FD:BLOODLINES

The train ride up to New York is quieter than it normally seems.

Logan sits across from you with his headphones in, scrolling through something on his phone, but every so often he looks up to check on you the way he used to. Your uncle is in the seat by the window, reading glasses low on his nose, a folded newspaper in his lap that he hasn’t actually looked at in twenty minutes. Spencer is beside you, close enough that his shoulder brushes yours every time the train sways. He hasn’t said much since you left the train station. He just keeps his hand loosely around yours, his thumb moving back and forth against the top of yours.

It’s your mom’s birthday.

You haven’t said the words out loud yet, but everyone on this train already knows. Logan came in from Oregon two days early for Christmas specifically for this. Rossi cleared not only his schedule, but asked Hotch for Spencer to be free as well. And Spencer…Spencer just quietly rearranged everything so he could be here too.

Three years.

It still doesn’t feel real sometimes. Three years since the house in New York went quiet. Three years since Dennis James was arrested at the scene and everyone told you it was over. Three years since Rossi brought you and Logan home with him and tried to build something steady out of the wreckage. You were 15. Logan was 22 and still in college. Neither of you really knew how to be without them yet.

The cemetery is on the edge of the city, the kind of place that feels older than the buildings around it. Your breath shows in fog clouds when you step out of the train. The air smells like cold earth, wet leaves, and the faint of snow that hasn’t quite decided to fall yet. 

Rossi leads the way without needing a map. He’s been here enough times that the path is familiar under his feet. Gravel crunches softly beneath your shoes. Logan falls into step on your other side, the sleeve of his jacket occasionally brushing yours. Spencer stays half a pace behind you at first, close enough that you can feel the heat of him, until you reach back and find his hand again. His fingers close around yours immediately.

The headstones are simple. Side by side under a bare oak tree that has dropped most of its leaves. A few stubborn brown ones still cling to the lower branches and rustle whenever the wind moves through. Your parents’ names are carved in clean, steady letters. The dates underneath still make your throat tighten the same way they did the first time you saw them when you were 15. The grass around the base is dormant and pale. A thin layer of frost still clings to the side of the stones.

Logan crouches first. He brushes a few stray leaves away from the base with careful fingers and sets down the small bouquet of white roses the two of you picked out that morning. The paper wrapping crinkles in the quiet. Rossi stands with his hands in his coat pockets for a long moment, giving the two of you space without ever actually leaving. Then he steps forward.

He rests one hand lightly on the top of your father’s headstone, the way he used to rest it on his brother’s shoulder.

“We got him,” Rossi says quietly, voice low and steady in the cold air. “Steven Woods. He’s gone.” A small, rough breath leaves him. “You can rest easier now. Both of you.”

He stays there a second longer, then glances over his shoulder at Spencer, who is standing a respectful half step back with his hands buried deep in his coat pockets, glasses slightly fogged from the cold.

“There’s someone else here today,” Rossi continues, still addressing the graves. “Someone from the team. Someone who’s been looking after Y/N better than I ever managed to on my own. I want you to meet him.”

He steps back, giving you the space. 

You were surprised to find out that Spencer was coming today. It’s not like you’re not glad he’s here, you are. But you just didn’t expect it. Your uncle arranged for it without telling you, and Spencer just didn’t mention it. You only found out when he showed up at your house this morning, and your uncle asked if he was ready for the trip.

You squeeze Spencer’s fingers and step closer to the graves, bringing him with you. The grass is stiff underfoot.

“Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad,” you say softly. Your voice sounds smaller than usual out here, almost swallowed by the open air.  Spencer is very still beside you.

You look at him again, and the softest, most nervous version of his smile appears. He clears his throat, then he lets go of your hand only long enough to take his glasses off, wipe them carefully on the edge of his sweater, and put them back on straight, like he wants to be as put together as possible for this.

He steps a little closer to the headstones, hands now buried deep in his coat pockets again, and speaks in that quiet, careful voice he only ever uses when something matters too much to rush.

“Hello,” he says. “I’m Spencer. It’s… it’s really nice to meet you both. I’ve heard a lot about you.” A small, self-conscious breath leaves him in a white cloud. “D-Dave had me come today because he wanted me t-to meet…or talk, I’m not sure the correct term to use, you.”

Logan huffs a quiet laugh behind you. The sound is rough from the cold, but fond. Rossi smiles a small, amused smile..

Spencer keeps going, eyes on the names carved in stone.

“She’s remarkable. I know you already know that. But I need you to know that I know it too. You guys did a good job.” he looks over his shoulder at your uncle standing behind him before turning back. “And so did Dave.I love her. Very much.” 

His voice is a little shaky by the time he’s done. He reaches out beside him and takes your hand in his again before he swallows, and lowers his voice.

