And he hated every moment your eyes met when Morgan or someone else on the team teased the two of you about each other, as if sharing something unspoken.

He didn't hate it because it happened. Truthfully, he couldn't stop thinking about whenever that happened. It would keep him awake at night, till the sun came up, just thinking about you and everything he wanted to do.

He hated it because even after all those secret shared glances, after every case where you moved in sync with him, he wasn't the one you went home to. Instead, it was him, your horrible boyfriend who never seemed to care about you.

Instead of dinner dates, or trips to the bookstore on your day off, or even soft Sunday mornings where you just laid in bed, whispering sweet nothings to each other, he was always nowhere to be found. He canceled dates because of something "more important"; which usually meant his shitty friends invited him to go get wasted. Or, he was at some girl's apartment, or trashy hotel; because not to mention he was constantly cheating on you.

You didn't know, except for one incident at the start of your relationship; but, stupidly, you forgave him for it. Spencer knew about the others though. He asked Penelope to do a bit of digging on your boyfriend, only to find a bunch of hotel room charges, jewelry that definitely wasn't for you, and countless charges at bars in the city.

He knew he should've brought it up to you. It would've felt good to rub it in your boyfriend's face that you knew all that he was up to and dumped his moronic ass for it.

Spencer even indulged himself in the fantasy of telling you everything and somehow ending up back in his apartment. Your clothes would be strewn about his room, mixed in with his things; as he laid you down softly onto his mattress. Your body on his sheets as he trailed wet kissed down your body. He would take care of you in the way he knew your useless boyfriend never did. Even after he’d admire you sleeping softly in his bed, holding you till you woke up. Then he'd make you breakfast, not leaving your side till you inevitably had to part. And even then he'd keep going back to you for more, always taking care of you when you needed to be.

And yet, he couldn't bring himself to tell you. There was something about the chance hurting you by telling you that kept him from doing so.

He knew it was stupid and even Penelope had ridiculed him for it, rather hypocritically though, since she knew. Although she claimed it was Spencer that caused her to be part of that mess, so he had to be the responsible one and tell you.

Still he couldn't muster the courage to do so. He continued to listen to vent about your boyfriend's latest behavior. Pretending to be interested, when really he was fighting the urge to show you how you should actually be treated.

The worst incident of this had to have been when you were working a case in some dingy small town. The unsub was kidnapping women—big shocker—their bodies turning up within three days. The team had been working on the case for two days, close to finding the unsub. They had Garcia looking through files while the rest of the team was told to return to the hotel and get some rest.

Usually, it was a relief for Hotch to let everyone return their hotel rooms, except when the hotel's air conditioning was broken in the middle of summer. The rooms felt sweltering even with the fans the staff had placed in each room.

You'd been looking through your files, trying to make any last minute connections before heading to bed for the night. Or, at least you tried to. Your head felt foggy, making you unable to focus well. Your boyfriend had called you drunk, babbling some nonsense. You thought it was cute that when he was drunk he was still thinking about you, until you heard some random girl's voice calling out for him. A pit settled in your stomach that just wouldn't go away. You tried convincing yourself you had nothing to worry about.

But not even the most gullible of people would truly believe that. This had happened before, so it wasn't impossible. That only made you question if he was actually as faithful as he had promised to be.

You tried to push the thoughts out of your head. You busied yourself organizing your files till you noticed one was missing. You tried to remember where you misplaced it. It wasn't in your bag, or on the hotel desk. You mentally retraced your steps, thinking you might've left it in the precinct.

You then remembered how you lent it to Spencer to look at when he asked to borrow it for a moment. He must've forgotten to give it back and still had it.

It wasn't too late into the night and usually Spencer was still awake at this time. You slipped out your room, making your way down the hall before knocking on his door.

You heard his footsteps on the other side of the door before he opened it. He was still wearing his work clothes, only he had taken off his sweater vest, leaving him in just his button down that had the top couple buttons undone. His tie hung loosely around his neck, having been also undone. His hair looked tussled, as if someone had just ran their hands through it.

You froze for a moment, unable to tear your eyes away from him. There was just something so enticing about how vulnerable he looked. Spencer was always very put together. With his perfectly curated crisp button ups, making sweater vests and ties, with his perfectly groomed hair. Getting to see him look so undone made your heart flutter and warmth spread to your face, as if this was something scandalous you shouldn't have been allowed to lay your eyes on.

It took you a moment before remembering that he was just your coworker, who you should definitely not be looking at like that. He was just your friend at most, who had no reason to make your entire body shudder at just the sight of him.

"Do you need something?" he asked, clearing his throat.

He hadn't noticed your staring as he was too busy doing the same to you. Not that you noticed either.

"Uh," you stuttered, trying to regain your thoughts, "yeah, I was wondering if you still had that file I let you borrow earlier?"

He paused for a moment, looking into his room, noticing the stray file he had packed into his bag.

"I do actually," he told you, opening the door wider to allow you in.

You took a couple steps into his room before he closed the door behind you. He brushed past you, sending shivers down your spine. He picked up the file, handing it to you.

It was truly a simple interaction that should only have taken a couple seconds. And yet, you couldn't bring yourself to step out of his room, and he couldn't bring himself to let go of the file.

He couldn't stop staring at you. Normally, you'd never appear in front of another agent in nothing but a tank top and rather short shorts, but the lack of air conditioning had a role to play in your outfit choice. He'd seen you a couple times in your pajamas, or comfier clothes, but never in something that showed off so much skin. He knew you were gorgeous, but to him that word felt like an understatement, and maybe even an insult. All he wanted to do was slide off your shirt and shorts, feeling every inch of your body before covering it in wet kisses.

Instead he was stuck having to remind himself you unfortunately had a boyfriend.

"T-thanks," you stuttered out, your gazes locked on each other.

"It's no problem," he said, his voice rather harsh.

He took in the rest of your appearance, studying your face. Your eyes looked devoid of something, as there was something fogging them up. He noticed the slight fading redness around your eyes, as if you'd been crying. He noticed every detail, coming to the conclusion that something had happened before you walked into his room.

He wanted to ask you what happened, letting you sit next to him on his bed as he held you. You'd explain everything and he'd kiss away the tears that fell from your eyes, placing delicate kisses on the corners of your mouth till he got you to smile again. He wanted to hold you in his arms, running his hands through your hair, whispering in your ear that everything would be okay.

Instead he had to settle for just asking you what was wrong as your gaze fell to the ground.

"I-it's nothing," you stammered, unable to look him in the eye.

He knew you better than anyone, especially your own boyfriend, immediately knowing something was very wrong.

"Don't lie to me," he said, his voice low.

"I don't want to burden you."

"You won't, I'll be more burdened if I know something's wrong and I can't help you."

At that moment he felt a bit of confidence and tucked a stray strand of hair behind your ear. Your face immediately felt on fire by his gentle touch.

You let out a deep breath before speaking.

"My boyfriend called me," that was all you said, yet it was enough to anger Spencer, "he was drunk and then I heard some girl calling his name, and I don't know what happened, but I hung up, and I can't stop thinking about it."

Your voice trembled as you spoke. Spencer was a mess of emotions. On one hand he felt angry at your boyfriend for his constant infidelity; but on the other hand he felt sad for you, and all you were going through.

He threw the file onto the nearby bed before pulling you into his arms. He knew somewhere it most definitely crossed a line to hold his colleague, and someone who was "just a friend", so closely, but he didn't care.

"You don't deserve that," he whispered in your ear, stroking your hair softly.

You rested your head on his chest, letting him hold you closely. You knew this crossed a line, and your boyfriend would be mad if he ever found out. But, at this point who cares. He was already probably cheating on you, so was it really so bad to be in Spencer's arms at a very vulnerable moment?

"I know," you sniffled against his chest, trying to choke back your tears.

"You deserve someone who actually cares about you, and would never cheat on you, and can care for you however you need."

You lifted your head up off his chest slightly, as his hold around you loosened.

"Sometimes that feels like too much to ask for," you joked, thinking back to your past relationships.

Spencer looked down at you, using two of his fingers to lift your chin up to make your gaze meet his. He looked into your glossy eyes, his gaze soft.

"It shouldn't be," he told you, "you deserve all of that and more."

"That's sweet, Spence."

You were both quiet for a moment, looking into each other's eyes. Neither of you had noticed, but subconsciously you started to lean in closer. Spencer's hand had remained on your chin, pulling you in close, as his other hand delicately rested on your waist. Everything in your brain had shut off. All you knew was that Spencer was in front of you, with his hands on you, as he pulled you closer.

Your hands made their way up Spencer's chest as you were mere inches from your lips meeting his. You were so close to kissing Spencer when you realized.

Oh shit, you were about to kiss Spencer.

At the very last possible second you came to your senses, pulling back. You shook your head a bit, avoiding his gaze as you tried to push what happened very far back in your mind.

Spencer took a step back, also realizing what almost just happened. As much as he really wanted to kiss you, he knew it was wrong. You had a boyfriend anyway. Granted, he was already cheating on you, there was no reason to make you a cheater too.

"I should head to bed, probably," you said, clearing your throat.

You walked over to the bed, picking up the discarded file. Spencer paced around the room, fidgeting with his hands before stopping noticing you leaving the room.

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, "goodnight, I'll see you in the morning."

You smiled at him before walking out his room. The second the door was closed you paused, taking a deep breath. Everything felt like too much, and was feeling more like something you'd deal with in the morning.

Once you had closed the door Spencer sat down onto the bed, running his hands through his hair. He never expected anything like that to happen. Sure, he'd imagined it, and hoped someday it would, but he kept telling himself it just wasn't plausible.

And yet, there you were. One move away from kissing him.

He couldn't shake the memory out of his head no matter how hard he tried. Nothing was going to make him forget what almost transpired in his room.

Both of you knew how bad this was. Not even just for your personal relationship with each other, or yours with your boyfriend. Fraternization was very frowned upon at the office, and if it messed with your job, you'd both no doubt get scolded and lectured by HR till everyone in the office knew what happened.

And yet, even though you both knew just how much that shouldn't have happened, you both couldn't stop thinking about what would've happened. Even worse, found yourselves wishing it had.

a/n i'd be willing to do another part (or multiple) if you guys want, also I was debating if i should have them kiss, or write smut for this, but i decided not to so that reader isn't technically a cheater, but if we want that i'd write it lowkey 👀

taglist ask to be added or removed

You and Spencer have been inseparable since you joined the Bureau; you can't remember a time before him. Maybe it was because you two were close in age, being some of the youngest on the team, or maybe because opposites attract. You weren't exactly sure how it even started, to be honest. The change was so discreet you almost missed it yourself: long nights in the office turning into long nights in his apartment, picking up his coffee from the breakroom in an effort to be nice turning into after-work outings to local cafes he swore up and down were the best. 

It was nice, comforting even, to know that no matter what, you had him in your corner. Always just behind, exactly where you needed him. After a certain point, the rest of the team started to notice, Morgan being the first to catch on, slowly followed by Garcia, then Prentiss, JJ and Rossi. Even Hotch would smile as he saw the two of you through his office window. You perched on the corner of Spencer's desk, absentmindedly playing with the trinkets he kept scattered along its surface, the boy genius talking your ear off about whatever topic he decided was interesting that day. You never really minded either; you loved his voice and the way his eyes lit up when he spoke so passionately about experimental physics or the history of the ballpoint pen. 

To the amazement and mild horror of everyone else, you two were simply the bestest of friends. Friends who would fall asleep next to each other on the jet, your head resting on Spencer's shoulder, his own head on top of yours. Friends who went to conventions together dressed up as the characters from Doctor Who. You blindly following Spencer around because, let's be real, you knew nothing about the show— only that it made him happy. 

Friends who had become so accustomed to each other's tells and the subtlest of behavioural changes, you could communicate with a single glance. A skill that was especially helpful in your line of work, during interrogations or speaking to victims' families. 

Any high-intensity situation where a single sound could get any one of you killed. 

The main ones you learned were simple but effective: “trust me”, “I have an idea”, “something’s off”, “you ok?”

You realized you could do this completely by accident when working on a local case one time. You and Spencer had been assigned to work out the victimology, pulling any and all connections you could, the evidence board a mess of sticky notes, red string and marker. It had been hours, and you both were exhausted. JJ had already tapped out, opting for a nap on the couch in her office.

You'd have joined her if Spencer hadn't convinced you he was close to a breakthrough. People's lives were on the line, and you couldn't afford to lose your train of thought, unfortunately not even for a nap. By the third cup of coffee, you had basically gone nonverbal; your legs kicked up on the corner of the conference table as you sifted through a file in your lap. Spencer sat on the floor, his back resting on the side of your chair. His head slowly but surely found its way into your lap, tilted upwards, appreciating the glasses that sat askew on your nose bridge. Your fingers ran through his precious brown curls, nails grazing his scalp. After another moment of silence, you closed the folder and tossed it—perhaps a tad aggressively back onto the desk. With a long exhale, head tipping back, mimicking Spencer's position, you closed your eyes, just resting them you told yourself. You felt a shift in your lap only to look down and catch Spencer's gaze lingering on you. With a quirk of your eyebrow and the smallest tilt of his mouth, the two of you burst into smiles. 

What?

Nothing…

You're a bad liar, you know that, right?

Maybe, but you look tired.

At that moment, Garcia pushed past the doors, mumbling something about the geographical profile before freezing completely. In sync, you both looked over in her direction, her mouth gaping and shock written all over her face. 

You were the first to break the silence, “You have something, Penny?”

“Uh, what is going on here?” She gestured frantically, glitter pen in one hand, amplifying her distress. 

You hummed in confusion as she continued, answering your unspoken question. 

“You two are positively adorable but a little bit freaky at the same time. It was so quiet in here, I thought the room was empty.”

“Freaky?” Spencer quirked his head at the word. The letters felt foreign coming off his lips as he repeated them back to himself. 

“Yes sugar, you are sitting in here with pretty girl having a full conversation with nothing but your eyes.”

“Huh,” you didn't even realize what had happened in the moment; with Spencer, it just felt natural. Your gaze found his without a second thought; you were pleasantly surprised to find Spencer’s eyes already trailing on you, the ghost of a smile plastered on his face. 

Poor Penelope, once again left out of whatever mind palace the two of you had constructed. Squealing in excitement as she left the room, and the two of you to your stolen glances.

________________________________________________________________

It came up a few more times after that, once again freaking out the rest of the team in the process. You all were flown out to South Padre Island to investigate a string of murders where the unsub was targeting college students. Hotch thought it best to send in you and Spencer for the interrogation. In an attempt to seem less intimidating, Spencer had taken the lead, pacing behind the boy, hand in his pockets. 

“Why don't you tell me about the fight you had with the first victim?”  

“I don't remember.”

“You don't remember?”

You sat quietly in the corner of the sparse room, simply observing. 

For what exactly … well, you didn't quite know. Something was off about the case; your partner's theory was solid, but it was the suspects themselves that felt almost out of place in the dominant and submissive dynamic the team had profiled. 

The back of the metal chair pressed up against the corner wall as you faced the scene in front of you, one leg crossed over the other, finger pressed to your lip, deep in thought. 

“That guy was pretty big.” Spencer rounded the corner, putting himself between the boy and you. 

“So?”

“Adam, guys like you and me aren't exactly the fighting type.”

You were confident in the profile; it was the girl from the hotel as the dominant that didn't fit. You had spoken to her earlier in the day, and she didn't seem the type. Sure her and Adam were close, but beyond that, you weren't certain. 

“You see, now I'm really confused, because you just told me that you don't remember the fight.”

And then it hit you: for a split second, Adam’s eyes shifted, and someone else was staring daggers at you from beyond where Spencer stood in his line of sight. Shivers ran up your spine as you stood from your seat. 

“Spence.” The words fell sweetly from your lips, your eyes finding his with the subtlest shift. Instinctively, he turned halfway over his shoulder. 

Did you see that?

You saw it too.

Yes.

Spencer's eyes widened a fraction before falling back to Adam, muttering to himself. The new information bubbling in his brain as he deconstructed what he already knew, arranging this new piece into his mental puzzle.

Swinging the door open, you left the cold metal room behind, quickly finding Hotch, Rossi and Morgan on the other side of the two-way mirror. 

Once the door shut behind you the words rushed from your mouth, “He has a personality disorder.” 

“You sure?” Rossi quirked his eyebrow.

“Yes, he just split in front of Spencer and me when we cornered him about the fight; the dominant is his alter.”

Hours later, as the pieces started to come together one by one, matching the profile to a T, the team could finally relax for a moment. Sitting in the precinct, Morgan to your left and Spencer to your right, you sat in comfortable silence, eating noodles from paper takeout containers. 

“You know, you two are like the twins from The Shining.” Morgan piped up completely unprovoked, disturbing the quiet you so desperately needed in that moment. With a long, overly dramatic exhale, you swivelled in the chair to face Derek’s direction. 

“How so? Because if you try and make the comparison logically, we have very little in common; for starters, we are of opposite gender -”

Turning, equally disappointed towards Spencer, “He doesn't mean literally, Spence.”

“Oh?”

“It's that freaky eye thing you two do; all you're missing is matching polka dot outfits and you'd scare Penelope half to death,” Morgan enunciated his point by waving his chopsticks in our general direction 

“Are we still on that? I told her I was sorry; the guilt was eating away at me and it wasn't even technically my fault.” The words fault were accompanied by air quotes that, in your professional opinion were extremely necessary. Causing Morgan to crack a smile, shaking his head at the two of us.

Bastard.

Spencer spoke up again, drawing both our attention back to him. “Yeah, she banned us from her office for a whole week, called it her mind control protection procedure.”

“You would know all about that, wouldn't you, pretty boy.”

“Shut up.”

Watching Morgan ruffle Spencer's hair as he walked away, you couldn't help but laugh.

________________________________________________________________

Moments where the team could simply rest were few and far between, but equally rewarding, especially after a long case where things worked out, and the victims got to go back to their families. 

It was those moments that made up for all the inhumanity you dealt with on the daily. It almost gave you hope, almost.

One of these fleeting moments of solace was on the jet back from a case in San Francisco. To kill time, Hotch, Reid, JJ and Emily were deep into a game of poker. Morgan and yourself sitting just behind the group, pretending not to listen because, as Morgan so eloquently phrased it, “there is no way Reid isn't cheating.” As for your reason, you've lost so many games to Reid that watching others relive the same fate makes you feel slightly better about yourself, plus it's hot watching him win with that stupid smug smile on his face. 

But no one needed to know that last part. 

Spencer was sitting in one of the aisle seats, JJ taking the window on his side, while Hotch and Emily sat directly across from them at the table. This allowed for perfect peeking at the latter's hands of cards. As the game intensified, you got up out of your seat, leaning over the headrest to peek at the game; Emily’s whines acting as enough motivation. 

You had a crystal-clear view of Hotch's cards. Paired with the community cards on the table, he had four of a kind.  By the looks of it, he could win depending on what Reid's hand was; Emily's cards were straight garbage, and JJ's tell was gonna give her away. 

Leaving two, the stoic team lead Aaron Hotchner and the Vegas-raised card counter Spencer Reid. 

JJ taunted, wiggling her eyebrows, “Prentiss, you can always walk away now.”

"Ha, and let you lose to Reid? Fat chance." 

At the mention of his name, Spencer spoke up, "You know, statistically, it's better to fold a weak hand. Seven-two offsuit, for example, only wins against a random hand about thirty-five percent of the time." 

With a huff and roll of her eyes, Emily folded in defeat. “There is a lot to hate about you, Dr. Reid.”

Leaning over in his chair towards the aisle, Morgan chimed in, “You're only learning that now, Prentiss.” Poor Emily slouched further into her chair at the teasing. Soft laughter escaped your lips as you took in the look on her face still perched over Hotch’s shoulder. 

“Don't you dare tell him,” the man in question warned, staring straight ahead, not once breaking eye contact with the boy genius. 

Mustering all the innocence you could in your voice, “Who me? I would never.”

