California, and CalTech has been wanting me to teach since... well, since I graduated, honestly." You chuckle slightly. "I think we need to do more than just Thai takeout for dinner."

You're really not in the mood for going out, so you reason with him. "Thai takeout, but you buy me a bottle of champagne."

It was a Saturday afternoon. One of the first Saturdays in a long time where Spencer hadn’t been away on a case. So, therefore, the two of you had planned on going to the Smithsonian together.

But now that you were there, it struck you that perhaps a Saturday afternoon was not the best time for you to go to a museum. There were so many people. So many children. Nosy ones at that. 

You were truly trying your best to just focus on your wonderful boyfriend and the adorable infodumping that had begun long before you’d even arrived. But everything around you was simply too much, so much in fact that all of the exhibits had begun to be extremely uncomfortable to look at. They just looked chaotic and had way too much going on.

Squeezing your eyes shut, you sucked in a shaky inhale.

Ready to move on to the next exhibit, Spencer’s voice slowly became smaller and smaller as he apparently didn’t notice that you weren’t following along. 

“Y/n?” you opened your eyes to see him looking back over his shoulder at you with a curious look.

“I, um-…” fuck, you needed to get out of here. Get to somewhere, anywhere that your system could relax. His name fell from your quivering lip, “Spencer.”

At the tone of your voice, he was immediately at your side. “What? What’s wrong?”

“It’s, um, a lot right now,” you shook and waved one hand in front of you, trying to shake it out of you, even just a little bit. 

“Okay,” he grabbed ahold of your other hand and held it tight, “do you wanna go?”

“Please,” you sobbed.

“Alright, then we’ll go home.”

Wrapping one arm around your waist, he still clutched on tight to your hand in his, rapidly leading you out, holding you close, just in case you lost your balance. 

Weaving through the crowd, he quickly guided you outside, down a few small streets, and then there you were, at the stairs down towards the metro.

Reaching into your pocket, he fished out your metrocard in order for him to swipe it for you. Brushing a thump over your knuckles, he slowly led you down to the stairs, one step at a time. Once you reached the bottom, he linked his arm with yours and kept going. 

Struggling to keep your breathing steady, you mumbled to yourself, “okay, we need to take the yellow line, that’s down that hall, how many steps could that be? Maybe 50-70?” trying to grasp onto anything that could distract you.

You were well aware of the fact that Spencer surely knew the answers to all your random questions, but he didn’t cut in to share them. He just franticly looked around, trying his best to navigate the chaos of the city.

Once you reached the platform, the train was already there. A beeping sound was heard, indicating that the doors were about to close, so like the wind, he pulled you in before they got the chance.

“Okay,” he breathed out, “let’s find a place to sit,” looking around and quickly spotting two free seats across from one another.

Sitting down, you grabbed onto both his hands, “how many stops?” 

Without even looking up at the map, he answered, “14,” giving your hands a squeeze as you looked down towards the ground. “Do you want your headphones?”

Panic filling your wide eyes, “I-I didn’t take them with me, fuck, I forgot.”

Taking back one hand, he rifled through his satchel and magically fished out your headphones. “I did, I thought you might need them.” 

“Thank you,” you sniffled.

“What pocket is your phone in?”

“Left.”

Pulling it out of your coat pocket, he then proceeded to gently pop both pods into your ears and unlocked your phone, turning the noise cancelling function of them on.

Your eyes fluttered at the relief of sudden silence.

Soon music started playing and it felt like a warm blanket was wrapping around you, protecting you from the outside world. You had listened to this song a thousand times and immediately recognized it. 

Fairytales: II. In E major.

Leaning your head against the wall, you looked at Spencer, his eyes finally lifting from your phone to meet your own. 

Seeing your body language change, he scooted closer to you, gazing into your glossy eyes and taking very clear deep breaths for you to mimic. And so, you did. Watching as his chest rose and fell and feeling his hot breath against your balled-up hands as he exhaled. 

The simple sounds of piano trilled out in your ears as the next song began. But this one you also recognized immediately and found Spencer’s eyes, asking him quietly, “are you playing my nightmare playlist?” and he nodded, a few tears rolling down your cheeks.