“Thank you for her,” he says quietly, making a warm tear fall down your cold, rosy cheeks. You sniffle, causing Spencer to immediately turn and worry to cover his face. You just shake your head and push your face into his armpit. He wraps his free arm around you, pulling you closer into him and kissing the top of your head.

“Yeah, well,” Logan says, stepping forward to the graves and pointing at you and Spencer. “I credit myself for this whole thing.”

“What?” you say, tipping your head back from Spencer’s warm side and looking at Logan.

Logan grins, rocking back on his heels the way he used to when he was about to admit something.

“I had to sit you down and spell it out, remember,” he smiles at you. “You kept telling me he didn’t like you in the same sentence as you telling me you guys held hands while watching Oceans 11.”

“You told him about that?” Spencer says to you. 

“She did,” Logan answers for you. “I had to tell her if the two of you didn’t figure it out for yourselves soon I was going to lock you in a room until one of you confessed.”

A small laugh escapes you as Spencer squeezes your hand. You lean your head back against him, grateful that despite how long it took, it all worked out.

“But yeah,” Logan says, returning his attention back to the graves. “Spencer is cool, you guys would love him. He’s a genius.”

“He is,” you mumble, smiling through tears.

The wind drifts quietly through the bare branches overhead. Somewhere farther into the cemetery a church bell rings the hour, the sound carrying softly through the cold December air. You continue crying into Spencer’s shoulder. Eventually he looks toward you.

“Do you want me to give you some space?”

You don't even have to think about it.

“No,” you answer quicker than he expected. “I don't...” You glance down at your parents' names again. “I don't really want to be alone today.”

“Okay,” he nods. 

No questions. No convincing. Just okay.

Logan clears his throat. “I'll give you two a minute anyway.”

He steps around the other side of the tree, stopping in front of your dad's headstone. He slips his hands into his pockets, staring down at it for a long moment before speaking so quietly you can barely make out the words.

You deliberately look away. Some conversations aren't meant to be overheard. Instead, you kneel in front of your mom's grave. Spencer stays standing, putting a gentle hand on your back. The stone is cold beneath your fingertips. A little frost has settled across the engraved letters. You brush it away carefully.

“I..” you start, voice cracking. “I never really know what to say when I come here.”

“Just say what you feel like she should know,” Spencer says softly, lowering himself beside you, his hand still on your back.

“I guess…” you stop to think. The first thing that crosses your mind is the car. The shed. The kidnapping. But you don’t want to ruin the mood, which sounds pretty ironic to think about considering you’re in a graveyard. “School's going well.”

Spencer starts moving his hand in small circles on your back. They almost feel encouraged.

“I’m almost halfway through college now,” you say. A small laugh comes past your lips. The thought feels strange. “Uncle Dave did Thanksgiving with his team this year. He made two turkeys.”

Spencer chuckles next to you. You look at him, almost as if you’re giving him permission to talk. He understands. Of course he does.

“The team loves her,” Spencer says to the stone. “Even before we all got to meet her, Rossi would talk about her. He used to tell us how many mugs she left in the sink.” He glances at you briefly, with an adoring smile. “I thought he was exaggerating…” he trails off in a giggle. “He wasn’t.”

You smile slightly. Only slightly. But it’s there.

“I still miss you,” you say, voice small. “...I wish you could’ve met Spencer.” You look over at him, his cheeks a soft red from the cold.  “You would’ve loved him.”

You smile through another tear and rest your head lightly against his shoulder. He brings a hand up to cup the side of your head gently. You look up at him, your chin digs slightly into his arm, but he doesn’t say anything.

“She would’ve loved you,” you say to him. 

He pulls your head into his side, you bury your nose into his armpit. You can faintly smell his deodorant through the thick layers of his coat and sweater.

“...I’m trying,” you hear softly from the other side of the tree. 

Logan.

“...I don’t know.”

There’s a long silence. 

“...I feel guilty.”

You should talk to cover him up. Listening feels wrong. But you don’t know what to say. 

“I was really worried about her when I first moved. She seems happy since she met Spenc–”

The wind picks up, covering the end of Logan’s sentence. But you heard enough to know it was about you. You knew he worried about you. He’s your older brother, that’s what he’s supposed to do. You just didn’t know he felt…guilty.

Guilty for what?

For your parents dying? That wasn’t his fault. For moving to Oregon? He got a job. It sucked, but it was a great opportunity.

You didn’t know what he could feel guilty about.

And you’ll never know unless you ask. Logan walks around from the tree, his eyes slightly pink around the edges. He doesn’t say anything, just stands beside you. Eventually, Rossi clears his throat. 

“Well,” he straightens his coat. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but you kids’ mother would be furious if she knew we skipped lunch.”

You smile, knowing he’s right. 

The wind stirred through the bare branches overhead, sending a handful of dry leaves across the frozen ground. You looked down at the two names carved into the stone one last time. You squeezed Spencer's hand once before finally letting go.