“Oh yes, you most certainly would.” JJ used her hand to muffle her laughter. 

“I would not, and I'm appalled you think so low of me,” with an upturned nose, you turned away from JJ in protest. 

Morgan, no longer pretending to ignore the game, pulled one of his headphones out of his ear. “Yeah, pretty girl, no one is buying your act; for a profiler you suck at lying.”

“Again, I'm very offended you think me a cheater; that’s Reid’s title, not mine.”

“Unfortunately, you lost reasonable doubt when you learned to speak with the man through your eyes.”

Finally, coming to your defence, Reid chimed in, “You know it's actually not considered speaking because speaking is defined as the action of conveying information or expressing one's thoughts and feelings in spoken language. And as you can see, there is no auditor element involved. What you're referring to is better defined as - ” 

“I fold,” JJ announced, interrupting Spencer. 

“What? Why?” Emily sat up straighter, mouth agape.

“Honestly, just to get him to shut up,” the blonde shrugged. 

 Finally looking over to Spencer, you caught him staring, a smirk tugging at his lips, the corners of his eyes crinkling. You knew what he was thinking, proving your theory right in the process. 

I won.

Quick enough that you thought no one would notice, your eyes met Hotch's hand once more before returning to Spencer. 

You won.

________________________________________________________________

Unfortunately, this superpower of yours didn't last very long in sweet memories. You knew there were risks involved in your line of work; hell, in the last few years you could count on one hand the number of team members who've been kidnapped, held hostage or had unimaginable losses in their lives due to work. 

You just never imagined it would happen to you. 

Which, yes, is a stupid thing to think in hindsight. But if you're constantly gazing into the abyss waiting for it to swallow you whole, what chance did you stand at all? 

The metal scraped against your exposed skin. You didn't remember where your clothes had gone; all you knew now was that you were shivering in a thin tank top and panties, your hair a tangled mess while an array of blue and purple decorated your face. If you closed your eyes and pretended for just a moment, it was a galaxy where the semi-healed yellows and greens were like little stars. 

Curled in the corner, knees to your chest, the cuff around one wrist dug into your flesh, anchoring you to the corner of a nailed-down table. God, you were so stupid. Why did you leave Emily? You should have waited before leaving to check the other side of that damned warehouse. 

Maybe then she would have heard you scream when the unsub bashed your head into a wall. Maybe, just maybe. 

The distinct sound of clicking brought you back to reality, tired eyes wandering over to the tripod set up just behind a glass screen. The tiny red light of the camera mocked you as it continued recording you as it had since last night. 

You think at least… it was dark when he grabbed you. 

________________________________________________________________

This was torture, Spencer thought to himself. He sat next to a frantic Penelope as she typed something into her computer. He was barely paying attention at this point; it had been almost six hours, and they still couldn't find you. 

The team managed to triangulate a search zone, but even with that, it wasn't possible to break down every door in search of you. His leg bounced involuntarily as he watched the video footage the unsub had sent them; his only comfort was that it was live and you were still breathing. Sitting alive somewhere in a dingy room. 

By the looks of it, you had taken a pretty bad beating, but he was grabbing onto anything he could at this point to console himself.  

Watching intently, he noticed your eyes drifting toward something just beyond the lens. The camera had to be somewhere inside the room. The unsub was obviously recording his crimes to relive some fantasy, preserving them as trophies to satiate himself in between kills. Or maybe it wasn't the recordings themselves he wanted; maybe it was knowing someone else was watching.  

“Reid, honey. Are you ok?” Penelope hesitated for a moment, giving him a once over concern written all over her face. She looked at him as if he were fragile, breakable at any given moment. 

“What?”

“You're gripping the armrest pretty tight…” his eyes drifted down to his hands, his knuckles turning white from the pressure- well, more so the pressure being applied to the capillaries in his skin. 

“Oh, I didn't - sorry, Garcia.” Reluctantly, he let the chair go, slouching instead. 

“We’ll find her.”

“That's not what I'm worried about, Garcia.” The girl hummed in response, waiting for him to continue. 

Suddenly the feed picked up as a man’s torso flashed into frame, drawing them both back to the screen, watching helplessly as he dragged you from your spot on the floor by your hair. You kicked and fought back before he dumped you right in front of the camera; bracing yourself on your forearms, breathing heavily as you stared at the floor, refusing to look up. Shouting filled the room as you shook your head side to side, silent tears spilling from the corner of your eyes as he heard something shatter in the distance. 

In a quick motion, the man grabbed you by the chin, forcing your head up from the floor, now staring directly into the camera. 

Spencer's heart shattered right then and there. Not because some brute was laying hands on his girl, but because of the look in your eyes; your lip trembled almost imperceptibly. 

I'm scared.

So when Spencer’s ‘are you free?’ text was met with the first ever, simple ‘I’m a bit busy’ with no elaboration, he couldn’t help but feel his heart sink. It wasn’t just disappointment; it was a sudden realization of how much he relied on your presence to make his days feel complete. 

The books on his coffee table lost their appeal, and all he could do was wonder what you were busy with tonight.

He stared at your text, picked at every letter as if the four simple words held more than their meaning. 

Spencer analyzed the abruptness that only he was seeing, and quietly questioned if he had somehow overstepped a boundary he hadn’t even realized was there.  

The suffocating quiet of his apartment offered no answers. Surely, Spencer reasoned with himself, he could just go outside and see where the evening takes him with no specific plan.

 He told himself he was going to clear his head and pick up some takeout from a nice spot near his place. 

He had no idea that his restless feet were taking him straight to the restaurant where you were currently sitting alone, staring at an empty chair. 

Pure habit guided him to the small, warm-lit cafe across from your favorite park—a place he frequented because the ambient noise was predictable and the food was always good. 

The moment he pushed the heavy glass door open, the bell chiming softly, his eyes wandered around the place before fixing on the back of someone’s head. 

He knew it was you. Sitting at the table by the furthest window from the door, everything about you was familiar—your hair, your posture, and the distinct way you propped your elbows on any flat surface in front of you. 

Spencer froze, his feet rooting to the floor as he stared at you, completely alone, with a closed menu, and a single glass of water sitting untouched in front of you. 

He cursed at himself for not trying to look put together before leaving his apartment, his hair greasy and tucked behind his ears, his shirt wrinkled in a way he’d never allow. 

You’d probably seen Spencer in his worst states on exhausting, soul-sucking cases where everyone slowly morphed into hollow, sleepless creatures, or on lazy mornings after spending the night on your couch because the two of you had been lost in conversations that lasted into the early hours of the morning. But standing here while you were dressed up and seemingly waiting for someone, felt entirely different. 

You looked just as utterly captivating as ever. He didn’t have to see your face to know that you looked like a breathtaking angel that he wasn’t worthy of staring at.

You were a stark contrast to the dim, soft atmosphere around you, and it made his chest ache to think someone was making you wait. 

Before he could think better of it, Spencer’s body was already making its way up to you. 

“Hey,” he said softly, your face immediately following the unmistakable sound of his voice as you looked up with glassy eyes.

“Oh my god, Spencer.. hi,” you beamed despite the sheer embarrassment burning in your chest, “w—what are you doing here?” you let out an awkward chuckle with your question. 

Spencer’s hand instantly went to the back of his neck, his fingers nervously tangling in his hair as he offered a sheepish smile. “Oh, I— I was just coming in to get some takeout,” he gestured vaguely toward the front counter.

His eyes flicked down to your outfit in between his words, admiring the mini plaid red skirt that hugged your hips beautifully before looking back up at your face. 

“You look amazing,” he said honestly, his voice slightly quieter than the first time he spoke. “Are.. you waiting for anyone?” he glanced at the empty seat across from you. 

“Um.. yeah— I mean, I was,” you muttered, your hands nervously smoothing out your skirt, “but I just got the ‘can’t make it’ text. Twenty minutes late,” you let out a dry laugh, leaning back against the wooden chair, “and he still had the audacity to reschedule for tomorrow!” 

Spencer shook his head, his fingers fiddling on the insides of his pockets, “Wow, that’s.. exceptionally poor etiquette.” 

He glanced at the empty seat across from you, then back to your face. His stomach did a violent, nervous flip, but the sight of you sitting there, looking way too beautiful to be left alone, gave him an uncharacteristic burst of bravery, “Y’know, if you don’t wanna go home yet, and since you’re all dressed up.. I haven’t had dinner yet. I know I don’t look very presentable right now, but I can assure you I’m a better conversationalist than an empty chair.” he paused at the faint tug of your lips that formed into a little smile, “I actually haven’t had anything in my system since last night, so you’d technically be doing me a massive favor by letting me join you.” 

“Are you asking me on a date?” you teased as you cocked your head to the side. 

The question caught him completely off guard, making his soft lips part with no words leaving them as he took in the playful tilt of your head. 

He cleared his throat, a boyish, endearing smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he dropped his hands to his sides, “No! I mean—yes! If.. if you want me to?” 

His heart pounded in his chest, threatening to break his ribs and jump out at any moment. 

You nodded, “Of course, Spencer. Sit.” 

The simple invitation acted like an instant release valve for the tension coiled in his shoulders. 

A soft, heavy breath escaped him as he slid into the chair across from you, his long legs awkwardly tangling with yours under the small table for a brief moment, “Sorry,” 

Spencer couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that he was on a date with you. 

He knew that the situation he ended up in was a total coincidence and you probably considered this date a friendly hangout more than anything else. But it still somehow felt serious to Spencer, it was his first date ever. 

When the waiter approached the table a moment later, Spencer didn’t even glance at the laminated menu resting between the two of you. He ordered a club sandwich and you decided to get the same order as him before a comfortable yet slightly charged silence settled over the table. 

Spencer cleared his throat, leaning forward slightly as if he was treading carefully into the subject. “So, um.. If you don’t mind me asking,” he hoped that you would somehow answer his unasked question, “Who was he? The guy who.. canceled on you. You never really.. mentioned anyone like that.” 

“It was our first date. I met him a few months ago at the grocery store.” 

Spencer’s heart dropped. Although taking someone’s number or going on a few dates didn’t mean that you were completely off limits, it definitely meant that you were interested in someone else. 

He knew it’s your right to find love, but he wanted it to be him. 

“Oh, and you guys have been…” Spencer trailed off, silently asking what the two of you were for the past few months. 

“This was supposed to be our first date.”

“It took you months to go out?” 

“I.. actually didn’t really want to at first.” you stared down at your fingers as you laced them together, “It’s nothing against the guy, but dating was never.. something I put much time and effort into—especially with how demanding work is. So I kinda just abandoned that aspect of my life for the past few years.”

The relief that spread through Spencer’s chest when you said that you hadn’t been seeing this guy for the past few months was almost enough to make him reach over the kiss you senseless. 

“I get that,” he said softly, “The idea of traditional dating feels almost.. impossible sometimes. The unreliable work schedule and the exhaustion that comes with it plays a huge part as to why I’ve kept my distance from it, and I’d really hate to be an absent partner..” he bit the inside of his cheek, slowly admitting to things he’d never really shared before, “I know some things are out of my control, but I’d die from guilt.”

Before you could respond, Spencer went on, “But I don’t think that is why I’ve never dated.” 

“Then what is?” you tried to catch his flickering gaze and lock it onto yours to let him know that you understood.  

“I just.. Never found a reason to try.” he murmured, finally forcing his hazel eyes back up to meet yours. 

“I’m sure you’ll find someone who’s worth trying for. I know you will.” you offered him a small, tentative smile. 

Spencer was an angel on earth—someone you’d always harbored a secret softness for. 

Thankfully, before the silence turned awkward, the waiter came back with your orders, and seeing the perfectly cut triangles of your toasted club sandwich made your mouth water, shifting your focus to eating and enjoying the beautiful view in front of you. 

Two more orders of fries and one chocolate ice cream you shared, the two of you were surrounded by completely new faces. People were coming in and leaving the two of you were still at that table. 

Spencer was completely in his element now, his eyes focused entirely on you, his long fingers animatedly gesturing as he rambled on about everything under the sun. 

You listened, laughing whenever his voice turned to a higher pitch when he got to the frustrating parts of whatever he was dissecting, stealing fries from the basket between you, enjoying the sweet and salty mixture with the ice cream. 

As you brought some melting ice cream up to your lips, it slipped off the plastic spoon, dripping on your chin and falling onto the clean fabric of your skirt. “Shit,” 

Spencer was drunk off your laughs and mesmerizing voice all night in a way that made him reach over and skim the sweet ice cream off your chin before pushing the bowl closer to you. 

“So romantic, Spence,” you properly wiped the excess off your chin, “stealing my ice cream off my face?”

All he could do was sheepishly chuckle. 

He leaned forward, his hair falling on the side of his forehead, and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. 

You could clearly tell that this was the most romantic experience of his life, and you thought it was sweet. 

His innocence and the absolute sincerity he showed you was unlike anything you’d ever seen before. 

After the two of you almost got into your first ever fight over who got to pay, Spencer ended up paying before rushing you out of the place to distract you with the quiet park you so dearly loved. 

The two of you walked along the perimeter of the park well over five times as time lost all meaning like it always did when Spencer was around. 

You spotted the bookstore you’d visited a few times together, noticing that the warm golden lights were spilling through the windows, meaning that it was open. And looking at books together was something you couldn’t pass up on. 

“Look, they’re open!” you pointed at the shop at the very far end of the street, tugging on Spencer’s shirt so he’d look in the direction of the light. 

Spencer’s legs immediately followed your lead, all his senses wanting to be as close as possible to you as your sides grazed while walking. 

You noticed that Spencer was walking incredibly close to you—much closer than usual, but you didn’t say anything. 

The shop was completely empty of other customers, leaving just the quiet hum of a vintage radio playing soft jazz somewhere near the back counter. He looked around the place, then turned his gaze to you, his expression softening into that deep, undivided attention he always seemed to give you. 

You grazed the spines of a few books, feeling Spencer attached to your hip, his eyes following your finger to read the titles. 

The two of you parted ways at bookstores, exploring new finds and bringing them to show one another, or recommending new reads and giving detailed book reviews to one another, but evidently, Spencer did not want to do that tonight. 

“What are we looking for?” he tilted his head toward you. He was so close you could feel the warmth of his breath hitting your face, his eyes entirely on your profile rather than the books on the shelf. 

“Just looking,” you whispered, trying to tone down your growing smile that came along with the faint blush spreading on your cheeks. 

Spencer let out a soft, barely audible hum before turning his gaze back to the books. 

“Ooh look, it’s that rare edition of The Idiot, the pretty one I told you about,” you pulled out the heavy hardcover.

Spencer had gotten that exact book a week ago, only a few days after you’d showed him your worn, heavily annotated copy. He knew you liked collecting different editions of your favorite books, and The Idiot was an exceptional example of that hobby of yours. 

Getting a book he’d read a million times just because you loved the cover was something he was never planning to admit. 

“Oh yeah, I’ve been wanting to get it ever since you showed me your copy!” he lied smoothly—or tried to, his fingers gently brushing yours as you handed him the book. 

“Then this is my gift to you,” you softly whispered, as you looked up from the cover to his face. 

“Wait—no, you don’t have to do that,” he stammered quietly. 

You let out a quiet laugh as you shook your head, “Just shut up,” you rolled your eyes at his stubbornness, “do you want anything else?” 

“No,” he mumbled, a soft smile breaking through his flustered face as he clutched the book securely against his chest. 

“Then let’s go,” you patted his bicep before heading to the counter where the cashier was reading under a dim lamp in the corner. 

Spencer followed closely, the fabric of his sleeve brushing your side with every step as if he couldn’t bear the thought of putting any distance between the two of you. 

After paying for the book and leaving, Spencer was still fumbling with the book in his hands, “Thank you,” he whispered, finally looking up at you, “not just for the book, but for.. tonight. I honestly don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop thinking about tonight.” 

Maybe Spencer was being too honest for his own liking, but you didn’t mind. 

“Thank you, Spencer.” you looked up at him, staring into his puppy dog eyes that almost made you drop dead, “I had the best time ever.” 

Spencer was terrified of overstepping, or being too much in any sense of the word, so he took a deep breath and snapped back into your usual friendly dynamic. 

“Do you wanna head back to my place?” he asked, his voice softening into that addicting rhythm you were so used to, “We can do the usual. Make some tea and watch some Doctor Who.. If you’re not too tired?” 

You slowly nodded, “Yeah, Spence. I’d love to.” 

The walk to Spencer’s apartment was usually filled with fast-paced debates about random topics you guys picked apart together, but tonight, silence took over, and every breath and brush of his shoulder felt intentional. 

“I’ll, uh, I’ll boil some water,” Spencer murmured, quickly setting his new purchase down on the coffee table. 

You kicked off your boots and walked over to the couch, smoothing down the back of the skirt he’d been quietly admiring all night before plopping down on the cushions, dramatically splaying out your limbs in tiredness. 

Instead of heading to the kitchen, Spencer found himself sitting next to you, his body naturally leaning closer to you in pure need to stay near you.

It was embarrassing, and he hoped you wouldn’t notice, but of course you did. 

“I know tonight didn’t start the way I planned.” you twisted your body to face him, “I think I should thank my missing date,” you giggled. 

Spencer chuckled along with you, afraid that he’d been misreading you this whole night, because to him, you looked too cool and composed to mean this in any romantic way. 

Your smile softened, the playful giggle dying down as you noticed the slight tremor in his hands. 

You don’t know how or why, but you reached up, your fingers tucking his soft hair behind his ear before pulling him down to you. His lips were slightly parted in surprise when yours met his, but the gasp that left him was quickly swallowed. 

Spencer froze for a moment, and you applied the slightest pressure, he completely melted into your touch. 

It was a soft, hesitant kiss. 

His hands came up, hovering awkwardly around your head before they finally settled on your face, pulling you closer as if he couldn’t quite believe this was real. 

It was probably the doing of your suppressed feelings for Spencer, but he tasted so sweet. And as soon as you pulled away, you already wanted his mouth on yours again. 

Spencer’s eyes were entirely blown out as he breathed too heavily for a simple kiss. 

Did you do something wrong? 

“Is.. this okay?” 

“Yes. So okay.” he eagerly nodded, “More than okay.” he breathed against your lips that were only a few inches away from him before he slowly leaned back in. 

The angle was too restricting, you two were too far apart. 

You anchored your hands on his tense shoulders and shifted your weight, swinging your leg over his, your skirt riding up your thighs as you settled over his lap, straddling him. 

A low, ragged gasp escaped Spencer’s throat as your weight pressed down against him. His large hands immediately found their way to your waist. He tilted his head backward to look up at you through his lashes, the soft light above you looking like a halo around your head, making you look more heavenly than ever. 

“You have no idea,” he whispered, trying to chase your lips, “how long I’ve wanted this.”

You didn’t make him chase you for long. You leaned down, cradling the back of his head as you captured his mouth in a kiss that was much hungrier than the one before. 

Spencer’s slender fingers tickled you through the bunched up fabric of your skirt as they slid down to your thighs, gripping the backs of your thighs because he was that overwhelmed. 

The friction of your hips grinding on his lap pulled a needy sound from the back of his throat, making his adam’s apple bob as he deepened the kiss. 

“Please,” he breathed into your mouth before widening his lips to let your tongue explore his mouth—his entirety completely surrendering to you. 

“Tell me I’m not dreaming,” his voice was thick, and incredibly desperate as his hips bucked up instinctively to meet yours. 

A tight knot started forming at your center, quickly tightening at the sound of his ragged, broken breathing. 

“You’re—” you were cut off by your own moan, “you’re not dreaming.”

Spencer whined at your moan—your pretty noises making him pathetically much more sensitive to your touch. 

As you began to move in a steady, slow rhythm on his already very hard bulge, Spencer started to roll his hips up to match your pace, completely consumed by you. 

“I’m—” he whimpered, “I’m so close— I’m sorry, I’m just—shit, I can’t” he stumbled over his words as his fingers dug into your sheer tights. 