One of the first times the two of you had slept beside each other, you had a terrible nightmare, as you tend to do. It was one of those where your body still has to react to whatever happened in the dream when you finally woke up, get some of the emotions out. That was the night you had shown him the playlist. A collection of the most calming of your favourite songs. The two of you had ended up just lying there, cuddling and listening to all the tunes. After that, he had begged you to add a few of his favourite niche Mozart songs that fit in with the sound that all the other ones had. 

After all this time, his memory still occasionally shocked you. You’d half expected him to just press play on the abba song that your spotify had been left on, but he didn’t, he remembered. He knew how soothing the strings of Peter Gregson’s modern recomposing of Bach’s cello suite was to you. He knew you.

“I love you.”

Letting out a sigh of relief, he lifted your hands up to his lips and gave them a soft peck. Noticing just how cold they had gotten, he kept them pressed up against his cheek, leaning into them. 

A few minutes later a fair amount of the people around you got off, clearing a spot with two seats right next to each other. Spencer quickly nodded in that direction as if to ask you if you wanted to move over there. Nodding in response, he practically lifted you out of your seat and into the recently vacated one. 

Now that he was once again beside you, you let your head slump down to meet his shoulder and stared down at his left palm.

Turning it in yours and studying it well, you traced all of the veins with your finger, pressing down on a few of the ones that poked out, and at the end, your fingers came to tap his, playing at them like you were the one creating the music in your ears.

It took a few tries before he caught your attention, motioning up to the map to show you that the next stop was yours. Helping you up, he guided you to wait at the doors. Hugging him tightly, you felt the metro’s motions rock the both of you for the last few minutes of your ride.

And right before the doors swooshed open, he looked down and caught your eye, giving you a small nod as if to ask you if you were ready, then promptly flashed you a tight smile as you nodded back.

Luckily, his apartment was just around the corner from this metro station, so it didn’t take too long before you were looking up at the shining number 23 on his front door. 

You were absolutely exhausted, leaning against your boyfriend as he fumbled with the keys. 

With the click of the lock, you straightened your back. Opening the door, he pulled you inside and immediately when it closed behind you, you pulled out your headphones and tugged them back into your pocket. 

You welcomed the quiet of the apartment with open arms. It was also an alarmingly clear sign for your body to comprehend that it was now in a safe space, so finally, it let go.

Hyperventilating, you ripped off the uncomfortable clothes on your body. Shoes, coat, off, off. But when even that wasn’t enough, you marched to the bedroom and pick out some pyjamas to switch your current garb out with.

Once they were on, you slumped down on the bed, hugging a pillow tight and letting the tears flow.

Hearing footsteps approach, you looked up to see Spencer, simply sitting down beside you and laying his hand out, palm up, just in case you wanted to hold it.

Taking it in yours, the two of you just sat there, waiting it out. 

You didn’t really know how long you sat there, but when it did pass, the two of you had morphed into cuddling session that lasted the rest of the day. At some point, one of you popped one of the star wars movies on, just as a soothing background noise.

When that day was finally through, when it had finally become time for you to go to bed, you uttered, “I’m sorry that I ruined your day off.”

“Hey,” his tone almost made him sound like he was offended, “you did not ruin anything. I don’t care where we are or what we are doing, just as long as I am with you.”

“But you didn’t get to see that new exhibit you were talking about and it’s my fault because you had to take care of me,” you looked down at your feet.

“First of all, that exhibit will be there for many months, I have plenty of time to see it. And secondly, it was all you, you did all the work, I was just like a dog tugging on the leash for you to go in a certain direction, you cannot give me all the credit, I don’t deserve that. You do. You’re the one who knows your body the best and knows, and actually listens and respects its signals. That was all you. I just happen to be there.”

Sucking in a deep breath, you let his words sink in.

“You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met,” he admitted, “I often think about how much I wish I was more like you.” 

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

Reaching out to grab his hand, you then promptly yawned. Pulling you closer by the hold he now had on you, he placed a small kiss on your forehead and changed the subject, “are you ready to do to bed?”

“Yeah, I feel like a zombie,” you fought to keep your eyes open, feeling his lips press against the tip of your nose, “but also like I ran a marathon.”