"Ready?" Rossi asked gently.

Logan nodded.

"Yeah," you said, taking one last look over your shoulder. "I think so."

The four of you started back toward the path together, your footsteps crunching softly over the frost. Spencer's shoulder found yours again without either of you thinking about it, Logan nudged you with his elbow over something only the two of you understood, and your uncle walked a few paces ahead, hands tucked into his coat pockets.

The cemetery slowly disappeared behind you.

Somehow, leaving this time didn’t feel like it normally did. It didn’t feel like leaving them behind, it felt like moving forward.

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a/n: that last sentence is so fucking cringe omgggg i wish i knew of a better way to end it but im #washed i hope this part does something for someone because i lowkey kind of hate it, as previously mentioned, i’m weird with death so i hope i wrote grief/mourning okay :P

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Spencer's hands are careful as he fastens your bulletproof vest over your chest, his brows furrowed. The fluorescent lights of the bullpen wash him pale, catching the faint shadows under his eyes from too many nights spent buried in files.

“You tightened it too much,” you mumble, wincing as he tugs the straps.

“It’s supposed to be tight,” he says automatically, not looking up.

“Pretty sure breathing is also supposed to happen.” That finally earns you a glance. Not amused. Just worried.

“You joke when you’re nervous.”

“And you lecture when you are.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. My lungs would like to file a formal complaint.” His mouth twitches despite himself, but it disappears almost immediately. Spencer smooths his hand over the front of the vest one last time, checking for gaps like he doesn’t trust the fabric to do its job properly. You study him for a second.

“You know,” you say quietly, “most people just say ‘be careful.’”

“I did say that.”

“Three times.”

“Because you ignored me the first two.” A snort escapes you, but it fades when you notice the way his fingers linger near your ribs. Restless. Anxious.The case had gotten ugly fast.Three victims in four days. All connected to the Bureau in some way. Retired agents. Informants. One federal prosecutor. And now the unsub had escalated from taunting the BAU to targeting your father directly. Aaron Hotchner had made enemies before. Plenty of them. But this one felt different.

Personal.

The unsub had been sending photographs for weeks now. Grainy shots of Hotch entering Quantico. Jack at soccer practice. You grabbing coffee outside the bullpen with Spencer. Watching. Waiting. The latest message had arrived that morning.

Tick tock, Hotchner.

And underneath it:

What hurts worse? Losing your team… or your daughter?

Hotch had gone frighteningly still when Garcia read it aloud. You’d watched the muscle in his jaw tick once before he started assigning teams like the world wasn’t tilting beneath his feet. Now the bullpen buzzes around you—agents moving quickly, radios crackling, Emily and JJ arguing quietly over routes—but Spencer still hasn’t stepped back.

“Spence,” you say softly. His eyes flick to yours immediately. “I’ll be okay.” The problem is he doesn’t answer. Because Spencer Reid has seen too many people promise that before bleeding out anyway. Behind you, your father emerges from his office already shrugging into his jacket.

“We hit the road in two,” Hotch says. The entire room shifts instantly into motion. Spencer finally lets go of your vest, though reluctantly, like peeling his hands away from something important.

“You stay with Luke,” he says firmly. “Don’t split up. Don’t go anywhere alone." You blink at him.

“Wow. You and my dad should start a podcast.”

“I’m serious.”

“You’re always serious.”

“That’s statistically inaccurate.” That almost gets a real smile out of you.Almost. Then Hotch’s voice cuts through the bullpen again.

“Let’s move.” You reach up and pull Spencer down towards you, catching his lips in a quick kiss as your dad, Luke, Walker and Emily all walk towards the black SUV's waiting for you downstairs.

The kiss barely lasts two seconds.

Still, Spencer chases it for half a heartbeat when you pull away, his hand catching briefly at your wrist like he’s fighting the urge to keep you there.

“Be careful,” he says quietly. You soften a little at the look on his face.

“Spence, we’re literally just surveilling a warehouse.”

“That statement significantly increases the statistical likelihood something catastrophic is about to happen.” Luke snorts from beside the elevators.

“He’s got a point.” You roll your eyes, backing toward the bullpen doors.

“You’re all dramatic.” Hotch appears behind you, expression unreadable but tired in the way only your father can manage.

“Move.”And just like that, the moment’s over. Everyone scatters into motion.

The unsub’s name is Daniel Kessler.

Former paramedic. Former military. Smart enough to stay ahead of the BAU for six weeks and angry enough to make mistakes.

More specifically: angry at Aaron Hotchner.

Three years ago, Hotch testified in a corruption case involving Kessler’s brother. The brother went to prison. Died there eleven months later.

Kessler blamed Hotch.

And now bodies were piling up across Virginia with surgical precision and handwritten messages left behind at each scene.