“It’s okay,” you whispered against his mouth, kissing the corners of his mouth before rolling your hips in a tighter, slower circle against his length. 

The mere thought of what Spencer was hiding beneath his slacks was enough to make your pussy ache and pulse around nothing. 

You could tell that Spencer was big, and the fact that he never got to use his assets somehow added to the excitement of the moment. 

But you wouldn’t want to overwhelm this poor man even though he was more than willing to go as far as two people could go right now.

“No—no, I can hold it,” he buried his face in the crook of your neck as he nodded into your soft skin, his mouth immediately finding the sensitive skin on your pulse point. 

You loved the way he was reduced to a whimpering mess just for you. 

Ignoring his reassurance that he could hold it, you tilted your hips, picking up the pace just a fraction as you pressed harder against his erection. 

“Oh my god..” he heaved against your neck, leaving a sloppy trail against your hot skin, “oh my god, keep going..” he pecked your collarbone, “please.. please, don’t stop.” 

A ragged sob was ripped from his throat as his hips bucked up hard and disorganized against you as his firm hands pinned your core down on his covered cock, completely helpless against his orgasm.

Spencer completely melted into the cushions, his mouth quickly going back to yours as he kissed you with frantic, bruising hunger, his moans that sounded a lot like cries. 

He shot his load in his cotton boxers, unable to stop the damp heat from flooding and spreading under the fabric. His sticky cum added to the pressure against his aching cock that twitched with intense aftershocks. 

Spencer was completely soaked. 

You could feel him through your slightly damp panties. 

“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to come so fast,” he looked up at you with a pitiful, overwhelmed look. 

You stared down at his swollen, pink lips, “It’s okay, Spence.” you wiped away the sweaty strands of hair that stuck to his forehead. 

You had no idea you could do this to Spencer. 

“Can you still keep going?” you pecked his forehead, looking down at him as he eagerly nodded. 

“Yes. I can do anything. You’re.. still not done,” his fingers gave your hips a small squeeze. 

You smiled down at him, satisfied with how he cared about getting you off even when he was clearly hypersensitive right now. 

It would be proper to knock and ask to be let in, but Penelope is a little past tipsy, and… it’s just Spencer. He trusted her enough to give her an extra copy of his house key, and with the information she has that’s just waiting to be freed from her mind… she knows he won’t mind.

It takes her a few tries to get the key into the slot, scratching the doorknob a few times before she can finally turn it. But then she’s spilling into Reid’s apartment, squinting into the darkness.

All the lights are off, and Penelope is just about to shoot him a very angry text about lying about being home when she picks up on the sound of the TV. She ditches her favorite pink pumps by the front door and hurries quickly into his living room.

During her rather difficult trip to the next room over, Penelope decides she’s going to have a serious talk with him about keeping the hallways clear. His house is a very clear health hazard.

With the serious lack of light, she bumps into what feels like a suitcase and nearly trips over a pair of sneakers before she even catches sight of the television.

The outline of Reid’s frame sticks out very quickly against the brightness of the TV. She doesn’t recognize the movie playing, but can hear him mumbling quietly to himself, and she giggles a little.

Reid makes commentary on movies out loud even when he’s all by himself. How cute.

Penelope grows sick of the darkness very quickly. Grumbling under her breath, she taps around the wall before flicking on the light.

“Reid, you’ll never guess who I just— Oh!”

The one big blob that Penelope had assumed was Reid comes into focus. Now bathed in the bright overhead lights, she watches in horror as the blob splits into two different people.

Penelope shrieks.

The blob on the left — the one that’s actually Reid — turns to face her, confusion and slight fear on his face.

“Garcia!” he says, his voice cracking up half an octave. “What are you doing here?”

The words pass in through one ear and out the other. Rubbing her dreary eyes, she squints at the half of the blob that’s sitting on the right.

It’s… a girl.

A girl. In Spencer Reid’s apartment.

Alone. With him!

The lack of space in between you both becomes very obvious the longer she stares. Spencer’s side is against the arm of his couch and you’re sitting next to him, leaning half against his chest. A patchwork blanket is thrown haphazardly over your laps, barely an inch of space between you.

“I— oh!” Penelope's eyes nearly bulge out of her head when she sees the arm he has wrapped around your shoulders. “Hi, hello, Reid. I didn’t know you had a guest.”

He gives her a sheepish smile, and the two of you untangle from each other. Spencer goes to greet her while you search for the remote to pause the movie.

Penelope stares without shame. You give her a sugary sweet smile while you fold the blanket up on the couch, looking exceptionally cute in what looks like Reid’s pajama pants.

“Garcia?” Spencer says, waving a hand in front of her face after what’s probably a moment of silence. “Are you okay?”

She swats him on the shoulder, whispering in what she hopes is a quiet tone. “Spencer Reid. Introduce me to your girlfriend!”

The blood rushes to his face. “My what? No… um. She’s not my girlfriend, Garcia—”

Spencer gets bowled out of the way when you nudge him to the side, a wide smile on your face.

Penelope almost awws out loud. You seem amused at his embarrassed stuttering but come to his rescue nonetheless. So cute.

You give her your name and your hand to shake, and she takes it in her own, shaking you around wildly.

“Are you Penelope?” you ask, ten seconds into the handshake Garcia still hasn’t stopped. Reid plucks your hand free from her grip, and you squeeze his wrist once before letting your hand fall down to your side. “Spencer talks about his team all the time. It’s really nice to meet you.”

Penelope soaks up every single detail of the way you interact with Spencer.

Spencer Reid, always so finnicky with physical contact doesn’t seem bothered by your closeness at all. The two of you are standing so close together your sides brush while you breathe. You’re wearing his pajamas and Reid’s hair is messy and unbrushed.

She’s never seen Spencer look so… domestic.

“Reid,” she says, turning to face her friend. “I think I’m hallucinating.”

She ends up on his armchair some time later, a tall glass of water in her hands given to her by Spencer in an attempt to sober her up. The both of you also assure her that you’re not a hallucination, and you even let her pull you into a hug just to make sure.

“Did you walk here from the bar by yourself, Garcia?” Spencer asks, the two of you blinking at her from his couch. He looks awfully concerned.

She waves him off, taking a nice sip of water. “Oh, relax. It’s barely a block from here, you know!” He doesn’t look too comforted, but she continues on. “I just— I had to come and tell you who I saw on a date there. And I know I should’ve knocked, so I’m sorry for that, but…” She points at you. “I didn’t realize you’d be on a date, too, Spencer!”

He scratches the back of his neck awkwardly, and you snicker from your spot next to him.

“This isn’t a date,” you say, prodding at Spencer’s side. “Me and Spencer are just friends.”

Penelope is far from convinced. “But… you were cuddling on the couch when I walked in.”

The two of you exchange a look.

“Cuddling?” you repeat. Penelope can’t tell if you’re a great actor or if there’s genuine confusion on your face. “We weren’t cuddling.”

“We were watching a movie.” Spencer shakes his head, his big brown eyes going comically large. “Definitely not cuddling.”

Are you two… trying to gaslighting her?

“But the blanket! And the hugging and the touching! I saw it. I am seeing it,” she insists frantically, water threatening to spill over the rim of the cup. “Why else would two people need to sit that close during a movie?”

Spencer gestures to the TV screen, still lit up. “I was just translating the movie for her. It’s in Korean and it’s only just been released, so it hasn’t been subtitled yet. We were sitting close because I don’t like translating too loudly during movies. I enjoy listening to the actors speak.”

His quiet mumbling earlier hadn’t been him talking to himself. It’d been him talking to you.

Ohh, Penelope thinks, and she says it aloud too.

There’s beeping from the direction of the kitchen and you get up, but not before squeezing Spencer’s shoulder on the way out. His eyes follow you until you turn the corner, like he’s reluctant to let you go ten feet to the next room.

When he turns back to face Penelope, she’s grinning.

“Just friends,” she muses, taking another long sip of water. “Are you sure?”

Spencer raises an eyebrow. “Yes, I’m sure, Garcia. Why?”

“I don’t know about you, Boy Genius, but I don’t keep any of my friends a secret.” Penelope is sure her eyes are gleaming with excitement. She has a real life love story on her hands, whether Spencer wants to admit it or not. “I also don’t look at any of my friends like that!”

He smiles at her ribbing, looking at his lap. “I don’t look at her in any particular way, Garcia. And she’s—she’s not a secret. I just haven’t had the need to bring her up.”

“‘Cause you have a big fat crush on her?” she offers, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. “And you’re too scared to talk about her because you get all starry eyed and mushy whenever you do?”

“No, I do not have a crush on her. She’s visiting from Vegas. We’re close because she’s my childhood best friend.” He says it so quickly the words mesh together.

Penelope gives him a disbelieving mhm, and he rushes to defend himself.

“It’s not like any of the team talks about their friends from when they were kids. It wouldn’t make sense to bring her up.”

If Penelope was sitting close enough, she would swat at him again. “Well, you should’ve, since the two of you are absolutely not just friends—”

“Penelope, do you wanna stay for the rest of the movie?” you ask, appearing in the doorway with a big bowl of popcorn in your hands. “It’s almost over, but Spencer says the ending is crazy good.”

When you sit down on the couch again, you lean into Reid’s side and his arm goes around your shoulder almost automatically.

For translation purposes, she’s sure.

The two coworkers exchange a very loaded look.

This conversation is not over, Penelope’s eyes say.

We are not bringing this up ever again, Spencer’s silence replies.

Penelope gives you a wide grin. “Oh, I’d absolutely love to stay!”

She’s already looking forward to the future conversation between Derek and Spencer about his secret girlfriend who’s definitely, totally not his girlfriend.

“What’s been up with you, Spence?” JJ asks. “You’re usually our resident computer but you’re…glitching today.” She jokes lightheartedly with a chuckle.

“Sorry…” Spencer mumbles, picking at the thread on his coat. He hesitates before being honest. “It’s Y/n’s birthday today and I bailed last minute.”

“For the case?”

“Yeah, we had a bunch of plans but I didn’t make it to any of them.” He confesses quietly.

“Spence, you could’ve taken this one off. You know Hotch is really understanding about our personal lives.”

“I would never forgive myself if I didn’t go and that little girl died.” 

“You can’t save everyone, Reid.” Emily says gently.

“I can try.”

“You can’t lose yourself trying.” Rossi chimes in. Spencer glances at him.

“Did you give her a heads up?” Derek asks.

“I left before she woke up but I sent her a text.” He explains, glancing at his phone again. “She hasn’t messaged me back.”

“It sucks when plans get canceled at the last minute but surely she understands. I mean you guys have been together for two years. She knows how it goes.” Derek comments bluntly with a shrug and Emily rolls her eyes.

“She understands but I don’t know… it feels like something else.” Spencer mumbles, still deep in thought.

“You think she’s cheating on you?”

“What? No. Why would you say that?” Spencer defends, slightly annoyed by Derek’s brashness.

“Derek, you’re not helping.” JJ scolds. “Don’t put those thoughts in Spencer’s head. Y/n would never do that.”

Derek holds his hands up in defense.

“Ignore him. What makes it feel different?" Emily asks, nodding her head up. Spencer is aware that you and Emily are close so he knows her questions about you are always genuine.

“I missed our anniversary dinner last year. And a few months ago I missed Valentine's Day because of the Kentucky case.”

“So, a few rainchecks don’t hurt. An unpredictable schedule is a casualty of the job.” Derek argues again.

“It’s only truly unpredictable for so long. Then it becomes predictably unpredictable and takes over your life.” Rossi adds again, not looking up from his booklet as he presses the blue ballpoint pen into the thin gray page. “Four letter word for German wine?” 

After a quiet moment, Spencer says “hock.”

Emily’s phone buzzes and she glances at it. She has a good enough poker face for everyone else but Spencer is a Las Vegan. She types on her phone and then avoids Spencer’s gaze for the rest of the flight.

After two hours of nothing but turbulence, they land with tired eyes and day old clothes. Spencer is the first one to stand and exit the plane. The tiny space has been growing tinier and tinier with each mile closer to the airport.

The bright tarmac lights illuminate like Christmas all around the ground crew. Men and women in orange reflective vests work to cart luggage and wave light-up wands to communicate with the pilots. The breeze catches his brown curls and Spencer pushes his hair out of his eyes before checking his phone again. The screen shinning onto his worried face.

Nothing.

He opens the message bar under your name, his fingers hover over the keyboard for a moment until his eyes catch sight of those grey letters again and he huffs before shoves his phone back in his pocket. 

From behind him, he feels a hand on his shoulder and he turns around. “Reid, I know it’s not any of my business but I watched my job destroy my marriage for years. If I could go back, I’d do anything Haley needed from me to fix it.” Hotch says.

The cold air bites at Spencer’s skin. “Would you have left the BAU?”

“Yes but Y/n would never ask you to do that.” Hotch answers plainly and looks over Spencer’s shoulder to see the team chatting as they walk out of the plane. He lowers his voice. “The first few months after returning to the BAU, I almost quit. It felt impossible to do this job properly while raising Jack but I realized that it’s not about every second of your life being in your control — nobody in the world has that. It’s about using the time in your control in the right ways. When you can do that, being away from home isn’t so hard.”

“But how do I do that?” Spencer mumbles.

“You’ve gotta ask her.” Hotch walks away, lingering behind the team.

The metro ride from the airport to his usual stop down the street from your shared apartment is empty and quiet. He spends the shaky, fluorescent bleached ride replaying his conversation on the tarmac with Hotch. He wasn’t sure where to start. His eyes ache with a longing for sleep or better yet, something to rest them on — you.

Eventually his tired feet bring him straight to the door he’d walked out of this morning. The metal key in his fingers clinks against the scratched door. He slips into the apartment fully expecting you to be asleep. He’d planned to crash on the couch but as his sock covered feet slip out of his shoes, he hears rustling in your shared bedroom.

For a second, he lets Derek’s off handed comment about you possibly cheating, get the better of him. With a scoff, he refutes the idea and hangs his work bag on the hook by the door. You would never do that. Spencer knows that for certain.

A small smile grows on his face, happy you’re awake and ready to take Hotch up on his advice. Making the time he has control of matter more than the time he doesn’t.

The hinges squeak with age as he swings the bedroom door open. Spencer is wearing a careful grin but his face falls when he sees you standing by the bed, next to a half packed bag. The only lights on are the small lamps next to the bed.

“Y/n?” 

You jump, clearly very frightened. You hadn’t even heard the apartment door open.”Spencer!” You shout in fear.

“Why are you packing?”

“I didn’t think you were coming home until Wednesday.”

“We finished early.” He mumbles, looking back down at the pile of clothes on your side of the bed. “Why are you packing?”

In a small, nervous voice you reply “I think I need some space…” You look away, too scared to see the look of devastation he must be wearing.

Spencer’s whole body feels numb. 

“In the closet?” It was a stupid question, Spencer knows that but his heart still skips a beat when you shake your head.

“From me?” His voice cracks.

Your heart drops to your feet and tears prick at your eyes. Your jaw feels heavy and your teeth feel too big for your mouth as you admit “from us.”

The knot in Spencer’s tie digs into his neck. “From us?’ His voice trembles with impossibly more devastation. “Why?”

“Spencer… you know why.” You say quietly.

“Are you cheating on me?”

Shock over takes your features and you flinch at his accusation. “Are you serious?!” You say louder than necessary. Spencer curses himself for letting Derek get in his head. 

“I’m sorry.” he says softly and earnestly. He steps forward. “I’m sorry.”

Your hard expression softens. “For what?” The sharp edge that was in your voice is gone but your spine stays stiff.

Spencer takes too long to answer and you humorlessly chuckle.

“I’m not gonna apologize for taking the case, Y/n. The first 48 hours are crucial. We needed to be there as soon as possible. We were working the whole flight over. You have to understand that it was an emergency.” Spencer has a bad habit of thinking emotions can be explained away, he knows this.

You shake your head, offended that he would even think you don’t understand the severity of the situation. Your body drifts closer to him, your weapons down. “Spencer, there is no reality in which my birthday dinner is more important than finding a missing 12-year-old girl alive, I know that. And I love that you have decided to use your limitless genius to help people. The way you care for these victims is more than just extremely attractive — it’s admirable. Everything about you is admirable. But…” You take a deep breath, almost ashamed to say your next words out loud. “I am constantly comparing the best days of my life to someone else’s worst day of theirs. And I never win. It sounds so selfish and petty but just because I understand the importance of your job doesn’t mean my feelings go away. It still sucks to cry in the restaurant by myself on my birthday.”

“You cried?”

You ignore his question. “We’ve missed Valentine’s Day two years in a row, you flew out on Christmas in the middle of opening presents and you didn’t get back until the new year, we never made up our anniversary dinner, and last week you bailed on our first scheduled date night in three months because you guys got a case.”

Spencer sighs. He’d never realized how much he was missing. 

“All I could think about today was what I would tell our child if they were asking where Daddy was on Christmas morning, or their birthday, or their soccer game.” The mattress sinks as you sit on the end of the bed.

Spencer’s heart hitches at the news that you think about having a family with him. Tears well in your eyes and he joins you on the edge of the bed, sitting carefully next to you.

“I don’t want my job to hurt you.” He states. It’s not defensive, it’s honest. It feels like he’s trying to break ground on an open conversation. He turns to face you and places a hand on your knee.

“And I don’t want you to feel like I’m mad at you for doing good in the world.” You say tearfully.

“I don’t feel like that, baby.” Spencer shakes his head. “I just wanna know how to fix this.”

“I think… I just need some space to figure out if this is what I really want.” You confess and a tear falls directly off your bottom lashes, onto Spencer’s hand.

He swallows a lump of nerves and the sudden urge to vomit at the thought of being not what you want. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry.” You cry quietly, your posture giving away more as you sniffle and wipe at your wet eyes.

Spencer shakes his head and the wrinkled covers on the bed shift as he moves closer. His arms wrap around your crumpled frame. “Don’t apologize. Don’t apologize.” He repeats.

“I love you.” You remind him, one of your hands resting on his arm.

He kisses the top of your head. “I love you, baby.” He says earnestly, afraid this might be the last time he’ll ever get to say it to your face, holding you in his arms. His eyes glass over but he blinks the tears away. He kisses your hair again and holds you tighter.

“I’m so sorry, Spencer.” You say again and sniffle.

“Stop that.” He feels you pull slightly and he loosens his hold on you. You sit up and he catches a glimpse of your stricken face — eyes red and watery. He pushes some tear soaked strands of hair off of your feverish cheeks. You look up at him and through his pained expression, he offers you a small smile. He leans forward and presses a soft kiss to your forehead. “We’ll get through this, Y/n. Okay?” 

You nod with low energy, closing your eyes for a moment and taking in a deep breath in an attempt to calm your shaky hands.

Spencer rubs your back, trying to comfort you but his kind gesture only makes everything so much harder. His other hand pulls your hair neatly off your neck and he places a chaste kiss against the skin of your shoulder.

You sigh heavily and use every ounce of strength left to raise to your feet, pulling yourself out of Spencer’s arm. The loss of contact is devastatingly heavy.

“I’m gonna stay with Emily for a while. She’s picking me up.”

Spencer’s throat bobs as he gulps. His eyes fall down for half a second, then back up to you. He nods. “Sergio will be happy to see you.” It’s an olive branch in the hurricane.

You chuckle quietly. “Yeah…” You agree.

Neither of you could make eye contact while you put a few things in a small bag. With a mixture of not wanting to smother you and not wanting to be smothered by the godawful thick sadness in the air, Spencer stepped out of the room. He sat on the edge of the couch in the living room, his muscles tense — ready to stand at any moment. The bones in his fingers ache from the nonstop wringing of his hands and his bottom lip stings from his teeth chewing it raw.

The sound of drawers opening and closing, your padded footsteps across the tattered rug, the zipping of small cosmetic bags, plastic racks clicking against each other as you shuffle through the closet. He tried to keep his eyes trained downward but every so often — at a new noise — they would flicker up to your moving figure as you paced around the room then he’d blink hard and look away again.