The latest lead had come fast—a possible location tied to one of Kessler’s shell companies just outside Quantico. Which was why the team was mobilizing so quickly. Three SUVs. Hotch and Rossi in the first. JJ and Tara in the second. You, Luke, Emily, and Walker in the third. Spencer stayed behind with Garcia to monitor incoming intel. He looked miserable about it.

At first, the drive is almost painfully normal. Walker’s driving. Emily sits shotgun flipping through case notes while Luke scrolls through updates on his phone beside you in the backseat. Rain taps softly against the windows. The highway stretches dark and endless ahead of you. Your phone buzzes.

SPENCE You forgot your scarf.

You smile despite yourself.

YOU Tragic. I’ll hold a funeral later.

Three dots appear immediately.

Then:

SPENCE Funny people are statistically more likely to survive traumatic situations.

You bark out a laugh. Luke glances over.

“Pretty Boy?”

“Unfortunately.” Emily sighs dramatically from the front seat.

“You two are disgusting.”

“You say that like you haven’t watched them stare at each other for ten straight minutes in briefing rooms,” Walker says.

“I have,” Emily replies. “That’s why I said it. I've also watched them pine for each other for years. This sudden shift in dynamics is weird. I honestly liked it better when Reid was all stuttery and shy around her."

"We didn't pine." You grumble, shifting in your seat. Four separate looks immediately get directed at you. Luke actually lowers his phone.

“Be serious.”

“He wrote you a six-page apology because he accidentally snapped at you once,” Emily says to absolutely no one’s surprise.

Walker snorts from the driver’s seat.

“Reid used to look like he was being held hostage every time she touched him.”

“He still does sometimes,” Luke says.

“Okay, wow,” you mutter. Emily twists slightly in her seat to look back at you.

“Sweetheart, he once walked into the glass conference room wall because you smiled at him.”

“That happened one time.”

“Twice,” Luke corrects. Walker laughs.

“Nah, my favorite was the coffee thing.” You narrow your eyes.

“What coffee thing?”

“You brought him coffee every morning for like eight months,” Walker says.

“Because he forgets to eat when he’s working.”

“And Reid started memorizing your coffee order after day two,” Emily adds smugly. Luke points between all of you.

“See, this is why none of us were shocked when they finally got together.”

“You were all shocked,” you argue.

“We were shocked it took this long,” Emily corrects. Emily cackles. “You're dating a textbook.”

“A very pretty textbook,” you mumble before thinking better of it. Unfortunately the entire car hears you. Walker makes a wounded sound.

“Oh, that’s disgusting.” Emily clutches her chest dramatically.

“No, let her continue. This is healing me.” You flip her off from the backseat. Rain continues tapping softly against the windshield as the SUV speeds down the dark stretch of highway. The radio crackles quietly every few seconds with updates from the other cars. Somewhere ahead, Hotch and Rossi are already discussing entry routes. JJ’s voice cuts in briefly over comms before fading back out. For a moment, everything feels strangely normal.

Easy.

Luke elbows you lightly.

“You know Reid almost called Hotch Sr when he asked permission to ask you out.” Your head whips toward him.

“What?” Emily bursts into delighted laughter.

“He did.” Walker nearly misses the curve in the road because he’s laughing too hard now.

“No he did not.”

“Oh, he absolutely did,” Emily says. “Hotch just stared at him for like ten full seconds while Reid visibly aged.” Luke deepens his voice badly in imitation. “‘Agent Hotchner, respectfully, I was wondering if—’”

“Stop talking,” you groan.

“—if your daughter would potentially—’”

“You’re all dead to me.” Emily wipes tears from under her eyes.

“Your father looked so uncomfortable.” Walker grins into the rearview mirror.

“Honestly brave of Reid. I’d rather fistfight a bear than ask Hotch for dating permission.”

“He didn’t ask permission,” you defend automatically. Luke raises an eyebrow.

“He absolutely did.” Luke laughs. And for one perfect, stupid second, everything feels fine.

Then you see it. Up ahead. Small. Sharp. Metal glinting beneath the headlights. Your stomach drops instantly.

“Walker—” Too late. The SUV hits the spike strips hard. The sound is explosive. All four tires blow at once.

"Shit !" Walker jerks the wheel violently as the vehicle fishtails across the slick highway. Emily shouts something.

"Everybody hold on !" Luke grabs for the handle above the door. Your seatbelt locks brutally across your chest as the world spins sideways.

Then— Headlights. Blinding. A truck horn screaming— And impact. Metal shrieks. Glass detonates. Your body whips sideways so hard your vision whites out completely. Something slams into your ribs.