Each second that ticks by on the clock mocks him. The longer you take to pack, the longer you must be planning to be gone. Spencer squeezes his eyes closed and runs his hand over his face. He can feel a migraine coming on.

“Spencer?” Your quiet voice calls from the open bedroom door. 

His head jerks up and he stands to his feet immediately. “Yeah?” His voice cracks and he clears his throat. 

“Do we have extra toothpaste?” You mumble.

He slouches a bit. “Um, w-we don’t have any. Just take the one we share. I’ll get another one.”

“I’m sure Emily has extra.” You politely try to dismiss his offer.

“You need the one for sensitivity. Please take that one.”

You shuffle awkwardly. “Okay.” You whisper before disappearing back in the bathroom.

Spencer doesn’t sit back down. His knees feel like they’re locking and his lungs feel like they’re shrinking.

“Okay…” You announce quietly as you step back through the threshold, this time with a full bag.

You want to shrink yourself away under Spencer’s longingly stare. Leaving a bad man is rewarding. Leaving a good man is remorseful. Leaving a man like Spencer — the most beautifully layered, thoughtfully loving, good hearted, gentle, patient, and perfectly everything man — feels impossible. Even if you manage to pick your feet up off the floor and drag your beat up sneaker bottoms to the old wooden apartment door, the look he’s giving you will still haunt every room you enter for the rest of your life. Every morning coffee you’ll make, you’ll reach for his dorky chemistry pun mug too. Every time you laugh, you’ll look to your left hoping to see him there. Every hard night will feel heavier without his gentle reassurances and soft kisses. Every book will smell like him and every record scratch will sound like his quiet humming along to an old James Taylor song. Spencer is part of your life no matter what you decide to do during your time at Emily’s apartment. 

He watches you like his soul wants to leave his body and attach to yours.

You move towards the door and Spencer mumbles something about helping you but you politely decline, telling him that you’ve got it.

He steps in slow pace behind you.

The dimly lit space near the door feels claustrophobic, like being trapped in a raging sea of white water at night.

“I’ll do anything…” Spencer confesses, heartbreak lacing his words. His eyes flit across your face.

His heart slows for a second as you drop the bag at your feet and step forward. He melts into you as you wrap your arms around his neck and embrace him tightly. The soft material of your shirt brushes his skin as his arm snakes around your waist, the other cupping the back of your head. He buries his distraught face into your neck, a few of his tears slide down the strands of your hair. Your bodies are flush against one another and he hears you softly say “me too.”

A moment passes and you pull back. You brush his hair back, gazing into his tearful eyes. He leans into your touch as your thumb wipes the glistening streaks of tears off his flushed cheeks.

“I’ll do anything.” He repeats. “Just tell me.”

“I’ll tell you what I need when I figure it out.” You whisper. He nods against your hand before turning his face and placing a kiss against your palm.

His hand reaches up and grasps yours, pulling it into his chest between the both of you. His eyes stay locked onto yours, afraid that even with an eidetic memory he’d forget them.

Your hand slides off his sweater vest clad chest as you step backwards, closer to the door. Your interlocked hands slowly and delicately pull apart. Spencer watches you pick up your bag and before you can talk yourself out of it, you open the door.

With a few minutes left in the day, Spencer quietly says through choked back tears “happy birthday, Y/n.” 

~*~*~

ONE

"What the hell is that guy's problem?"

You don't recognize the voice at first, but you do recognize the face of the cop who's still not done rolling his eyes when you and Spencer turn the corner of the hallway at the local precinct. He's the one who spent more time glaring at Spencer than he did actually working when you were all at the crime scene earlier, as if Spencer not shaking his hand was some kind of personal insult and Reid hadn't evaded everyone's handshakes.

His fellow uniform, whose back is to you, shrugs, completely oblivious to the first guy's panicked expression when he sees you approaching. "It's the BAU. You probably have to be just a little crazy to do that job. Maybe he's just crazier than the rest of them."

"It's not strictly speaking a requirement, but it definitely helps," you say brightly, stopping several feet away from them. "We talk to so many assholes everywhere we go, a little bit of craziness helps us power through."

Next to you, you can tell that Spencer has gone rigid; you're not sure if he stopped walking because you did or if he actually froze.

There's really no way to pretend it isn't obvious that the two street cops are talking about him. Especially with the way they glance awkwardly at him and scurry off down the hallway without even acknowledging your comment. Probably lucky that this didn't turn into a full-blown discussion, Hotch wouldn't be impressed if he heard you talked to the locals like that. He'd do his whole Disappointed Dad routine of not shouting but looking very disappointed as he told you he expected better.

You turn to look at Spencer, pulling a face that makes it clear exactly what you think of those guys, but Spencer shakes his head at you.

"I'm not crazy," he says. "Actually my Mysophobia is quite mild. I just don't trust other people to keep their hands clean, and neither should anyone else."

You don't say anything about the disinfectant wipes in his desk drawer back at Quantico, or the way his shoes are lined up neatly in his hallway at home. (The temptation to nudge one of his chucks out of alignment had been almost too great to resist, but you had honestly been worried he'd retaliate by doing something to your car and it'd smell of rotten eggs for six months. He'd do the calculations and decide that revenge was worth having to take a taxi to work until the metro was running again. Or he'd get a ride from Emily.)

"Fuck them," you say dismissively.

"I'd rather not." He pulls a face and it takes you a second to realize he's joking. When you snort with laughter, he smiles at you, looking just a little smug.

"No, that'd probably be even more unhygienic," you agree. He opens his mouth to speak and you hold up a hand to stop him. "Nope. You will not give me any stats on that, you will not ruin sex for me forever."

Spencer closes his mouth like a fish.

"Thank you," you say, nodding.

"Perhaps it'd be easier, though," he says, making no moves to start walking again.

"Never having sex again?" Is he about to give you some honest feedback on your dating life?

"No." He shakes his head, too caught up in his own train of thought to really notice what you asked. "If I just shook people's hands."

"I mean, maybe," you agree, because it probably would make some things simpler. Just, none of those things are important. "But don't make yourself do something you don't want to do because that guy's a douche canoe."

"I'm not," he insists, looking down at his hands.

"Give me your hand sanitizer," you say, reaching out, palm up.

"What?" He frowns at you but immediately digs into his pocket for the small bottle. He squeezes a blob of the cool gel into your cupped palm and you rub your hands together, carefully spreading it on both of them before the alcohol evaporates and it dries out. Spencer is still watching you as he pockets the hand sanitizer.

When you're done, you hold up both hands to him, showing off just how clean they are and he raises his eyebrows in what you assume is approval. So you reach out and take his hand, not to shake but to hold.

"What are you doing?" His hand is stiff but he doesn't pull away.

"Exposure therapy," you say, squeezing.

The muscles in his hand relax slightly, but you can feel his palm getting sweaty. His hand is warmer than you thought it'd be, his skin softer. Somehow you expected calluses and dry skin, but his hands are as soft as the rest of him.

He wraps his fingers around your hand, submitting himself to the project.

"Spencer?" you ask a few seconds later.

"Hmm?"

"Are you counting?"

He looks like he's going to deny it but then he smiles, slightly shamefaced. "Yes."

"One minute, okay?" you tell him.

"Okay," he agrees, nodding, looking both ways as if he's worried someone will see the two of you standing in the middle of a police station hallway at 1 in the morning holding hands.

Some fears are more rational than others, you think to yourself as Spencer mouths, "59, 60," and then quickly lets go of your hand and shoves his own in his pocket.

TWO

You're in Garcia's office, sitting behind her as she types away, making things appear and disappear on her many monitors. Next to you Spencer is leaning against the desk you're perched on, his hands at his sides.

You indicate his pocket with your index finger and he pulls a "what?" face. When you mime rubbing something into your hands he looks at Garcia and then at you before he slowly pulls the hand sanitizer from his pocket and squirts some of it into your hand.

Garcia doesn't notice at all, still typing away, and you reach for Spencer's hand. He lets you take it, but you can see his eyes going slightly wide with panic.

"There are still more than a thousand hits," she says, taking a break from typing and starting to turn around in her chair.

"Can you limit it to just women who were divorced in the last six months?" he asks quickly, moving your joined hands behind your back where hopefully Garcia won't be able to see them.

"I never knew that was your thing, Doctor Reid," she jokes, turning back to her screens. "But I can indeed."

"It's not my thing," Spencer argues, "but it looks like it might be the UnSub's."

"No, I think Penelope's onto something there," you joke. Next to you Spencer is tense, but you're pretty sure it's more to do with the fact that you've got a firm grip on his hand than the joking. So you keep talking as a way to distract him. You're doing him a solid, basically. "How long after the ink is dry on the divorce papers do you make your move, Spencer? Do you hang around outside Family Court, scouting for future girlfriends?"

Penelope lets a giggle slip out, clearly appreciating the absurdness of the joke. Spencer Reid scouting for girlfriends anywhere. You're honestly hilarious.

Spencer on the other hand doesn't even dignify your joke with an answer. You think he might let go of your hand, but no. It hasn't been 60 seconds yet and you're pretty sure he's counting.

"Catching them on the rebound," you go on, smirking. You're going to keep it up until he reacts. "Clever to get them at their most vulnerable."

"Are you projecting?" he asks, head tilted innocently as he looks at you. "It sounds like you've thought about this a lot."

Touché, Doc.

"Ooooh," Garcia hums, sounding impressed.

You squeeze his hand. He squeezes back and then lets go.

If nothing else, this project is going to give you a very good idea of just how long 60 seconds is.

THREE

The case was exhausting, both physically and mentally, and practically everyone is asleep in their seats, with the exception of Hotch who is reviewing paperwork in the seat behind you while JJ snores quietly across from him, her own file abandoned on the table between them.

Next to you Spencer is sleeping with a pillow against the window, forced to make do after Morgan beat him to the bench where he's sleeping soundly under a blanket.

You shift, trying to get comfortable, accidentally hitting Spencer with your elbow.

"Sorry," you whisper when he opens one eye to look at you.

"Why aren't you sleeping?" he asks, opening his other eye.

You shrug, because you don't really want to admit that he was right and you were wrong, you shouldn't have packed your jacket in your hold bag, and you shouldn't have turned down a blanket when Rossi offered you one, and now you're too cold to sleep while Rossi is curled up across the aisle from Hotch, warm and comfortable under the blanket you refused.

Spencer doesn't say anything, just shakes his head at you with a faint smile, and then rearranges his blanket until it's covering you both. You lean closer to him so he can wrap it all the way over you.

"Thanks," you mumble, leaning your head against his shoulder, relaxing in the delicious warmth of the pre-heated blanket.

"Mhmm," he says, pushing his pillow back in place and tilting his head against it once more. When he settles, his hand brushes yours, knuckles moving against your fingers, and you chase him, pushing your hand into his. You might as well make the most of this time and do another therapy session.

Not acknowledging what you're doing in any other way at all, he turns his wrist so he can wrap his hand around yours properly, both of your hands falling into your lap. When you squeeze, he squeezes back, and then you feel his shoulder relax as he settles.

You wait with your eyes closed for the minute to pass, but when the 60 seconds are up he doesn't let go, so you don't either. Maybe he's ready to go for two minutes. You're nodding off when you finally feel his hand move, but instead of pulling it back, he's intertwining his fingers with yours.

His breathing is slow and even, you're pretty sure he's sleeping. Somehow it feels wrong to still be holding his hand when he's not aware of it, like you're… overstepping some boundary, tricking him. You try to pull away your hand, loosening your grip on him so you can push his hand back in his own lap, but he tightens his grip. It's not exactly firm, but definitely determined.

You smile, closing your eyes and burrowing closer to him until you're comfortable.

You're woken up a few hours later by him gently nudging you with his shoulder and then saying dryly, "You drooled on me."

His fingers are still braided through yours under the blanket and you use your other hand to wipe your chin and then the knit of his cardigan. "Sorry."

When you look at him his face is so close you can't really interpret his expression, but you don't think he looks disgusted.

Also, he hasn't let go of your hand.

"We're landing," you say, looking out the window at the Quantico air strip coming into view.

"That's why I woke you up," he replies.

"Oh." You honestly thought it was to complain about the drooling.

His thumb brushes a soothing circle on the back of your hand, and then he carefully releases you, pulling his hand away just in time to be able to give the blanket to JJ so she can stow it away.

You smile at him, impressed, and he smiles back.

FOUR

The bar is crowded but Emily and JJ managed to secure a table big enough for the whole team. There's a constant shuffling of seats, people drifting to the dance floor and back again, going to buy rounds of drinks, using the restrooms; and somehow you end up nursing your second piña colada pressed into Spencer's side while he's discussing interrogation techniques with Hotch and you're trying to understand what Penelope is telling you about the changes she made to her computer setup in excruciating detail.

Spencer shifts, moving even closer to you when Morgan pushes onto the rounded bench on Hotch's other side, and his hand ends up trapped between your thighs somehow. You move closer to Garcia, giving him space to pull his hand free, trying to pretend you don't notice the way his hand strokes your leg when he removes it.

Because he's not stroking your leg, he's just… moving his hand.

You clear your throat and nod, because Penelope looks like that's the reaction she's expecting, and she grins. "You weren't listening, were you?"

Spencer's hand is resting on his thigh now, but you're sitting so close to him that his pinky finger is still brushing your leg every time one of you moves. You're maybe moving a lot, not particularly comfortable on the bench seat.

You grimace in apology, your own hand settling on your thigh, so close to his that you could probably just stretch out your pinky and touch his.

"Well if you don't want to talk about my computer you can just tell me all about the date you went on last week," Penelope says and you realize this was her plan all along. Sneaky bitch, oh how you love her.

Next to you Spencer shifts again, his whole body going rigid when his pinky touches yours. You can feel him turn to look at you and when your eyes meet, he's frowning. You can guess what's bothering him, of course. Your hands touching under the table and you haven't been anywhere near hand sanitizer for well over an hour. What you have been doing is touching all sorts of unclean things, like the bar and the bench and money, the ultimate culprit in the exchange of germs, or so you've been told once.

Well, good. Time for him to lose the training wheels, you decide, and take his hand in yours, smiling with what you hope looks like encouragement.

His frown deepens, like he's thinking through a complicated game of chess, or maybe trying to talk himself off a ledge, and then he curls his fingers around yours, turning back to Hotch, his focus clearly going back to the conversation he and Morgan are having.

"Oh, it was great," you tell Penelope, feeling a little spark of excitement at how well Spencer's doing with his whole desensitization. You're kind of a genius for coming up with this, you tell yourself, pleased little butterflies fluttering around your stomach while Spencer's thumb rubs against your hand. "Yeah, he told me after dinner that he forgot his credit card so I had to pay, then suggested we both go back to his place because then we could share the taxi I'd also be paying for."

Penelope snorts. "And did you?"

You scoff. "No! I gave him three bucks and told him to take the metro, then I took a taxi home. By myself."

She laughs, delighted and you launch into the whole sorry tale about this absolute turd of a man you had to spend nearly two hours sitting across from at a restaurant because you hadn't organized a fake emergency call.

Next to you, Spencer's back goes less rigid as he clearly gets used to holding another person's unsanitized hand in this uncontrolled environment.

You squeeze his fingers, trying to convey how impressed you are by his progress.

He squeezes back, moving in his seat so his arm isn't bent at an odd angle under the table, making sure you're sitting so close that your joined hands aren't noticeable to anyone else. Your hands are resting on your thigh, his long fingers brushing against your tights. Or, well, not so much 'brushing' as, sort of, kind of stroking your leg, maybe? Not deliberately, of course, you know that, it's just what happens when you're both forever being jostled around as other people move around you.

Penelope gets up to go to the bar and really, there's plenty of space on your other side now, you could move away from Spencer's side, but then you'd have to let go of his hand, so you stay where you are, reluctant to let go before he does. He's doing so well, you want to see just how long he's able to do this for.

The room isn't cold, but somehow you still have goosebumps.

"Sorry about your date," he says suddenly, head tilted towards you, voice so low that no-one else can hear him.

You turn to look at him. "Don't be. My friend Katie set me up, she has terrible taste in men. The only surprising thing about that date is that she didn't want him for herself."

"Still. It sounded like you had a pretty bad time."

You shrug, one arm moving against his. "It's fine. Not the end of the world. There will be other dates, and maybe they'll be less terrible."

Spencer frowns, then nods. "Yeah, definitely."

"Why do you look so unconvinced? You think I'm doomed to a life of terrible dates?"

"No." He's shaking his head, but that frown isn't going anywhere. "That's not it."

"Then what?"

Under the table, Spencer's grip on your hand tightens and he looks uncomfortable. You wonder if he managed to forget he was holding your hand and now he realized it and wants to let go.

"It's fine," you tell him, because it is. He's been holding your hand for almost half an hour, your shoulder is actually getting a little stiff by this point. "You did really well."

"What?"

You squeeze his hand, since you can't exactly blurt out 'you're doing a very good job holding my hand' in front of all your teammates. Who knows what they'd read into that?

Spencer blinks. "Oh. Right. Thanks."

When you let go of his hand, it takes a few seconds for his fingers to loosen their grip, but when he does, you catch him surreptitiously rubbing his hand against his knee, not quite like he's trying to wipe you off, but still. Kind of like that.

When he gets up to leave half an hour later, he looks kind of uncomfortable when he says goodnight to you, raising his arms, and for a mad second you think he's going to hug you, but then he adjusts his satchel and you realize it was just falling off his shoulder.

FIVE

One of your favorite things about Spencer is, although his head can get kind of deep in the work clouds, once the case is over, if there's time before the jet takes you back home, you can pretty much always tempt him to go book shopping with you.

Sometimes you don't even really have to tempt him, because he has that eidetic memory, and he remembers you once telling him how you spent an entire day in your favorite bookshop in the world when you were in high school and now here you are in Portland and JJ has dismissed you both since you weren't on the team that did any actual apprehending of anyone, so there's less paperwork for you to do.

Spencer glances at his watch and then at JJ and then he tilts his head towards the exit while looking at you. And half an hour later, you're in heaven.

Book heaven.

You get distracted in the used books section, browsing biographies, and lose track of Spencer. When you resurface in Poetry it's been almost an hour and you realize you should probably find him. If you make everyone wait for you at the jet, they're not going to look the other way when you sneak off ever again.

You go through the aisles, looking for him, fairly certain he's in the used books section as well. There's enough to look at here, he wouldn't have made it to the new books, soulless historyless paperbacks.

You're not sure how you know that he's close, you just do. He's in the next aisle, definitely, and you're trying to decide if you should sneak up on him or that'd be a mistake considering what you both spent the last four days doing.

But then you hear it: "We have the paperback version as well, if you prefer."

You don't actually have to look to know this woman is flirting with Spencer. Her voice is so loaded with it, it's amazing the fire alarms aren't going off.

"Oh, that's fine. I prefer hardbacks." Spencer is polite but friendly in a way that's definitely not a rejection and you give in to temptation and remove a few books from the shelf so you can peer into their aisle.

18th century philosophy. Because of course.

And of course that woman is pretty with her nose piercing and purple-tinted hair and t-shirt that's just a little tighter than it's probably supposed to be, but in the most flattering way. A t-shirt that says, very loudly, "I can get you all the books you want, anytime, just come to bed with me."

Not literally, that would have been super weird to put on a work uniform, but it's definitely what the shop logo stretched out across her chest is implying.

"Well, if you need anything, just let me know. I'm Frankie, by the way." You wonder if the fire alarms are silent but fire trucks are actually on their way.

"Oh. Thanks," Spencer says and you can see his cheeks going all splotchy and red like he's too warm.

You stand up on tiptoes, which changes your view, and you realize why he looks like he's boiling.

She's touching his hand.

How unprofessional!

For just a second you think you've turned into your grandmother, who also cares way too much how people in the service industry behave even if their behavior has zero impact on her, and you think you might ask to speak to the manager, but then Spencer shakes his head no to something this absolute trollop just said, and which you didn't hear because your ears were ringing with righteous indignation, and she releases him.

And you realize something. You try not to, but you can't help it.

Because you're relieved. You don't care that this woman talks to customers like she wants to lick honey off of them, just so long as those customers aren't Spencer.

And you'd feel bad that clearly your exposure therapy hasn't really worked yet, because he couldn't have looked less comfortable and you know he gets shy sometimes, and it seemed clear that he liked her, and maybe if you had done a better job preparing him for this he would have been okay with her touching him.

Maybe you should also feel bad about the fact that there's a little part of you that's delighted that he'll let you hold his hand and not that woman.

No, you should definitely feel bad about that. Except you don't want any woman holding his hand other than you.

Once the aspiring honey-licker is gone, you walk into Spencer's aisle, trying to look like you didn't know he was there. If he notices, he doesn't say anything, just holds up the book he definitely already read most of and tells you he's going to buy it.

"You wouldn't prefer the paperback?" you ask innocently. He doesn't know you know, after all.

He looks at you, then at the gap in the bookshelf you forgot to refill, then back at you. "No." He says it like it's simple and your whole world didn't just spin on its axis.

Oh.

Your stomach does a little flip as you try not to read anything into that completely innocuous answer. Then he starts walking towards the cash registers, moving the book to the hand that's further from you, the one closest to you hanging loosely at his side.

You take it, carefully wrapping your hand around his, and he does the same, his fingers curling themselves around you.

You pass the woman he didn't want touching him earlier, and you think he might let go of you, but instead he just smiles politely at her, his grip on you not changing at all.

She smiles back, and then she smiles at you, looking all friendly and maybe a little bit apologetic and not at all like she wants to claw your eyes out.

You hope you smile back, but you honestly aren't sure what your face is doing at all.

You just know you're holding Spencer's hand and you don't want to let go.

Terrifying.

ONE

This was your idea. Spencer has reminded himself of that fact 27 times on his way from his apartment to the cinema.

He had asked Emily to go to the Eisenstein festival with him, she had made up some transparent excuse like he wasn't a professional lie detector, and you had said, "I'll go with you, Spencer. It sounds like fun."

And his lie detector just short circuited right then and there.

There's no part of him that thinks you're going to enjoy sitting through any one of the three movies that are playing back to back today, but he didn't question it. He did rewind mentally to make sure you had heard enough of the conversation to understand what he had been suggesting, and yes. You were there the whole time, actually sitting next to Emily when he had first brought it up.

But if you only said it sounded like fun because you felt sorry for him that no-one wanted to go with him to his black and white, Soviet era movie marathon, then he was going to just pretend he didn't notice.

And then he'd sit next to you in that cinema for at least 278 minutes, depending on the versions they were screening which the poster had been frustratingly vague about. Plus commercials. All in all, he'd estimate at least five hours. Sitting next to you. In a dark cinema.

Spencer doesn't believe in prayers or wishing on shooting stars, but he would have done both yesterday if he thought it might have done anything to lower the risk of a case coming up and cancelling your plans together. But he didn't need to, because here he is.

You're already there when he arrives, standing under the awning outside looking at your phone, and for just a second he's worried there's a text from JJ and you're being called into work, but his own phone hasn't said anything at all, and when you look up and spot him you smile, not apologetically or with anything like regret (real or pretend), but like you're genuinely happy to see him.

"Perfect timing," you say when he stops in front of you.

Spencer is seven minutes early. He smiles.

"Katie has been texting me non-stop." You hold up your phone as if to show him, and it actually beeps and lights up as if you planned it.

"Your friend with terrible taste in men?" There could be other Katies, obviously, but he's pretty sure this is the only one you've mentioned knowing.

"Uhhuh. She found another gem. She started dating a guy who's—and I could not be more certain of this—involved in some Ponzi scheme. He's got a friend who's single and she's convinced we'd hit it off." You open the text and read it, rolling your eyes, and then you shove your phone at him.

'Come on just give him a chance. What do you have to lose?' Spencer hands the phone back to you. "Does she mean, other than your money?"

You snort. "Who cares about money, Spencer? What about my dignity?"

He smiles, blowing an amused huff of air out through his nose. "I suppose there's that as well," he agrees. How much dignity does he have left considering the fact that he's about to spend his Sunday with you watching movies he knows you won't enjoy, when he could have explained to you that you wouldn't enjoy them and why, but he chose not to, because he didn't want you to back out?

Considering the fact that you spending time with him out of pity doesn't stop him looking forward to it? Considering the fact that he spent the entire morning wondering if you're going to take his hand in the cinema and actually getting excited at the prospect of sitting in a dark cinema screen holding his colleague's hand because she thinks she's curing him of… caring about hygiene?

Spencer isn't sure how dignity is measured, but he is pretty sure he doesn't have a whole lot of it left to measure.

"We're getting popcorn, right?" you ask, walking ahead of him into the cinema.

Spencer had planned on getting a coffee, maybe some pretzels. It's barely 11AM. "Of course."

At the concession stand you start picking up bags of candy at what he assumes is random, but then you show him two bags of pretzels, holding them up in turn. There's a third option, but he's never eaten that one in the office and you haven't touched it. He shrugs because he's fine with either and you throw both on the counter. "And a large popcorn with butter and a diet coke and a coffee with more sugar than you think should be legal. Actually, once you hit that point, just add a little more."

The teenager behind the counter looks at you, wide-eyed and a little scared.

"Three sugars," Spencer corrects you and you smirk.

He shakes his head at you, nudging you away from the counter before you can do any more damage. Doing some quick calculations based on what you've picked up, he throws some money on the counter before you can get your purse open.

"I was going to pay," you say, eyebrows furrowed. "You got the tickets."

Spencer, who can see the remainder of his dignity escaping out the door as he goes through the rites of an actual date, just shrugs. "You're doing me a favor, coming with me. The least I can do is feed you."

You look up at him. "Oh. I figured we'd go out for food after?"

He looks at the mountain of snacks you picked up, the tub of popcorn in your arm, bigger than your head. There's no way he can look you in the eye right now, not when you basically said you want to go out for dinner. With him. "And what's this? Appetizers?"

"No." You hug the popcorn closer like he threatened to take them away from you. "But aren't these movies seven years long? I feel like Russian movies are going to be long."

"They're not that long." He holds the door open and you walk into the screen ahead of him. The room is about half full, with people mostly centered in the middle rows. The front and back rows are both empty.

You stop, turning to look at him. "Where do you want to sit?"

Normally he'd prefer the front row, for his eyesight, but he nods his head towards the back row instead. You look just a little surprised, but walk in ahead of him, settling in one of the seats in the middle of the row.

He deposits your appetizers on the little table attached to his seat and sits down next to you. And then he waits.

You spend the first half hour eating popcorn, offering the tub to him at regular intervals, and then you open the bag of twizzlers, slowly chewing your way through one of them as you squirm in your seat.

"Are you scared you'll fall asleep if you sit still for too long?" he leans in and whispers.

You jump, startled. "No. I'm just hoping I can find the right angle and then this will make sense to me."

"It won't," he whispers. "Sit still."

Then he very casually and not at all deliberately puts his lower arm on the armrest between your seats, his hand within easy reach. It has worked well in the past, after all, there is previous evidence that his method is sound. If he makes his hand available, maybe allows his fingers to touch yours, more often than not you will take his hand.

It's a pretty devious thing to do, he's aware of that, and he's not really sure when your supposed exposure therapy stopped being something he allowed you to do because you seemed so determined to help him, and instead changed into something he didn't really mind before finally becoming something he actually wants you to do.

He wants to hold your hand, he wants to touch you, and he does not want your friend Katie to set you up on any more dates. Because you're right: statistically, eventually one of them will be a nice guy, and you'll like him.

But he won't - and this is the real problem here - be Spencer.

The first movie ends and you still haven't made any moves to touch his hand. You haven't actually moved much at all, and for a while he thought you had fallen asleep, but no. You were staring at the screen, your nose scrunched up adorably as you tried to follow the narrative.

Maybe Spencer should have double-checked that there would be subtitles…

When the lights come on for the 15 minute break between screenings, you get out of your seat. "I've just gotta—" you trail off, pointing at the exit to the lobby and the other people making their way out.

"You forgot your purse," he says, grabbing it from your seat and holding it out to you after you've passed him.

You turn and stare at him. "What?"

"If you're going to sneak off." He's mostly joking. Mostly. He's also a little bit worried you do want to leave.

But then you smile, shaking your head at him like he's being silly, and he feels like maybe he was.

"We can do something else," he offers all the same. Maybe you don't want to get away from him, but you could still want to get away from Eisenstein.

You take a step back towards him, almost but not quite knocking your knee against his. "Spencer, we're not leaving. There are two movies left, I'm coming back."

"You just want me to feed you," he says. Mainly to remind himself that's something you said you expected to happen.

Dinner and a movie. Would it be possible for you to do anything more date-like? In a completely platonic way, of course. Two more movies left for you to platonically take his hand.

"Exactly," you say, and this time you do actually nudge him with your leg. Luckily you aren't looking at him, so you don't see the way he has to suck a pleased smile all the way into his mouth.

This time, he lets you walk away, and when you return nine minutes later, you're holding another coffee for him. "You take it black, right?" you joke, handing it to him.

He takes a sip and you ordered it just the way he likes it, which he knew you would. "Thanks."

When he puts the coffee back in the cup holder between your seats, he brushes against your arm, sitting on the edge of the armrest. Strictly speaking the thing isn't wide enough for two, it's very much a territory to negotiate over, but you're taking up less than half of it.

Spencer spends about ten minutes wringing his hands in his lap, trying to decipher the situation. You shift, twice, but your hand doesn't move. It's still there, half on, half off the armrest.

Like it's undecided, or like it's trying to run away and you aren't letting it, or like it wants to be there and you don't want it to.

How is he supposed to know what to do?

The answer is probably that he isn't supposed to do anything. This isn't a date, it only looks like one from a distance, and just because he can't focus on the movie because all he can think about is holding your hand, that doesn't mean you want him to. You haven't technically told him that his exposure therapy is over, but you haven't held his hand since Portland, two weeks ago.

Like maybe doing it in public was some kind of graduation ceremony and didn't make him want to stay in that bookshop forever, never mind catching the jet back to Quantico.

He shifts, sighing deeply, only realizing how loud it was when you turn to look at him. "Sorry."

"You okay?" you whisper, leaning a little closer to him.

He's not, not at all. He's spiraling just a little bit. "Yeah, of course."

You look at him carefully, like maybe you don't believe him, and he turns back to face the screen so he doesn't have to look you in the eye. Then he takes a deep breath and places his arm on the armrest, taking up most of the remaining space on it.

His pinky finger is maybe an eighth of an inch away from yours and he digs it into the velvet of the armrest to stop it from twitching and accidentally touching you, although he's not quite sure why.

Maybe because it feels too much like begging to be touched, suddenly, after not being touched at all for so long?

But then, while the score crescendos dramatically, he suddenly feels it: Your pinky finger feathering along his and then away. At first he thinks he imagined it, but then it happens again, and again. And this time, it actually settles against his.

When Spencer turns to look at you, you're staring intently at the screen, looking for all the world like you're completely engrossed in the movie.

He moves his pinky so it's covering yours.

You don't move. At all.

He moves his pinky a little more, until it's settling on your ring finger.

You still aren't moving.

He feels his heart rate increase, the way it might do ahead of a myocardial infarction, or possibly a panic attack. But there's no pain in his left arm, no cold sweats, no shortness of breath.

He swallows, then he places his hand over yours, covering it completely.

Your thumb twitches but you don't pull away, so Spencer decides he might as well go for broke and wrap his fingers around your hand.

That's it, he's done it. He's holding your hand.

And then you move, your hand shifting. He's about to release you, worried he overstepped, but all you do is turn your hand and intertwine your fingers with his, pulling his hand off the armrest and into your lap.

Spencer double-checks the signals his body is sending him, just to make completely sure this isn't a heart attack.

He turns to look at you, and he's pretty sure you're smiling, your eyes still on the screen. "Okay?" he asks.

You turn your head and now he's sure you're smiling. "Of course."

When the second movie ends, you don't get up. Your hand is still intertwined with his, resting in your lap, and Spencer hopes you'll never move.

"This, um, this exposure therapy has really worked well," you say and there's something in your voice that makes him look at you.

"I guess," he says, because he's not convinced it has, really. He's pretty sure he won't be shaking anyone's hand unless it's yours.

You lift up your joined hands to show him. "I mean, we've been holding hands for like an hour."

He blinks.

"It's nice." Your voice is soft and you aren't looking at him, so he lets himself smile at your words.

'Nice' doesn't really cover it at all. "Yeah."

One month, 4 days, 7 hours, and 23 minutes had passed since you told Spencer about your history regarding sex, your aversions, and why you wouldn’t let him touch you. In the infinite moments between now and then, he still hadn’t tried to initiate anything with you. If anything, the frequent (and somewhat juvenile) hasty makeout sessions had all but ceased in the weeks following. Not that Spencer was outright turning you down, but he seemed more preoccupied. Always reading or tacking away at a laptop, too busy to pursue getting into your pants. Whenever you came onto him, however, in the small way you did, he never denied you. If you were able to pry his eyes away from whatever it was he was working on, get your hands in his hair and bring his lips to yours, it would be as if his laptop never existed. Like the printing press was never made— everything else but you melted away. Despite the progress you had made in your healing, you hadn’t gotten to the point of anything, “real”.

However, with every passing day, your wants began to overtake your worries. You knew Spencer loved you, and honestly, you were getting needy. Spencer had always been the most attractive man you’d ever met, but it seemed like every time he did something kind, it made your mouth water. He’d hold the door for you, smile at you and tell you you were pretty mid brushing your teeth. Every normal action elicited something absolutely primal to stir inside of you. It was only a matter of time, and you confided in Penelope as much.

…

“Pen, it’s bad. Like really bad. He looks at me with this sweetheart puppy dog look and I absolutely unravel.”

Penelope smiled deviously and twirled her hair with a fuzzy pen. “All those brains and he still can’t see you basically panting for him? You practically jump out of your seat whenever he mentions sexual sadism just because he’s saying the word ‘sex’.”

Your face burned. Of course, only you and Penelope really noticed, but when he was describing the habits of one of the usual monsters you dealt with, lord forgive you, you were imagining all of the other ways he could bring up that word. You groaned and put your face in your hands.

“Oh, god, I’m SICK, Garcia! I don’t know what to do.”

She smirked devilishly.

“Yes, you do.”

You cocked your head and removed your hands to look at her. “What?”

She smiled.

“Him. Do him!” She threw her head back and laughed as you rolled your eyes.

“It’s not that simple, Pen, and you know it.” You sat down in the chair next to her, and she gave you a sympathetic look.

“Look, angelface, I know — it is hard to move on. But you want him. It might be worth it to give him the chance to prove to you how different he is. More importantly, shouldn’t you help yourself heal? If this is what you want, don’t let those villains from your past rob you of this.”

You were quiet for a moment, then slumped into your seat a little further. “You’re right,” you said. “You are… and honestly, Pen, I don’t think I can wait any longer anyways.” You gave her a small smile, and she grinned back at you.

“I know I am! Now go get him, Tiger! Your resident gossip goddess wants to know how boy wonder treats my girl!”

..

When you entered your shared apartment that night, the room had a different air to it. The atmosphere was heavier, your heart was racing. And there was Spencer, sitting on the couch, reading like nothing was different. But right now, everything was different.

“Hi, hunny!” You said, trying to keep your voice even. He perked up instantly, his eyes filling with a light when they met yours.

“Hi! How was your day? You went to see Garcia, right?” He asked, always the caring lover. He never asked out of principal, only ever because he genuinely wanted to know. You felt the familiar heat pool in your core. You smiled and tried not to let it show, not yet.

“Yeah, I did. My day was good, we talked about… we- yeah. Just chatted. Gabbed..” You winced and let yourself smile, hearing how ridiculous you sounded. ‘Couldn’t just be normal, could you?’ you thought to yourself.

Spencer smiled and cocked his head, amused by your ridiculously obvious coverup. “Gabbed, huh?” He laughed and waved you over. You moved to him and sat on his lap. He wrapped his arms around you – he smelt like cologne and book ink. It was intoxicating. A blush, ever so slight, crept up your face as you tried not to focus on the fact you were just a couple layers of fabric from your fantasies coming true. You looked at him with a self-pitying, half-wince, half-smile. “Are you okay?” He asked, still smiling, only a hint of worry gracing his features.

You felt your stomach drop, and your palms grow sweaty. You closed your eyes and let out a sigh before facing him. You looked at him, his deep hazel puppy eyes making you squirm.

“Spence.” you said, putting your hands on his shoulders, the blush on your face deepening.

“Baby?” He said, utterly confused by your strange behavior. He knew there had been a lot on your mind recently, but this was extra out of the ordinary.

You considered what to say. ‘I want to have sex with you now please,’ seemed immature and very cold. ‘I’ve decided to take destiny into my hands, let’s fuck’ also seemed.. not right. You bit your lip, your eyes tracing the outline of his own. You could see his expression grow more worried, and you knew you were kind of freaking him out. Not the mood you want your partner to be in when you’re trying to do him for the first time. You decided to ditch words completely. In a last ditch effort to get your point across, you shifted so you were straddling his lap. You grabbed his face in your hands, tangling your fingers in his soft curls. You smiled– a real, steadying smile, and leaned in to kiss him.

Kissing Spencer always felt like the world’s problems were melting away. You kissed him softly, unhurried. Light brushes of your lips to his, then pulling him closer for more contact. He was warm- so, so warm. Your grip tightened in his hair, ever so slightly, and he whined softly. The noise reminded you of your intentions tonight. But unlike so much of the buildup so far, the reminder didn’t stress you. It brought you closer to him, and you ground your hips down onto his lap.

He shuddered, passing over your lips softly with his tongue, asking for polite entry. Polite– that was so much of Spencer’s behavior. He held the door, bought you flowers, massaged your aching body at the end of a long day. He read to you when he couldn’t sleep, asked “please” every time he wanted you to play in his hair, in the gentle way only you could. He was a kind, responsible man, and that did things to you.

You welcomed his tongue into your mouth, brushing yours against his, the kiss now becoming more feverish. His hands gripped your waist, grounding him. You were so beautiful, and he was in awe at his luck. The most beautiful woman in the world was on top of him, kissing him, pulling his hair and grinding on him. He felt his cock stir in his pants, and gently thrust up into your grinding. The pressure coaxed a soft gasp from you, and you moved your hands to his face and neck. You grabbed his chin to face you, and looked deeply into his eyes. “Spencer,” you panted, “I want you.”

Spencer’s eyes went wide as saucers, and his mouth fell open just so. “Baby…” he hesitated. Ever since you had told him about your past, he had held off from pressuring you in a way that might make you concede to an act you didn’t fully consent to. Your eyebrows furrowed, and you brushed your thumb over his lip, barely resisting the urge to slip it past and have him suck on it. “Don’t you want me, Spence?” You leaned in, whispering into his ear.

Spencer’s eyes fluttered shut and he swallowed hard. “I.. you have no idea… But, are you… sure? I’ve been..” he blushed, harder than he was before. You pulled back to look at him when he spoke.

“I’ve been, uh, reading? Researching, on- on how to aid recovery for those with negative sexual experiences?” He said it like it was a question. He was terrified– terrified that he might make you feel like a case study, but he wanted to show you how he cared. And statistics, experiment reports, that was how he cared. You nodded slightly, letting him know he was okay, that you were okay. He looked at you, then looked away. You brought your hand to the side of his face so he’d face you again.

“I found that, in numerous studies that regarding sexual experiences and, uh, there was a study that found the more space that the partner of the person who had a negative sexual partner, the easier the survivor found ways to enjoy sex– in this particular study, all but one survivor/couple group was able to make sex enjoyable for their partner after their negative encounter, and all of them in some way credit the enjoyment to the creation of a space where consent can be expressed and explored frequently. A-all this is to say, I want you. Badly- I want you badly. But I was trying to implement a space where you could explore your own wants without feeling entrapped into a false consent. Basically, I wanted to give you your own time.” He nervously smiled, sheepish at his admittance of his secret project.