When you wake up, you can’t breathe. Pain hits first. Not sharp. Everywhere. Burning agony flooding through every inch of your body like someone poured gasoline into your veins. A broken sound leaves your throat. Smoke curls through the crushed SUV. Your head lolls sideways. Everything looks wrong. The windshield is gone. The dashboard is crumpled inward. Blood streaks the windows. Your seatbelt digs painfully into your chest. For a second you can’t understand why your left arm won’t move properly. Then feeling rushes back all at once and you nearly black out again.

“Fuck—” Your voice comes out shredded. You force your head up. Emily’s slumped against the passenger door, unmoving, blood running down the side of her face. Luke’s crumpled awkwardly beside you.

Walker— Walker’s head hangs at an angle that makes your stomach twist violently. Too still. Far too still.

“Walker,” you croak. No response. You try again, panic climbing your throat. You reach forward, wincing at the pull of your seat belt, shaking him. “Walker!” His entire body slumps forward, head landing on the steering wheel with a deafening thud. You bite back the bile threatening to spew out of you, your vision tunneling as you jerk back. Your chest caves inward.

Oh God. Smoke thickens around you. The car groans. Somewhere outside, people are shouting. You fumble clumsily for the seatbelt release with trembling fingers. It finally clicks. The second it unlatches, your body pitches forward violently and agony tears through your side hard enough to make you scream. Something’s wrong. Something is very, very wrong. You look down. Blood. So much blood. A jagged piece of metal protrudes from beneath your ribs. Your vision flickers.

“No no no—” The driver-side door suddenly jerks open. Cold rain floods in. A man appears beside the wreckage wearing EMT gear. Reflective jacket. Medical gloves. Calm eyes. Relief crashes through you so hard you almost cry.

“Ma'am,” he says firmly. “Stay still.” You nod weakly.

“My-My friends - Please you have to-” Your eyes dart around, trying to catch a glimpse of the other cars. You can see smoke and fire from somewhere behind you, and panic claws up your throat. "Oh, god- my-my dad is in- please, you have to-"

“We’ll get them,” he says quickly. “I need to move you first.” Your brain feels slow. Foggy. He cuts through your vest with terrifying efficiency. Strong hands slide beneath your arms. Pain explodes through your abdomen as he pulls you free from the wreckage. You scream.

“I know,” he says soothingly. “I know. I got you.” Rain pours down around you. Lights flash red and blue across the highway. Your head lolls weakly against his shoulder as he carries you toward the ambulance. You can barely keep your eyes open. Your body feels heavy.

Wrong.

“Dad,” you mumble. “Need my dad—”

“We already got the two other cars evacuated. We have extra RA's en route to escort your friends to the hospital. Your father is waiting for you there.” the EMT says. You nod, rain soaking your clothes. He loads you onto the stretcher. The ambulance doors stand open behind you.

Then— Movement. Across the wreckage. Another SUV. Crushed against the guardrail. And stumbling out of it— Hotch.

Your father can barely stand. Blood runs down the side of his face. One arm hangs limp. But the second his eyes land on you— Pure horror floods his expression.

“Sweetheart !” Your breath catches.

What ?

Your breath catches. The EMT had said Hotch was already at the hospital. Your stomach drops so violently it almost makes you vomit.

No.

No, no—

Hotch stumbles forward through the rain, slipping against the soaked pavement as he tries to run toward the ambulance. Rossi is behind him shouting for medics, for backup, for somebody to stop the vehicle, but your father’s eyes are locked entirely on you. On the man beside you. And suddenly you understand. The EMT’s hand tightens on the stretcher rail.

“Wait,” you whisper. Hotch sees your expression change.

“No!” he roars. The ambulance doors slam shut. The sound nearly knocks the air out of your lungs. Panic detonates through your body. You jerk upright instantly despite the agony ripping through your abdomen.

“Stop the fucking ambulance!” you scream, scrambling backward across the stretcher. Pain tears through your ribs so hard your vision whites out, but adrenaline keeps you moving. “Stop—” The EMT grabs for you. You swing first. Your fist cracks against his jaw hard enough to snap his head sideways. For one glorious second, he actually looks surprised.

“Bitch,” he mutters. You lunge for the door handles. Your blood-slick fingers almost catch them before he hauls you backward violently. Agony explodes through your side and a scream rips out of your throat. Outside the tiny rear windows, you can still see your father. Hotch is running after the ambulance. Actually running. Broken. Bleeding. Desperate.

“Dad!” you sob, slamming your palm against the doors. “Dad!” The ambulance swerves sharply.

The EMT hooks an arm around your waist and drags you back against him with brutal force. You fight instantly, elbows flying despite the pain.

“Get the fuck off me!” you choke out.

“Jesus Christ,” the man snarls, struggling to keep hold of you. “You really are his kid.” Something cold presses suddenly against your neck. A syringe. Your blood runs cold.