You felt your eyes fill with the familiar sting of tears. Spencer wasn’t avoiding you, he was building you your own comfort zone. Letting you come to him, taking the pressure off. You hadn’t realized it fully, but before your first conversation, you always felt this kind of.. Clock ticking. Something inside you telling you that if you didn’t give it up, and soon, Spencer would move on. He’d leave for someone easier, though he never gave you the indication that was true. But ever since the conversation, when you initiated intimacy in the way you did, kissing and holding, marking and whispering, the clock was off. There was no more ticking, no more deadline you felt you had to meet. Your actions were your own. Spencer never gave you any reason to think he wanted you to give it up, he was never desperate. Just willing. Just there for you, in every way he could.

“I…” You trailed off, your voice choking up as you smiled at him, a single tear dripping down your face. You’d never felt more cared for in your life. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you. I… I want you, Spencer. I want all of you, and I want to give you all of me. Penelope said something today… and she’s right. You’re different. You’re nothing like the people I knew, the people who hurt me. Spencer… will you sleep with me?”

Spencer smiled at you, and brought his hands from your hips to your hands. “Are you sure? Like I said, I’d wait forever-”

He was cut off by you crushing your mouth to his. You knew, you knew he’d wait forever, and hearing him say it made you want to do nothing more than jump his bones. His kindness had you dripping, his thoughtfulness its own kind of dirty talk. “Spencer, I’ve never been more sure in my life.” You wiped your face and smiled. “Now, get naked.”

…

Spencer’s hands flew to the buttons on his shirt, making quick work of it before he shrugged it off and threw it behind him. Your mouth watered at the sight of him. Lean and toned, with the faintest happy trail. You pressed kisses to his neck, making your way down his chest. You shimmied down his body until you were at a good enough position, and began to palm him through his pants. Spencer let out a broken gasp, and gripped the side of the couch till his knuckles turned white. Your hands went to his waistband, but before you could pull it down, he grabbed your hands. “Wait,” he simply said. You sat up, confused. He stood up, walked to face you, and picked you up bridal style.

You squealed, and he smiled. “If we’re doing this now, I want to be in our bed. I need to make sure you’re as comfortable as possible, and statistically-” you cut him off once more, by kissing him as he walked you to the room. He smiled and laid you on the bed. He climbed over you, straddling your hips and leaning down to kiss your neck. His mouth found the spot just behind your ear that made you sigh, one hand on the side of your head and the other holding your waist.

Spencer moved his kisses down your body until he got to the hem of your shirt, and grabbed onto it before looking at you with a question in his eyes. You smiled and nodded, and he smiled back. You sat up slightly so he could pull it off of your head, and when he sat back on his heels, all he could do was admire you. You hadn’t been wearing a bra, so you were bare in front of him. He’d seen your chest a couple of times before, but never like this. He was in awe, and bent down to place gentle, reverent kisses. He took one of your nipples into his mouth, sucking on it and swirling around it with his tongue, massaging the other with his hand. You moaned, and laced your hands in his hair and grasped hard. He nipped you slightly, and you writhed in pleasure.

Once he decided he couldn’t wait any longer, he moved away from your chest and moved to where you wanted him most. He settled his head between your thighs and gently massaged your legs. You looked at him, and felt a tremor of nervousness and excitement course through you. Ever so gently, he hooked his finger and pulled your shorts to the side. You had chosen a pair of flexible lounge shorts for your in-home coffee date with Penelope, and now you were thanking your lucky stars that you’d done so. He hadn’t pulled your panties aside as well, giving him an all-access look at the pool of wetness that marked your underwear. He breathed heavily in utter disbelief that you could feel this way about him. He licked a stripe up the spot and you moaned and wrapped his hair in your hands. He did it again, and again, licking and sucking until he could tease himself no more.

“Baby,” he panted, “Lift your hips, please.” You did as he asked, arching your back so he could slide your pants down. Along with them went your panties, and as soon as your legs were freed of the clothes, you were struck with another wave of nervousness. You had planted your hips back down, and before Spencer settled once more between your thighs, his eyes met yours. There was so much love in that look — complete adoration. You gave him a shy smile and nodded, and he smiled back. He moved back to the spot he was at, and paused, looking in complete infatuation at your core. You were wet, so wet to the point of nearly dripping.

“So beautiful… you’re so perfect.” He brushed a thumb across your clit, featherlight, and you whimpered into his touch. You squirmed, eager to get what you’d waited so long for. He laughed, before pressing a kiss to the very same spot. There was more pressure this time, and you moaned, pressing into him. He groaned in response, wanting nothing more than to please you. Holding back no longer, he began to eat you like you were the fruit of an oasis in the desert. He was starving, he was begging, and he held onto your thighs like any moment you might disappear.

You were in heaven, between the strong strokes of his tongue and the vibrations of his moans, you couldn’t believe you had waited this long.

“S-spence, ohmygod-” you ground yourself into him, chasing the release of the coil you felt building in your stomach. Spencer moved one of his hands to slip a finger inside of you, curling it so it hit the roof of your walls. You yelped, and your back arched. The pleasure was building, but there was something stopping you from reaching your release.

“I- I- Spence, I can’t.. I ah, can’t do ittt….” you whined, clenching your fists and pulling his hair.

“Shh, it’s okay.. You can do it… you can let go…” He added a second finger and moved a little faster, and you cried out. “Please baby, let go for me.. Please, come on my fingers. I’ve got you.”

The reassurance and added stimuli combined were just too much for you. When he stopped talking and went back to your clit, your vision went white and you saw stars. You came hard around his hand, body spasming and twitching as you sobbed. Spencer only moaned, determined to continue until you had fully ridden out your orgasm. Once he saw your body’s reactions slow, he kissed your clit gently and moved up to kiss you, not removing his fingers. They slowly pumped in and out of you, sticky and warm. “Hi, baby, you did so well.” Spencer said, kissing your face and your lips, while you began to come down from the intense high. You panted, looking at Spencer and seeing only complete adoration.

Even though you just had one of the most amazing orgasms of your life, you found yourself still unsated. Like he’d awoken a beast inside of you that screamed to be fed. You launched to bring your lips to his, and he startled for a moment before kissing you with the same fervor you had. He finally removed his fingers and brought his hands to your head. You could taste yourself on his tongue, and Spencer whimpered at the intensity of your connection. You rolled over, so you were straddling him. Spencer’s eyes went wide and his mouth gaped with a broken whine as you ground yourself onto his pronounced bulge, still trapped in his sweats. You cocked your head and smiled deviously. “Didn’t I tell you to get naked?”

Spencer felt a flurry of butterflies as you moved to the side, freeing his lap so he could take off his bottom layers. When he moved his boxers down his legs, his cock hit his stomach with a mouth-watering thud. His length was about as big as you’d assumed based on the print you had become familiar with over the months you’d been together, but seeing it now almost had you drooling. It was shiny, precum dripping down the length, weeping with intent. When his pants were on the floor, he grabbed the base of his cock, desperate to relieve some of the ache. You whined at the sight. You were sure you could get off to the sight of him touching himself in front of you, but that was a theory you’d test another day. You bent down, giving the head a kitten-lick, the salty taste of his precum tastier than you’d ever believed it could be. Spencer bit his lip and moaned, determined to make this last as long as possible, but quickly realizing that time was burning like kerosene. Quick, hot, hotter than in even his fantasies. And god, did he have fantasies. Before he knew what he was saying, words tumbled out of his mouth.

“I’ve thought about this so many times, you’re s-so pretty, “ he mumbled as you licked up his length once more. He bucked, sensitive and leaking still. “Y-you’re all I think about, all I wanna do is make you feel– oh fuck–,” He choked out as you took his length into your mouth as far as you could. Such a sweetheart, he was. You were ravenous, and began to suck him off, determined to make him feel as good as he made you feel. His hand dropped from the base of his cock and fisted the sheets beside him, the other hand instinctively coming to your hair.

He made no move to force your pace, just needing the contact with you to ground himself so he’d last any amount of time longer. “Oh my god, oh my god- fuck, y-you’re really –ngh– good at that,” He babbled, lost in the feeling of it. You pressed up with your tongue as you sucked, hollowing your cheeks. He already felt himself climbing to the edge of his orgasm. He twitched, and you knew he was close.

“W-wait, I’m- if- I’m gonna cum, y-you’re gonna make me-,” He let out something in between a moan and a sob, a broken cry as his hips stuttered. His cock pulsed, letting out warm spurts of salty cum into your mouth. You continued to stroke him as he came, swirling his head with your tongue. He came hard, whimpering with every continued motion. When you felt he’d finished, you pulled off with a pop! and swallowed in one quick motion. You bit back a gag, the taste and texture not quite appealing, but the action itself hot enough to ignore. Spencer panted where he sat, cock still not shrinking. Your eyes widened, and you smiled. He opened his eyes to look at you apologetically.

“I’m sorry, you just felt really really good, and you looked really good, and-” You cut him off once more.

“Shh, it’s okay. I knew you were close, I wanted to make you feel good.” You grinned at him and licked your lips. “Do you think… you’re able to go again..?”

Spencer let out a soft laugh and smiled, looking down at his still stiff erection. “I’d love to. Actually, I’m kind of surprised? Not surprised that I want to, but surprised at being able to so soon. Typically men 25 or younger have a minimum refractory period of 15 minutes, at least.” Spencer grasped his erection and gave it a quick stroke before let out a shuddering breath. “Still very sensitive, but I can definitely go again.”

Your eyes glinted as you laid on your back and opened your arms, beckoning him to climb atop you. He did so, embracing you as your legs wrapped around him. His cock pressed to your clit, still wet, and you melted into the feeling. He pulled back to look at you, and he paused.

“I love you. I’m so grateful I get to share this part of myself with you, and that you feel comfortable doing the same.” Your heart soared as you pressed your mouth to his in a gentle kiss.

“I love you. I’m grateful, too,” was all you said before looking down your body to see his erection pressed against your core, and you pulsed around nothing, needing to have him inside you. Spencer received your silent message and pulled back to sit on his heels. He grabbed his cock and aligned with your entrance. You met his gaze and nodded, and he began to slide in.

The stretch was addictive. Just a couple of his seven inches slid inside your aching hole and your back arched. There was a slight burn, filling you so perfectly. He drew soothing shapes onto your hips in reassurance. His head was tipped back in pleasure, in almost disbelief at your softness. You were so tight, it felt unbelievable. “So good, so perfect for me…” he whispered. He brought his head back to meet your gaze, your eyes glazed in pure pleasure. He pushed in slowly before bottoming out, both of you moaning in unison. You hadn’t felt this full or cared for in your life, and felt tears pricking at the corner of your eyes. Spencer waited just a moment before slowly, ever so slowly, pulling out. The drag along your insides had your eyes rolling back inside your head, and Spencer was biting his lip so hard he was worried it’d bleed. He didn’t stop though, the pain necessary to prevent him from getting lost in the pleasure and cumming right then. He pictured the first time you’d kissed him, grabbing him by his tie and pulling him in. He thought he was enamoured then. But now, as he thrust back into you and you moaned his name, he was on cloud nine. He pressed on your uterus as he thrust in, and you let out a guttural sound.

Spencer began to thrust faster, but with just as much intention as before. Just as you were drunk off the feeling of his cock, he was completely intoxicated by the feeling of being inside you. He was babbling and moaning, nonsense coming out of his mouth. How you smelt good, how good you felt, how lucky he was.

“I’m so lucky- you’re so mngh beautiful, so so perfect, feels so good… you’re so good, wanna be good for you, can’t believe you’re oh my– m-mine…” His words made you clench around his cock. It’s like his every move was magic, made to coax your orgasm from you. Every stroke was beckoning your climax, every moan he let out just for you. It was almost too much, but the final straw came when he folded you just to be closer.

He moved his hands and slid them underneath your thighs, using a gentle strength you didn’t really know he possessed to push them up. He folded you, ever so gently, into one of the meanest mating presses there was, and fucked you so deep you saw stars.

“Oh, god Spence, it’s so- s-so deep,” you exclaimed, feeling your orgasm creeping up on you.

“I know baby, I know,” he said, eyes shut tight, deep in concentration. He sped up now, using the new angle to try and brush against the spot that made you cry out with every thrust. “Touch yourself, angel, wanna m-make you cum,” he whimpered, opening his eyes to look at you with the sweetest puppy dog expression. You moaned at his words and reached down to circle your clit, and you knew it wouldn’t be long.

“S-spence, I’m close, s-so close,” you cried out, and Spencer continued to fuck into you like his life depended on it.

“P-please come, please come on my cock baby please,” Spencer babbled, his eyes now brimming with tears. His poor overstimulated cock begged to release, but he was determined to please you. His pleas were too much, the angle too deep, your clit buzzing with pleasure. Your orgasm crashed over you like a tsunami, making your legs tremor and shake. Your pussy drenched his cock, clenching around him like you’d never let him go, and Spencer cried out.

“Thankyouthankyouthankyou, oh god, oh god I’m gonna cum, you’re so good, f-feels too good,” Spencer moved to pull out but you grabbed his hand on your thigh and had him look at you. You shook your head, purposely tightening around him, dizzy in pleasure. His eyes widened, and you whined.

“Cum inside, please don’t pull out–” You went to beg for him to stay once more, but who was Spencer to deny you? His orgasm hit him like a train, and he felt himself release inside of you, warm and sticky and just too good. He felt tears run down his face. To you, he looked like the picture of beauty. His hair was disheveled and he was red, sweating. He panted as he rutted inside you, his crushing orgasm finally subsiding.

You both lay there a moment, Spencer letting your shaking legs down. You panted, letting yourselves come down. You wrapped your legs around Spencer, having him lay on you. He practically collapsed when he did so. His softening cock twitched inside you. You held him, and began to giggle. Just a little at first, and then uncontrollably. Soft laughs, and without really knowing why, Spencer joined you. You both lay there laughing, the picture of post-coital bliss.

After who knows how long, he finally lifted off of you to pull out. You felt the pressure change, then his release began to leak out of you.

“Stay here,” he said. “I’ll go grab a towel.” He stood up, and went to the closet outside your bedroom, then the bathroom to rinse it with warm water. You looked at his surprisingly sculpted ass as he left, smiling and giggling once more. When he returned, you were sleepy, and felt comforted by the warm washcloth cleaning you.

“You look so beautiful,” he whispered as he cleaned you, then handed you the pajama top he had grabbed on his way back in. “That was incredible…did you have a nice time?” He asked, gentle and kind, doing one final swipe with the rag on the bed just beneath you, though you’d still have to wash the sheets before you went to bed. Your heart melted at his thoughtfulness as you sat up to put on the top, which was really just one of his softer button ups you often wore to bed.

“I had the best time, Spencer. It was everything I’ve ever hoped for and more.” You smirked. “We should do it again.”

Spencer laughed and pressed a kiss to your forehead. “Don’t tempt me. After the lack of a refractory period earlier, I’m both eager to and terrified to find out how many rounds I could consecutively ejaculate, and I just went flaccid.” You hummed, and brushed the hair from his face.

“Another time, then. Do you want to order some food? Indian, maybe?” You asked, and he gave you a look of pure adoration.

You have to be. This is the brain's final mercy, the last, desperate gift of a system shutting down: a vision of the one person who makes you feel safe. You've studied this phenomenon, read case studies of mountaineers who see their families in the snow, of soldiers who whisper their lovers' names before the darkness takes them. The mind, in its infinite kindness, builds a bridge between here and nowhere, and populates it with the faces it loves best.

Of course yours would choose him. Not your mother, not the friends you've left behind, but Spencer—with his nervous hands and his brilliant mind and the way he always looks at you like you're a puzzle he's desperate to solve. He's the last thing your brain wants to see. The last thing it's letting you have.

This is how it ends, you think. Not with a bang, not with a scream, but with a lie. A beautiful, merciful lie wearing Spencer Reid's face.

He's saying something—his lips moving fast, the way they do when he's spiralling, when he's run three steps ahead of everyone else and can't slow down long enough to explain. You know that rhythm. You've watched him pace hotel rooms with that same frantic cadence, his hands gesturing at invisible diagrams, his words tumbling over each other like he's afraid they'll escape him if he doesn't get them out fast enough. But now, the words are muffled, distant, like you're hearing him from underwater, or through a wall, or from the wrong side of a dream you're already slipping out of.

His hand reaches for your face, and you almost laugh. A hallucination that touches you? That's new. Cruel, even. Your subconscious has never been this creative before—never this precise in its cruelty. It's one thing to see him. It's another thing entirely to watch his fingers trace the air between you like he's afraid you'll shatter.

Then his fingers brush your cheek.

Warm. Calloused. Impossibly real.

The sob you've been holding back cracks loose in your chest—a sound so raw and broken you barely recognize it as your own. It tears out of you like something that's been clawing at the inside of your ribs for hours, days, a lifetime. Every wall you've built, every careful detachment you've practiced, every clinical observation you've filed away—it all crumbles the second his skin meets yours.

"No," you rasp. Or maybe you just think it. Your throat feels shredded, raw from screaming—hours ago or minutes ago or maybe still. Time stopped making sense the second they threw you into this room, the second the door locked behind you and you realized no one knew where you were. "No, you're not—you can't be—"

He's already cutting through the ropes around your wrists. You feel the sawing motion—the blade of his pocket knife, you realize, the one he always carries, the one you've teased him about more times than you can count—and the rough fibres biting deeper into your raw skin before they finally fall away. Your arms drop like dead weight, the blood rushing back in pins and needles so sharp it makes you gasp. He catches you before you can hit the floor, his touch steadier than his voice, his thumbs pressing gently into the inside of your wrists where you'd feel your pulse if you had the strength to feel anything at all.

"I'm here." His voice breaks through the static, clearer now. Desperate. The kind of desperate you've only ever heard in his voice when he's talking about a case he couldn't solve—when the unsub slipped through their fingers, when a victim didn't make it, when he stayed up three nights running the numbers and still came up empty. "Look at me. I'm right here. I've got you."

His eyes are searching yours, that familiar intensity—the one that always made you feel like you were the most important thing in the room, in the world, in his entire sprawling, brilliant mind. 

You want to believe him. God, you want to. Every inch of you is screaming at you to grab onto his voice, his warmth, his impossible presence and never let go. To let yourself fall into the safety of his hands and pretend the last however-many-hours didn't happen. 

But the darkness is pulling at the edges of your vision—not sudden, not violent, but patient. Insistent. The way a tide pulls at a drowning person who's finally stopped fighting. 

But here's the thing about lies—sometimes they feel true enough to hold onto. Sometimes they're all you have left.

"Hold on," he says, and you've never heard Spencer Reid sound like this—like he's the one falling apart. Like he needs you to be okay more than he's ever needed anything in his entire life. More than he needed to solve his first case, more than he needed to prove himself, more than he's ever needed air or sleep or the answer to a question that's been eating him alive. "Please, just hold on. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I let them take you. I should've been faster. I should've—"

His voice cracks, splinters, and you realize with a dull, distant ache that he's crying. 

You've seen Spencer Reid cry exactly twice—once when a victim's mother broke down in front of him, and once when he thought no one was watching, staring at a photograph of someone he couldn't save. You'd never imagined you'd be the reason. You'd never imagined he'd sound like this—like the world was ending and he was the only one who knew it.

You try to lift your hand to his face. Just to touch him. Just to feel the sharp line of his jaw, the warmth of his skin, the proof that he's real even if you can't quite believe it anymore. But your fingers won't cooperate. They feel heavy, distant, like they belong to someone else—like they're already packing up and leaving, checking out of a body that's decided it's done fighting. So you just look at him. At the blood on his collar that isn't his. At the way his hands shake as he checks your pulse—two fingers pressing into your wrist, searching for a rhythm you're not sure is still there—and your pupils, and the cut on your temple that you'd almost forgotten about.

He's checking for a concussion, you think, and the clinical detachment of it almost makes you smile. Of course he is. Even now, even like this, he's running through the protocols. He's cataloguing my injuries. He's trying to save me the way he saves everyone—with his brain, with his hands, with every piece of knowledge he's ever crammed into that beautiful, impossible head.

But you can feel the fight leaving you, seeping out through the wounds you can't see, through the blood you can feel pooling beneath you, through the exhaustion that's been building for hours—days—a lifetime. It's not a violent surrender. It's quieter than that. It's the way a candle flickers before it goes out, the way a song fades at the very end, the way a breath leaves your lungs and you realize you don't have the strength to pull another one in.

You try to keep your eyes on him—on the panic in his brows, the way his mouth keeps moving like he's reciting something, a prayer or a passage or maybe just your name over and over. You watch the words form on his lips, watch them stumble and break and reform, the fear in his eyes, the desperation, the way he's looking at you like you're the only thing in the universe that matters—it's almost too much to bear. It's almost worth dying for, just to know you were loved like this.

But your eyelids are so heavy. Heavier than the ropes ever were. Heavier than the weight of everything you've been carrying, everything you've been pretending wasn't slowly crushing you.

You could fight it. You know you could—if you tried hard enough, if you clawed your way back to the surface, if you let his voice be the thing that pulled you up. But you're so tired. Tired in a way that goes beyond your body, beyond the pain and the cold and the blood. Tired in a way that feels like it's been building your whole life, like you've been running toward this moment and didn't even know it.

Just a moment, you tell yourself. Just one moment to rest. I'll open my eyes again. I'll fight. I just need—just one moment.

So you let them drift closed, and you let yourself pretend. Just for a moment. Just until the light goes all the way out.

Spencer feels you go limp in his arms, and the world stops.

Not metaphorically. Not dramatically. It stops—the way a heart stops when the electricity cuts out. One second there's noise, chaos, the distant echo of Emily's voice barking orders through the comms, the flicker of fluorescent lights overhead, the acrid smell of concrete and rust and blood. The next, there's nothing but the terrifying, suffocating stillness of your body going slack against him. Heavy. Too heavy. The weight of someone who's no longer holding themselves up, no longer fighting, no longer there in the way that matters.

"No," you hear him say, but it's distant now, like you're already halfway somewhere else—already crossing a threshold he can't follow you through. "No, no, no—stay with me. Please. You have to stay with me. Please."

He shakes you gently, then harder, his fingers finding your pulse point like a lifeline—pressing into the side of your neck with a desperation that borders on frantic. He's done this a thousand times. A thousand victims, a thousand assessments, a thousand clinical observations filed away without a tremor. But this is different. This is you. And his hands are shaking so badly he can barely find the right spot.

It's there. Faint, thready, but there.

He almost sobs with relief. Almost. The sound catches in his throat, strangles itself before it can escape, because there's no time for relief. There's no time for anything except the next heartbeat, the next breath, the next second of you still being here.

"Help!" His voice tears out of him, raw and desperate, ragged at the edges in a way he's never heard before. It doesn't sound like him. It sounds like someone who's already lost everything and is just now realizing it. "I need help in here! Now!"

He can hear boots pounding against concrete somewhere in the distance. Rossi's voice, calm and clipped, coordinating the response. JJ shouting something about the ambulance. The crackle of radio static. But none of it matters. None of it reaches him. All that exists is the space between your heartbeats and the terrifying weight of your head against his shoulder, your hair tangled beneath his fingers, your skin cooling against his palms.

He presses two fingers to the side of your neck again. Counting. Always counting. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand—

Your pulse stutters.

A beat. Then nothing. Then another beat, weaker than the last.

No.

"Spencer—" someone says. JJ. Her hand is on his shoulder, warm and grounding, but Spencer can't look away from your face. Too pale. Too still. Your lips are tinged with blue, and there's blood—so much blood—seeping through his fingers where he's pressing against the wound he can't even see, the one he's terrified is the one that matters.

"She's crashing," he hears himself say, and his voice sounds hollow, clinical, like he's reading an autopsy report for a stranger. Like he's already detached himself from the reality of what's happening because if he feels it—if he lets himself feel the weight of you slipping away—he'll shatter into pieces too small to put back together. "Her pulse is weak and irregular. She's lost too much blood. She needs a hospital now or she's going to—"

He can't finish the sentence. The word die lodges in his throat like broken glass, cutting him from the inside out. He can't say it. He can't even think it, because thinking it makes it real, and if it's real, then there's a version of the future where you don't exist, and that version isn't one he can survive.

"Ambulance is one minute out," Rossi says, and Spencer nods, numb, pulling you closer even though he knows he shouldn't move you, even though every rational part of his brain is screaming about spinal precautions and haemorrhage control and all the protocols he's memorized and taught and followed for years.

He doesn't care. He'll take the risk. He'll take all the risks. He'll spend the rest of his life making deals with a god he doesn't believe in if it means you open your eyes again.

"Come on," he whispers, his forehead pressed to yours, his voice breaking on every syllable. "Come on, you're not done. You're not done fighting. You can't be done—not yet—not when I haven't—"

He stops himself. Swallows. His eyes burn, but he doesn't let the tears fall—not yet, not while there's still a chance, not while he can still feel the faint flutter of your pulse beneath his fingers.

Not when I haven't told you.

The thought hits him like a bullet, sharp and devastating. All the words he's been too afraid to say, all the confessions he's buried and the careful distance he's maintained because losing you felt inevitable—but not like this. Never like this. He always imagined he'd have more time. That he'd find the right moment, the perfect words, the courage to look you in the eye and tell you that you're the only thing that's ever made sense to him. That you're the reason he gets up in the morning, the reason he fights, the reason he believes in something bigger than the darkness.

He never imagined he'd be holding you while you slipped away, begging you to stay while the words he should have said died on his tongue.

"One minute," he says again, like a mantra, like a prayer. He's not sure if he's talking to you or to himself. "Just one minute. You can hold on for one minute. You're the strongest person I know—you've survived worse than this—you've survived everything—"

His voice cracks again, and he presses his lips to your forehead, desperate and trembling. "Please. Please don't leave me. I can't—I can't do this without you. I don't want to do this without you."

That feeling when you know the good streak is going to end soon. The suspicion that things are going too well. Chan felt it in his trainee days every time he got closer to success before being pushed back. He feels it when the day goes too perfectly in the studio and rehearsal, all for Chan to feel a sickness overtake him or one of the boys. He feels it in the sound of joy and the feeling that pairs with it, followed by the dread of knowing this high will wane off.

That dread followed him into sleep, and was only bated by the girl who he took into his arms each night.

Chan had once found comfort in the sound of an airplane engine from the inside seating. It meant he was doing something new, being somewhere new and exciting. Getting to see the world and explore what it had to offer was his specialty.

All that fills his stomach is that familiar dread. He finds himself wanting to hide from the world, because as of right now, you've fallen victim to his lifestyle.

Staff had informed Chan when the plane was refueling for the journey from Seoul to Milan of something out of nightmare. Of all the things that staff could've informed Chan of, he would've rather preferred that all of the luggage was lost in transit to the loading station.

They'd tried to be as calm and placating as possible, he'll give staff that. Not that Chan is easily angered so long as something can be resolved with communication. However, when he saw the look on their faces, it was all over.

You were on the plane, curled up in your seat in a cocoon of a throw blanket and his black distressed hoodie. Peaceful, an image of bliss with the hood drawn up over your face.

Staff had handed him a phone. Said phone had a simple picture. If it was a third party viewing, they'd have no idea what they were seeing. However, Chan knew better. That picture was taken from a strange angle, perverse and unbeknownst to the two subjects in the photo. A high angle from something like a building or a parking complex. Those subjects were you and Chan, a snapshot taken hours earlier when you and Chan were coming out of the company van before boarding.

It was unmistakably Chan in that photo, it couldn't be hidden. His blonde fringe was peaking out of his black Chrome Hearts beanie. There was a lack of people aside from staff and you-- sweet and innocuous to the photo as you clamber out of the van behind him. Empty handed, and Chan holding your carry on with a small Wolf-Chan keychain hanging off the zipper.

Worst of all, he's holding your hand. His eyes are forward, a small content look on his face. You look all sleepy and lax. It's such a simple action, barely anything that anyone should care for. But suddenly, your hand in his feels like the end of the world.

Not for him, but for you. Which you may never recover.

It's a dark photo. It's pixelated and rough and it still had Chan's heart sinking to stomach in such a fast decline, he'd rushed to the bathroom to dry heave over the bowl. He's thankful that Fendi had provided Chan with a private jet for Fashion Week. Chan doesn't know if he could've handled any more prying eyes than the one's on the internet who must've been dissecting that picture.

When he'd come back from the bathroom, and down the aisle to his seat, staff is already looking at him. He rubbed his clammy palms on his sweatpants and reclined in his seat. He hates the look on their faces, equal parts pity and "I knew this was a bad idea". Love was never a bad idea when it came to you.

You, who is still sleeping soundly. Who won’t wake up until Chan says so, to let you keep as much peace to yourself as possible.

You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve any of what is waiting after this flight.

That was hours ago. And naturally, Chan has been a ticking time bomb with his head in his hand against the armrest of his seat. He couldn’t work on his beats. Music was just a reminder of why he was in this situation in the first place. That was the cruelty of being an idol, a suffering he never thought he’d feel.

Chan yearned for love for so long, and you fell into his lap like a blessing. Would it be taken away? Would the damage be too much to mend?

The jet is landed on the private strip, but there’s a week ahead of him with interactions and paparazzi. There’s fans and detractors. News outlets and media and messages and—

“Sweetheart…? We’re landed.” Be a leader. Do it for her. Be her brave man.

Chan’s voice tries to coax you away, running a crooked finger over your cheek. That was something constant, his comfort. He’d never give that up, he felt he was doing something right in this moment of strife in his mind. He pulls the hood back of your, no, his hoodie and watches your eyes go back and forth under your eyelids before they crack open to the harsh interior lighting.

It makes his chest hurt and his throat ache. You’re too peaceful for the news he’s about to don on you.

“Hey…” you whisper, voice all tired and rasped with sleep. Chan smiles lopsided, a boyish grin that wavers at the corners of his mouth. Be brave.

“Sleeping beauty… All good?”

“All good…”

God, he feels like the biggest bastard on planet Earth. Does someone have information on you by now? Are there netizens wishing ill upon you? Do they even know who you are, maybe someone found your private socials. What if they found your family, your job—

“Channie…? Are you good?”

You’d sat more upright while Chan’s eyes turned vacant and distant, like he was looking past you. He realizes his smile is vanished, the tips of his ears feel hot and pounding with the rush of blood. And if there’s one thing Chan isn’t, it’s a liar. He can be cheeky. He can tease. But this? This isn’t something he can shield you from. And that terrifies him to his bones.

You repeat his name again, more serious as you say “Chris?” and put a hand over his. He’s shaking like he’s been left in sub-zero temperature. But his temperature feels hot and clammy.

The sound of staff unloading his and your carry ons is like white noise. He feels like his clothes are touching him funny. His knee is bouncing a bit. And you’re still looking at him with those heartbreakingly soft eyes.

Your eyes look to staff, men and women who refuse to meet eyes with you. And that speaks volumes. Something’s wrong, they just carry on as if they know this behavior of Chan’s will take a minute to recoup. Your hand finds his, remembering an off-time something similar to this happened before.

Chan had come off stage after a performance and just slumped against you. Shaking. Vacant eyes, like now. Like if he didn’t focus on breathing, he’d forget how.

So, there you go. Taking his hand into his and rubbing soothingly.

“Hey, hey… Chris, look at me… Breathe, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

You tell him to breathe, and Chan feels like it suddenly becomes harder. Because you can see he’s a wreck. You’re not supposed to see him like this, he’s supposed to take care of you, of everyone. He nods, hurried and childish, his eyes looking down at your hand. You said, “I’m not going anywhere”, but Chan doesn’t know if that’ll ring true in a few hours.

It’s just you and him, he ignores the sound of staff talking about him and what they should do with the situation in low voiced Korean.

“Chris… Talk to me, what happened?”

You’re such a sweetheart. Sweetheart. He knew he chose right in giving you that nickname years ago. You loved the Australian lilt in the way he said it, and he loved the way it made you permanent in his life. You’re so fucking sweet, you don’t even think for a second that something utterly terrible just happened.

Chan takes a deep breath, lungs filling and deflating in a few seconds. Rattling. How does he say this to you? How does he tell you that for the first time in his life, he might fail in protecting someone he loves? His voice comes out weaker than he expects it to, like a wince.

“There’s… they found out.”

He’s met with silence. A soft murmur from staff pretending to busy themselves with cleaning out the jet cabin. They’re really just making sure Chan doesn’t pass out on them.

You stop that sweeping motion of your thumb over his hand. He feels when you squeeze his hand for a millisecond. Such a sweetheart— you don’t need him to explain. Not when you’ve had conversations like this before. “Finding out”. It made it sound like the love that you both shared was something wrong. Illicit. Perverse.

Chan watches that fear spark in your face. He knows all your little tells, because now you’re not even looking at his own face anymore. But in a miracle from above, that little sweeping motion of your thumb starts up again. You’re comforting him.

“Alright… Okay, um… H-How did they… Walk me through it.”

He blinks twice. You’re an insane and stupidly amazing woman. He almost wants to laugh. He could’ve told you the sky was falling and you’d just… ask for the prognosis?

“Someone, um… took a, uh… a picture. At the airport, in the back lot… Staff is trying to trace the person back, um… Y-You can’t really see you very well, but I am holding your hands and luggage, which someone is totally going to research and stalk into—”

You coughed a laugh. A beautiful sound bubbling out of you that gives Chan a reprieve from his turmoil. A few heads of staff look at you warily. His eyes narrow, roving over you as a nervous, grimaced smile appears on his face.

“I’m sorry?” he says, voice cracking at the end.

“N-No, I’m… I’m sorry, even… Even when our relationship is leaked… you’re putting yourself first.”

“Don’t. Don’t start, sweetheart.”

Chan knows where you’re going with this, and you still sit upright all noble and so damn wonderful.

“You remember the first time we talked about this?”

How could he not? You’d been dating for 3 months, but Chan had already knew it was serious. Something built and crafted carefully to last. He wasn’t letting you get away. You were so insane, waking up at all sorts of odd hours to walk with him when the boys were asleep after he’d brainstormed some lyrics or instrumentals.

You’d walk side by side to the Han River. The city was quiet and lit up with city lights on the horizon that looked like stars reflected back on the water. He’d told you being with him wouldn’t be easy. Loving him wouldn’t be easy, was what he wanted to say.

You’d looked up at him like he’d said the dumbest thing ever, and said a cheesy line about “not wanting it if it’s easy”.

Chan grinned all square and dimpled, pressing a kiss to the top of your head to assuage his nerves. He’d then told you that he’d have to treat you like a secret. That he couldn’t love you as freely as he wanted, but he wanted you nonetheless. Told you he knew it wasn’t fair and he understood if you wanted a way out.

You’d flicked his nose and called him stupid. You said you knew what you got yourself into the moment that he said he was an idol. You made it clear in your little declaration that you weren’t going anywhere when you said jokingly, staring into the dark water of the river, “Someone will have to pry you from my cold, dead hands”.

Smitten. Absolutely in love with you. He knew you were serious, that’s how you loved. With pure intentions and strength.

So as he looks upon you now, and you ask him if he remembers the terms you’d both set up, the mutual understanding of how this would all go? He nods. A bit shy for even thinking you’d turn away and cower from this. You duck your head a bit to meet his gaze and smile when he averts his eyes again.

“Yes, this is scary. Believe me, Channie, I’m… I’m really scared right now—”

“Please don’t be scared, sweetheart.”

“Channie. Listen.”

That quiets him. Lips faltering for a rebuttal to quell you. He doesn’t like the thought of you being in fear. But he listens anyhow, even with the underlying discomfort.

“I’m scared right now. This very… finite moment. I told you I knew what I was getting into… It was bound to happen, okay? A-And yeah, we didn’t get to announce on our own terms, but… It feels kind of freeing, doesn’t it? Liberating.”

You truly are insane. Any other sane person would be hyperventilating at the idea of millions knowing of their relationship. Something seen as “taboo” in the industry yet here you are again. Calling the murder of your livelihood liberating.

Chan shakes his head, already tasking for the worst. “The second we get back home, I… I can’t even begin to prepare you for the shitstorm that’s on its way.”

“I know, Channie…”

“The company, I-I’ll— I’ll work this out over the week here, they’ll issue a statement, they’ll say I was just helping a staff member out of the van in the picture— We’ll be okay, you’re okay… Sweetheart, I can’t lose you.”

Chan is a rambling mess and you see his face turn a bit pink. His brain is picking through every worst scenario to prepare for it. He doesn’t even want to check his phone to see what people are saying about you. People claiming to be Stays wishing the worst for you. For him.

“You’re not losing me, I’m not going—”

“You can’t promise that. Not when… Not when they might force us apart.”

He’s not talking about distance people behind a screen. He means the company. Chan’s seen it his fair share of times before, and while Chan is more than welcome to date under his contract… This could get messy. What if the boys are dragged into this? If people started blaming his Kids for menial things, what if his relationship with you breaks their careers?

He studied your silent face. That familiar, pensive look. His clever girl, he knows it all too well. It’s the same face when you’re figuring out a board game with him, or deciphering the layers of music on his laptop when he shows you his proud work.

“No one has that power over us.”

Simple words. Chan swears his breathing stops for a moment before he releases it with a desperate whisper of your name.

“Sweetheart, I… I can barely protect myself in this situation…”

“Let me protect us for once… I-I can’t talk to masses or… your company, but let me fight for us. I’m not letting you slip away,” you whisper into his skin as your lips come down onto his cheek, pulling back to see a small determination in Chan’s eyes.

Staff alerts him that they have ten minutes of personal time left before it’s time to go to claim luggage and head to the hotel. Right, the Fashion Week event. He was allowed to invite you with him, even if you couldn’t be seen with him. Or next to him. Or talk to him.

It all felt like an even bigger slight against you. Sweetheart, darling girl, who he wants to declare his love from the rooftops.

Chan’s eyes meet yours, and you give him your signature, beautiful yet halfhearted smile. You’re trying to soothe him; and damn you, it’s working a bit. Even if it’s just a fraction. All he can do is endure. That’s what he does best.

He takes opens his backpack from under his seat, pulling out a medical grade disposable mask. His fingers ghost your skin as he places the loops around your ears securely. Even concealed like this he’d recognize you from a mile away. You say nothing as he tugs your hood back over your head, cupping the back gently with small little scratches.

“Just look forward. Don’t talk to anyone. Security should be around you, you’ll be behind me. If… If anything happens that makes you uncomfortable, say my name. I don’t care, baby, just… It’ll be fast. Customs. Bags. Van. Hotel. We’ll work it out there, yeah?”

A hastily formulated plan that is utterly him. Diagnostic.

A your lips tighten into a thin line before you exhale off nerves and exhaustion.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

“I love you.”

Chan’s declaration is sudden and whispered. Like staff doesn’t deserve to hear it right now, his private tender moment. He doesn’t know why he says it other than the feeling that it fit right into the moment. You bring his knuckles up to your lips. A promise. You’ll be okay.

“I love you, Chris… I’ll be close by. Don’t worry about me.”

—

A shit show. Chan is familiar with those.

The first thing he sees through the glass after going through customs was a swarm of paparazzi, press, and fans welcoming him for the weeks ahead. Nothing out of the ordinary, just another airport arrival.

No, the problem was when you were spotted. And fuck, he’d forgotten that hoodie you were wearing was his.

Amidst the snapping of camera shutters and flashes, his heart is racing. He’s glad he too is wearing a mask on the lower half of his face, or you’d see how distraught he really was. Under the fabric of his tank top, his heart feels like it’s going to fly out of his chest.