“No—” The needle plunges into your skin. You gasp sharply and shove at him harder, but your limbs already feel wrong. Heavy. Slow. “No no no—” The man restrains you easily now, forcing you back onto the stretcher as the sedative floods your bloodstream. Your vision starts swimming almost immediately. Outside, through the blurred back windows, you see Hotch reach the ambulance for half a second— His hand slams against the rear doors as he screams your name.

“No !” The sound breaks something inside you. Then the ambulance surges forward. And your father disappears into rain and flashing lights. Your body stops cooperating.

Your arms feel numb.

Your heartbeat echoes strangely in your ears.

The EMT pulls off his mask calmly while you struggle weakly beneath him.

Not an EMT.

Kessler.

You recognize him now. The eyes. Cold. Empty. Patient.

“You should’ve stayed still,” he says, almost disappointed. Your mouth won’t work properly anymore.

“You…” you slur weakly. Kessler sighs, pushing you flat against the stretcher as your body goes limp beneath his hands.

“Relax,” he murmurs. “You’re bleeding internally. This is keeping you alive.” You try to fight him again anyway. Your hand barely lifts. Kessler watches you with detached fascination.

"Let's see if Aaron Hotchner's precious daughter is more important than putting me behind bars." He grabs another needle and grabs you arm.

You try to fight back- God, you try.

But your body feels like it's been filled with concrete, like your veins are hardening with every passing second, weighing you down.

Kessler grins.

"Sweet dreams."

-----------------

"Aaron- Aaron, listen to me-" Rossi is waving his arms in front of Hotch as real sirens flood the space. Emily crawls out of the car, coughing and bleeding from her temple, her hand pressed to her side as she limps her way over to Luke's side of the car and tugs him out. JJ stumbles from another wreckage, waving her hand in front of her face as she coughs, a large gash running down the side of her arm. Tara doesn't look badly hurt, just concussed as she stumbles down the stretch of highway, her hand pressed to her head in confusion as Derek helps her forward.

And Aaron Hotchner can't fucking breathe.

"N-No, we- we have to go after her." He rasps, shaking his head. "The ambulance didn't have a license plate but-but it was him. It was him, Dave." Rossi grabs Hotch hard by the shoulders.

“Aaron!” Hotch’s chest heaves violently. Rain pours down his face, mixing with blood from the cut at his hairline. His eyes are locked on the empty stretch of highway where the ambulance disappeared into the storm.

“The ambulance didn’t have plates,” he says again, voice shredded raw. “It was him. Dave, it was fucking him.” Behind them, chaos erupts across the crash site. Actual EMTs flood the highway now, shouting over each other as they move between the wrecked SUVs. Red and blue lights flash violently across twisted metal and shattered glass. Somebody yells for extraction tools. Another medic shouts about fuel leakage. Walker’s body is finally pulled from the front seat. Emily sees the tarp being unfolded and stops dead.

“No,” she whispers. Luke catches her arm before she can stumble forward. JJ presses a trembling hand over her mouth, blood still running down her forearm. Tara stands dazed beside Derek, one hand against her temple as she tries to process the devastation around her. For one horrible moment, nobody speaks. Then the highway explodes back into noise.

“Aaron,” Rossi says again, more firmly this time. “Talk to me.” Hotch looks like he can barely breathe.

“She saw me,” he rasps. “She looked right at me.” His voice breaks on the last word. Dave’s stomach twists. Because Aaron Hotchner does not break. Not like this. “She realized it wasn’t real,” Hotch says, staring blankly down the road. “She started fighting him.” Emily looks up sharply.

“What?” Hotch drags a hand over his bloodied face.

“He was dressed like an EMT.” His breathing turns uneven. “I thought she was being transported until I saw—” He cuts himself off hard. Too late. Rossi catches it immediately.

“What did you see?” Aaron closes his eyes for one second too long. When he opens them again, there’s something almost haunted sitting behind them.

“She was hurt.” The team goes still.

“How bad?” JJ asks quietly. Hotch swallows.

“I don’t know.” Lie. Everybody hears it. Aaron’s jaw tightens violently. “There was blood,” he says carefully, like each word physically hurts. “A lot of blood.” Emily’s face drains of color. Luke curses under his breath.

“She couldn’t move properly,” Hotch continues hollowly. “He had to carry her." Nobody says anything after that. Because they all know what that means. Then headlights tear onto the highway. A black SUV brakes hard across the shoulder. Spencer is out of the vehicle before it fully stops moving. Garcia barely gets the car in park before he’s sprinting after him.

“Hotch!” Spencer shouts, panic already threading through his voice as he takes in the wreckage. “What happened?” Garcia steps out behind him—and freezes completely.

“Oh my God.” The highway looks apocalyptic. Smoke. Rain. Crushed SUVs. Flashing lights reflecting off blood-slick pavement. Spencer eyes scan frantically across the scene.

JJ.

Emily.

Luke.

Tara.

Derek.

Rossi.

Hotch.

His stomach drops. Because you’re not there. Spencer’s breathing changes instantly.

“Where is she?” Nobody answers quickly enough. And terror detonates behind his ribs. “Where is she?” Emily looks away. Garcia starts crying immediately. Spencer stares at them.

“No.” Luke steps forward carefully.

“Reid—”

“No.” The word cracks out of him violently. “What happened?” Hotch finally steps toward him, rain dripping from his ruined suit.

“Kessler staged the crash,” he says hoarsely. “He took her.” Spencer just stares at him. Like the sentence physically does not make sense.

“Took her?” he repeats faintly.

“The ambulance was fake,” Rossi says grimly. “He disguised himself as an EMT.” Garcia lets out a broken sob behind them. Spencer’s face goes completely white.

“When?” he asks.

“Less than four minutes ago,” Luke says. “Local units are already searching—” Spencer looks immediately at Hotch. Not Rossi. Not Emily. Hotch. Because Hotch saw her last. And Aaron realizes Spencer already knows that too. Their eye contact lasts half a second. It’s enough. Spencer’s expression changes instantly.

“How bad was she hurt?” Hotch doesn’t answer quickly enough. Spencer takes a step forward. “How bad?” Aaron looks wrecked. Actually wrecked.

“She was conscious,” he says carefully.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Aaron,” Rossi warns quietly. But Spencer doesn’t look away from Hotch. Hotch exhales shakily through his nose.

“There was blood.” Spencer’s breathing stutters.

“How much?”

“I don’t know.” Another lie. Spencer hears that one too. And suddenly he looks furious. Terrified, grieving, furious. “She couldn’t move on her own,” Hotch admits quietly. “He carried her into the ambulance.” Garcia breaks down harder behind them and Derek crosses the space immediately to grab onto her. Spencer physically sways where he stands. For a second it looks like he might actually collapse. Then his face hardens into something sharp enough to cut glass.

“What direction?” Hotch blinks.

“Reid—”

“What direction did he go?”

“Eastbound,” Hotch answers carefully. Spencer immediately turns toward Garcia’s SUV. Hotch grabs his arm before he gets two steps. “You are not going alone.” Spencer jerks free instantly. His eyes are glassy with panic now.

“You let her get in that ambulance.” The words hit like a gunshot. Silence crashes down around the wreckage. Spencer looks horrified the second he says it. Because he knows exactly who he just said it to. A father who watched his daughter get kidnapped while injured and bleeding. Hotch recoils anyway. Not angry. Just devastated.

“I know,” he says quietly. That destroys Spencer more effectively than shouting ever could. His face crumples. Rain pours around all of you in endless sheets as sirens scream across the highway.

And somewhere out there— You’re alone with Kessler.

--------

When you come to, the first thing you feel is that the pain at your abdomen has lessened.

It’s still there.

Deep. Burning. Wrong.

But dulled somehow, like your body’s been wrapped in cotton. Your eyelids feel impossibly heavy as you force them open. Darkness swims above you for a second before dim industrial lights sharpen into focus overhead. Concrete ceiling. Rusted pipes. Water dripping somewhere nearby in slow, echoing intervals. Your wrists jerk instinctively.

Metal rattles. Cold panic slams into you. You're strapped upright to some kind of steel chair bolted into the floor. Thick restraints pin your wrists and chest in place. Your injured side throbs violently when you struggle, making black spots burst across your vision.

“Easy. I bandaged you up but you're still actively bleeding out.” The voice comes from somewhere ahead of you. Kessler steps into view calmly, sleeves rolled to his elbows like he’s in the middle of an ordinary workday instead of holding an FBI agent hostage. Your breathing quickens immediately.

“Fuck you,” you rasp. He actually smiles faintly.

“That’s usually the morphine talking." Morphine. That explains the floating feeling in your limbs. You look down quickly. Your vest is gone. Soaked bandages are wrapped tightly around your abdomen beneath a gray thermal shirt that definitely isn’t yours. There’s dried blood everywhere. Along your arms. Beneath your fingernails. Across the floor near the chair. Your stomach twists hard.

“How long—”

“Thirty-six minutes since the crash,” Kessler answers smoothly. Ice floods your bloodstream. The team. Your dad.

“Where are they?” you demand. Kessler ignores the question entirely. Instead, he walks toward a camera mounted on a tripod across the room. And your blood runs cold all over again. “No.” Kessler adjusts the lens casually. “No no no—”

“You know,” he says conversationally, “your father’s reputation in the Bureau is fascinating. Aaron Hotchner. Untouchable. Unshakeable. Men like him always think they understand sacrifice until it becomes personal.” Your restraints clatter violently as you fight them.

“You’re insane.”

“Probably.” He doesn’t even blink. Then he reaches beside the camera and wheels something large into frame. A timer. Digital.

Bright red numbers glaring through the darkness.

00:59:48

Your stomach drops.