Focus. Walk in silence. Make sure you’re safe.

The second thing Chan notices is that there’s more people than usual. Or maybe the walls of the airport in Milan are more narrow than he remembers. The provided security of four men suddenly seems like nothing. He does the math as he walks when his bags are handed to him:

You’re about 6 people away, tailing behind between staff and security. Don’t get distracted. I know you like sweets sweetheart, don’t look at the treats in the shops. God, I’ll buy you all the sweets you want when we’re at the hotel. Run you a bath and decompress to forget about this. Twenty minutes to the hotel, a ride should already be waiting.

The sound of people is louder. And the second Chan turns the corner and a guard opens the double doors of frosted glass, his heart sinks.

Cameras are naturally always on Chan. But for today especially, he wants them gone. Lenses, smartphones, all of it. Video equipment with recordings. A woman comes awfully close, to which he politely nods his head and continues walking.

More people swarm and he sees phones before he sees actual people. Security does their best to ward off these people, but he notices that with the amount of foot traffic, their entourage is moving slower. The sounds, the questions, the voices all grow more and more over time.

“Chris—”

His head is turned in a heartbeat. He doesn’t care if he makes a fool of himself, he’s stopped dead in his tracks and looking back for you with a bobbing head. His body is jostled by the movements of the tight fit, the arms of security banding away the swathes of onlookers.

Your head is down. You’re trying to move but you can’t. And someone has the audacity to grab at you by the arm? He’s cutting through his own people, ignoring how cameras are shoved into his face, ignoring how there’s so many bodies surrounding him as well. You’re being tossed around like nothing, a few phones trying to duck under your head, and Chan is with you in a millisecond.

“Don’t touch people, please,” he grits out as he forms a barrier between you and the people on your right side. Great. The crowd is held up, naturally as people wanted to convene to Chan. He has to add the formality of “please” as an afterthought. You’d want him to be polite. It’d be a meltdown if he said what he really wanted to.

What he wants to do is smack the phones out of every hand here and tuck you into his arms, walking out like a normal boyfriend would. He can’t afford that. Instead, his hand is ushered with a splayed palm between your shoulder blades. If Chan presses a bit into you to guide you further, he can feel the tension of your muscles.

The clamor of people asking him if this is staff or the “girl from the picture” irritates him to no end. Security was told by Chan himself to corral around you, not him. And for heavens sake, can someone figure out a way from this tight squeeze of a crowd?

Someone’s arm extends with a camera to catch a picture of Chan, and— SMACK! Right against the side of your head. The movement causes you to hiss in pain and fall into Chan. He watches your eyes squeeze shut and your eyebrows pinch in pain. And he’s seething.

“Absolutely not— We’re not gonna do that,” he mumbles under his breath as he gives a disapproving look to the man who is the culprit. His hand reaches out, rings on his fingers and all and shoves the camera lens away a bit roughly. It’s probably a thousand dollar camera lens, but you’re worth so much more. He can deal with the aftermath of that later.

I wanna smack that punk. Can I smack someone? Would you be okay with that? Probably not…

He’s then nodding a head to security to corral the man off. He keeps a tight arm around you, fingers itching to cradle your head to his chest. But he’s already doing so much, a display of affection would only make things descend further.

Nosy, mindless chatter about why Chan is being so protective of you. As if that should matter. He’d do that for any of the people around him. Instead, all that people care of is if this is his partner, either wanted to sneer or pry a glimpse into her.

Another hand reaches out with a phone and Chan doesn’t even think twice before wrapping an arm around your shoulder to shield you. It’s a bit forceful, and he’ll apologize profusely later, but it pulls you into his side. Chan mumbles a curse under his mask and his eyebrows turn taught together.

The motion of moving bodies in the cluster is much easier to maneuver now that they can pass through an opening directed by staff and security. He doesn’t look at you, but he keeps a steady hand on you. So much for laying low, but he could just stand by and let you get hurt.

The second the two of you get into the van that was sent outside of the airport, staff helping you in and loading luggage, he doesn’t say anything. He didn’t even stop for a photo-op. He doesn’t reply when staff asks if he wants water. White noise, an annoying pinching in the back of his ear.

And when the van is out of view, blacked out windows and all— Only then does he fuss over you, throwing off his mask.

He unbuckles his seatbelt, sliding across the back seat and hold you to him. Clammy hands cupping your face like a precious treasure. Your eyes frazzled and in shock, and it makes him whisper your name thrice into your hairline like a restoring prayer.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry— I was a total caveman back there, I had to grab you before anyone hurt you… You’re hurt aren’t you, from the cunt with the camera? Lemme see—”

Faster than the words can come out of him, Chan’s taking your mask off with gentle precision, but as fast as he can. Your hair is all mused when he draws back your hoodie, like a sleepy creature. But a few seconds ago you were just prey thrown into the den. He’s rifling his hands through your scalp, trying to see if you’ve got signs of bruising or bleeding where heavy equipment once stunned you.

“Tell me if it hurts— Fuck, fuck this shit. ‘M fucking pissed right now, sweetheart. I swear, if even a hair is missing here, I’m having words with everyone. Do you feel lightheaded… Can I get some water up here please?”

You look dazed, even with his soft touch, and Chan can’t tell if you’re going to sleep again or burst into a fit of nervous tears.

“Hey, hey, hey— Don’t do that, please— Talk to me, sweetheart.”

He brings his hands back down to cradle the sides of your face, keeping your eyes on him. That must’ve been intense and scary for you, he can’t even begin to imagine what’s going on in your head. You eventually clasp your hands over his wrists and let your forehead fall onto his shoulder, which makes Chan sigh in relief. At least you’re willing to be touched by him.

He slides his hands slowly up under the hoodie, under your shirt, to touch your bare skin. You’re safe. You’re okay. He doesn’t know if those internal words affirm him or you.

You lean into him, pressing your forehead into his neck. “I’m tired.”

“I know, my sweet girl… I’m sorry…”

“Don’t apologize,” you whisper, lips pressed into his neck and trailing down to his shoulder as you rest your cheek flat. Chan feels your breath over his skin. Evened out and calm, though a bit stilted.

“This is on me.” So quick to blame, he shakes his head and closes his eyes, holding you tighter and smoothing his hands over your spine.

“On you…? Because someone took a picture when you couldn’t control it?”

“I wish I could.”

“But you can’t, Channie…”

And he knows that all too well. His perfectionism consumes him sometimes, it bleeds into your relationship. Never touching you, but seeping into the ways that he can shelter you from the public.

Not like a secret. But something sacred in the profane of his eclectic life.

But he can’t. Simple words from you always feel the strongest, like he’s seeing the world in a whole new light. Like you’re some wise sage.

You’re not this unattainable being who’s out of his grasp. You’re right here. In front of him, with raucous laughter in a crowd that’s as contagious as your smile. Animals come to you in the street, and you immediately bend down to coo and pet. You have a way of looking at the world that proves to Chan that good things are all around.

He can’t do it perfectly, but he’ll try. Try his damn hardest to protect you even more, starting with talking to the company once you’re both home again.

Chan pulls back with pitiful eyes, smoothing his hands carefully over your head as they slide out from your clothes.

“Are you sure you’re not hurt…? You took a hit, hm? Sweet, brave girl…” Chan says as he smacks a kiss firmly onto your hairline. You hum and nod your head, just reminding yourself that no one’s taking him from you. Not a messy breakup through a company mandated NDA. Not a public statement. Not through apologizing to upset fans for being in love.

You look up at him and see every reason why you fell in love with him in the first place. His tact and grit. The concern and worry in his eyes. His soothing touch. How he loves with his whole chest.

“I-I had a welcome dinner for the event, but… Honestly, fuck that right now… I’ll send someone to represent me. You need me more— I need you.”

The van drives over bumps and cracks in the road, and it sways you against Chan. A small noise breaks in his throat and he wraps his arms around you, chin atop your head as the ride continues to the hotel.

—

Staying in the hotel room with you meant a complete detachment from any obligation that wasn’t… well, just you.

Fendi brand representatives were more than understanding of the situation, offering a box of sweets to send up to the room as temporary remedial support. You’d thought it was silly, a third party apologizing for something that wasn’t due to them.

You still accepted the box of pastries and cake, though.

Chan ran you a nice bath, as he’d promised to himself for you, sitting on the closed toilet lid and tracing his fingers over your back. He didn’t want to take his hands off you, not without thinking of the hands that were on you prior. Chan’s index runs down the back of your arm, where someone had attempted to pull you in that crowd.

You’ve got your knees tucked up to you, a plethora of lavender scented suds in the porcelain basin. Chan’s hands rake through your scalp to check for damage one last time before helping you dry off in a fluffy robe.

When it was Chan’s turn in the shower to clear his head, all he could think of was what to do with his anger. Letting the hot spray of water hit over him while you were probably lazing on the bed no doubt. You wouldn’t want him to hold onto his anger, but he couldn’t help it. When he was stripping to take his shower he was looking through all the buzz around you and him.

Photos from the airport. Saying Chan had a “meltdown”. Deep dives into who you might be, analyzing every minuscule detail to signs that you were always lingering under their noses. A clip of you getting hit in the head with the camera makes him want to gnaw on drywall until his teeth turn to sawdust.

He saunters out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist, phone in hand and wet strands of blonde hair clinging to his forehead. Just as he presumed, you’re flipping through the room service menu, splayed out like a cloud.

You smile and turn a bit sheepish when you see his appearance. That lack of clothing that never fails to disarm you. He pushes his wet hair away from his forehead, and it sticks up in wild directions. Biting your lip, you singsong a “Hey, handsome.”

The tips of his ears turn red, but he just stares at you. Eyes darkened and expression sullen. Tired. Maybe it was the hot water, but you know he’s still thinking of earlier. How could he not?

“No updates from me. They don’t get a lick of a word from me for a while.”

Bubble. It sounds silly, but you know that’s the best punishment Chan can offer. It sends a message… or in this case, a lack thereof. You snort and sit upright, musing, “You’re doing the whole “punish-the-entire-class-for-three-people’s-wrongdoings” shtick, huh?”

The corners of his lips quirk upright, a dimple craters his face. “I mean it. This was an overstep. You know how much I hate that shit, baby…”

Chan huffs as he throws himself onto the bed, purring like a cat as he feels your nails rake up and down his skin. He closes his eyes, sighing the tension out of his body. His cheek is pressed against his folded forearms as he speaks.

“Sent some messages. People need to learn… Told them off a bit, took my picture down—”

“Your profile picture?” you interrupt, a small laugh escaping you as he frowns.

“It’s the best I can do without completely losing it on everyone.”

“Okay… okay, what’d you say in your messages?”

Chan opens his eyes and looks up at you, grunting as he sits up on his elbows to give you his phone. He was already in the Bubble app when he’d come out of the bathroom:

🫧 260223

🐺: It does not matter if I am with staff, a friend, the kids, a lover, etc. You do not behave like this. These people know who they are. You should know better, and it pains me to have to write this.

🐺: On a personal level, leave the people around me alone ffs. You’re here for the kids and I, not to push around the people in our lives. Do not write editorials on the people I hold dear to my heart. Don’t say bad things about my loved ones lol. I know them and you don’t.

🐺: My choices. My decisions. Accept them or don’t bother being a fan.

🐺: Diabolical.

🐺: Don’t stick your camera right in my face

🐺: Respect boundaries please

You look up from the phone and Chan isn’t looking at you anymore. Like he’s mulling over the thought of saying more on the messages. He pinches the lobe of his ear and rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling.

“As for you… I’ve already emailed the company. We’ll announce it properly that you’re my—”

“Christopher, are you serious—?”

“—That you’re the love of my life… You’re mine, and you’ve been mine, and this whole day has been insane, but I don’t want… I don’t want peace if it isn’t with you.”

Stunned to silence. This is a major step in his career, in his life. But it was bound to happen, even if it wasn’t on your own terms. He watches your mouth flounder for words and sits up on his elbows again, taking your hand in his.

“Sweetheart… You’re not some dirty secret, you never were… You’re not illicit, you’re mine. I’m tired of hiding the things I’m proud of. You’ve every piece of me, yeah? The ones that no one sees. They’ve just been for each other,” Chan leans against the headboard and brings your hand over his chest, your touch feeling how erratic his heart is beating. He’s just as nervous as you are, even when he’s taking the lead.

Your eyes soften, throat feeling a bit tight with emotion. “What if… What if it goes bad…?”

“Then it goes bad.”

You laugh, a bit of a wet sound now that glossy tears are starting to pool in your eyes. He smiles so delicately, closing his eyes as he gives you slow popcorn kisses on your cheek to make you feel better.

“I learned that from a girl once. She’s amazing. She taught me that sometimes things are out of my control.”

“She sounds badass.”

Chan grins, a hand cupping the back of your neck as he watches you wipe salty tears from your eyes in closed fists. “She is. And I’m gonna tell the whole world about her. But… there’s a few things I’m keeping private.”

His nose brushes yours as he chases your eyes for contact. You feel your face heats with his intensity. How does he still manage to look at you like you’re the only woman on planet Earth?

“What would that be, Christopher…?”

“Oh, it’s Christopher again now, is it?”

He playfully kisses under your jaw and brings you down to play with him on the bed, keeping his arms tethered around you as you writhe from the tickling of his wet hair on your face.

“Keeping these moments private. When I have you to myself… Just like this," he mumbles against your skin, breathing in the smell of your skin and expelling warm breath against it. You always smell like something fresh to him. Something cozy and intimate that he can't put into words. "They'll know you as my girlfriend. It'll be official. And Stay can get off my ass about me being lonely... Let's order some food, yeah? Think I finally built up an appetite."

The remainder of the night is spent with the hotel curtains drawn at the balcony. Ordering whatever sounds most appetizing on the room service menu, and cozying up next to each other while trying to figure out how the TV channels work.

All he's ever wanted is for your ultimate happiness. Sometimes factors of life get in the way of that, but you're a constant. His Kids are a constant.

Chan watches you happily munch on a burger on the bed, and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. Pets your head a little before puckering his plush lips to kiss you on yours mid chew, much to your chagrin as you groan and pull away. He takes a bite of a pizza slice.

"Channie, 'm eating..."

"Okay? Swallow and kiss me."

"That's what she said."

"Minx..."

You finish your bite and turn your head properly, looking up at him with expectant wide eyes. It makes Chan want to squish your face until your eyes pop out. Cuteness aggression.

Instead he leans in a bit, closes his eyes, and brings a hand under your chin to direct your lips onto his. In his mind, he thinks there's nothing more perfect than this, and that's coming from the master perfectionist. He trusts that you enjoy this longing kiss as much as he does when your lips move against his.

A small sound escapes him, like pure want. He pulls back before it goes any further and he swipes all this food away so he can satiate his other hunger.

“You’re incredible,” he breathes out, shaking his head as if he can’t believe you’re his. You’ve got him wrapped around your finger and you don’t even realize it. You just cozy back into his side and continue to eat, watching stupid infomercials and snuggling against him.

Chan’s arm comes over your shoulder and stays. Pulling you closer, like he can fuse into you.

This is the best he can do. Chan’s nervous for the future, as he often is. But with you feeling like this against him, it’s an exciting kind of nervous. What was that word you’d said— liberating. You’re always right, aren’t you?

New terrain is exciting. Even if it terrifies him. Because you’re not going anywhere, even if he’s haunted by the prospect of seeing people come and go from his life. He knows you’re the one that locked him down.

No obligations for the week ahead. He’ll go through his ambassador work. Take some interviews and pictures, an editorial video. And at night, in the late hour of Milan, that’s when he’ll come alive. He’s going to take you to that small restaurant you wanted to go to so bad. To see architecture and cobbled streets in golden lamppost light.

Chan burrows his nose into your damp hair, whispers a sweet nothing, and closes his eyes. You’re the peace he strived for. Even when it comes with a storm, he’ll chase it away.

“you just had to mess with me while i was working,” you roll your eyes but accept when he turns you around to lean you against the empty kitchen counter. “did you accomplish your goal of being one annoyance closer to me murdering you and taking the insurance money to hire movers?”

“no, but i did accomplish my goal of getting your attention,” he leans into your space, pressing you up further into the countertop. “you’re working too hard, baby. take a break.”

“i just need to get one more box done, then-“ the rest of your sentence is muffled by the palm of his hand and you make angry eye contact with him above his wrist. it’s the only thing you can do to retaliate, since he doesn’t get grossed out if you lick his hand and gets weirdly turned on if you bite it.

“box later,” he insists, pulling his hand away to tame a stray lock of your hair down against our head. “lunch now. hungry.”

“and he’s reduced to caveman speech,” you give in easily when you feel the weariness of your muscles sink in. it is easy to ignore when you are busy, but with the languid comfort that comes with his weight pressed against yours it draws your attention.

“would a caveman do this?” he leans in the rest of the way and presses his lips to yours in a slow, gentle kiss, letting his breath out into a sigh against your mouth. he squeezes his hands against your hips and lifts, and your center of gravity shifts as you’re placed on top of the counter.

“that’s exactly what a caveman would do, i think,” you say, breaking the kiss to thunk your head against the cabinet behind you. you can see his brain working to produce a witty comeback by the way his eyes narrow, but he must lose the fight with his own intelligence because he sinks to his knees a moment later without a word.

“i think cavemen like snacks,” he leans his head against your thigh and plays with the waistband of your shorts with his hands, looking up at you through his dark eyelashes. “does my food consent to a little pre-lunch sample?”

“as long as we can let this metaphor go, you can do whatever you want,” you feign nonchalance but your heartbeat is picking up, crescendoing into a racing pace when he manages to wiggle your shorts and underwear off of you.

you would go into the semantics of your bare ass on the kitchen counter being unhygienic, but you’re moving out tomorrow and soon that’ll be someone else’s problem. hopefully the new tenant bleaches everything.

he noses at your folds, unhurried and curious like he’s discovering something for the first time. when his tongue darts out to taste you, you’re almost embarrassed by the whine that leaves your throat without permission. really, you shouldn’t be so effected by such a simple touch, but you both have been too busy with packing the last few weeks to do anything other than unsatisfying quickies in the shower and it’s left you restless.

your breath hitches when he grabs your thighs and pushes your legs further apart. his next lick is harder, more of his tongue reaching out to draw a broad stroke between your hole and your clit. your hips jerk when his teeth graze against your skin and a small gush of slick escapes as you clench around nothing.

“the snack talks back,” he smirks, using two of his fingers to spread the wetness around. he teases at your entrance, and chokes on a gasp when your hands fly to his hair to press his face against your core.

“oh my god, shut up,” you loosen your grip when he gets the message and starts sucking at your clit, meaningfully this time instead of whatever he was doing before while thinking of some weird prehistoric era joke. he dips his fingers into you, crooking his fingers and making shallow thrusts that light up your nerve endings. fuck, this will be over too soon with the way you’re reacting.

you let go of his hair to cover your mouth as you start panting along with the pulsing in your pussy, and he whines into you pitifully. you’re not sure if it’s because he wants you to pull on his hair or because he wants to hear you, but he relaxes when your hand fists back into his curls.

“fuuuuuck, baby,” your hips are moving in minute jerks and you can feel the familiar burning heat spread through your core as your orgasm builds. you twitch one last time as it finally snaps, and your walls pulse desperately around his fingers as he eats you through it. your legs close around his ears as you come, your vision blacking out for a moment in response to his enthusiastic licking and sucking.

you relax your legs and push him away once the pleasure sparks into overstimulation, electricity crackling against a fine line between good and too much. he stays for a few seconds longer, stubborn in his desire to clean you up and hear you whimper, before falling back into his heels.

his face is glistening with your slick, his lips are red and swollen and he looks so satisfied with himself that you’re abruptly annoyed again.

“don’t say it,” you warn, the fear you wanted to instill dulled by the lethargy in your voice. “whatever stupid joke you’re going to say, keep it in your head.”