“What is that?” Your voice cracks. Kessler finally looks at you directly.

“The amount of time your team has left.” He grabs your arm, sighing as he squeezes and IV bag and mounts it onto the stand beside you.

“Kessler—”

The dosage is regulated electronically.” He taps the pump beside the bag. “Small increments over time. Once the drip reaches completion…” He shrugs lightly. “Multi-organ failure. Cardiac arrest shortly after.”

Your mouth goes dry instantly.

“No.”

“The fascinating thing about poison,” he continues conversationally, “is how personal it feels. Bullets are loud. Explosions are chaotic. But poison?” He tilts his head. “Poison makes people wait.”

Your stomach twists hard enough to make you gag. You stare at him in horror. Then fury detonates through you.

“You’re a fucking coward.” Kessler hums softly.

“And yet your father still can’t catch me.” He presses a button. The camera light turns red.

LIVE.

—————————

The BAU bullpen is chaos. Medics move between injured agents while tech analysts flood every available screen searching traffic cams, road footage, satellite hits—anything. Nobody’s winning. Hotch stands in the center of it all like a ghost. Still covered in blood. Still soaking wet from the rain. Spencer sits at Garcia’s station beside her, fingers flying across the keyboard so fast they blur. His hands are shaking violently.

“Nothing,” Garcia whispers tearfully. “No ambulance hits, no hospital pings, no traffic cams—he scrubbed everything.” Emily presses gauze harder against the cut on her temple.

“He planned this for months.”

“No,” Spencer says instantly. Everyone looks at him. Spencer’s eyes stay locked on the screen. “Longer.” Before anyone can respond— Every monitor in the bullpen flickers. Static crackles. Garcia startles violently., fingers flying over her keyboard, trying to figure out how this is happening. Then your face appears onscreen.

Bruised. Bloodied. Restrained.

The room stops breathing.

“No,” Hotch says faintly. Your head lifts weakly toward the camera, disoriented and terrified and alive. Spencer goes white beside Garcia.

“No…” The digital timer flashes beside you.

00:58:03

“What the hell is that?” Luke breathes. Then Kessler steps into frame. And the entire room explodes into motion.

“Trace it now!” Emily shouts. Garcia is already typing frantically.

“I’m trying!” Kessler looks directly into the camera.

“Good evening, Behavioral Analysis Unit.” Kessler smiles like he’s hosting a lecture instead of a hostage broadcast. Garcia’s hands fly across the keyboard.

“I can’t get a lock—he’s bouncing the signal through multiple servers—oh my God, oh my God—”

“Penelope,” Emily snaps, though her own voice shakes. “Focus.”

“I am focused!” Onscreen, Kessler slowly circles your chair. The camera quality is grainy but clear enough to show the blood staining the bandages around your abdomen. Clear enough to show the IV line running into your arm. And the transparent liquid steadily dripping through the tube. Spencer goes completely still beside Garcia.

Not calm.

Worse.

The kind of stillness that means he’s trying very hard not to completely lose his mind. Your head hangs weakly forward before lifting slightly at the sound of Kessler speaking. Your eyes look unfocused. Drugged. Terrified. The bullpen falls silent. Even the analysts nearby stop moving. Because this isn’t just being streamed to the BAU.

This is public.

News stations are already picking it up. Social media feeds explode in real time across nearby monitors. Millions of people watching an FBI agent tied to a chair with a countdown beside her.

“Aaron Hotchner,” Kessler says smoothly, looking directly into the camera. “You know, I expected someone taller.” Hotch doesn’t react outwardly. But Rossi sees his fist tighten. Sees the blood dripping from where Aaron’s fingernails cut into his own palm.

“You built your career profiling monsters,” Kessler continues. “You taught agents how to think like predators. How to anticipate violence.” He tilts his head slightly toward you. “But you never considered what happens when someone decides to study you instead.” Your breathing trembles onscreen.

“Kessler—” you rasp weakly.

“Shh.” He adjusts the IV line almost tenderly. “You don’t need to talk right now.” Spencer physically flinches. Luke swears violently under his breath.

“The poison entering Agent Hotchner’s daughter’s bloodstream,” Kessler says calmly, “is administered incrementally through an automated pump system. By the time the timer reaches zero…” He smiles faintly. “Well. I imagine your Dr. Reid can explain organ failure better than I can.” All eyes snap toward Spencer automatically. Spencer’s face has gone corpse pale. But his voice still works. Barely.

“It depends on the toxin,” he says mechanically, eyes glued to the screen. “If it’s ricin-based or synthetic colchicine compounds, systemic collapse would begin gradually. Respiratory distress first. Then cardiovascular instability. Seizures. Multi-organ failure—”

“Spencer,” JJ says softly. He cuts himself off instantly. Onscreen, your eyes flutter shut for a second too long.

“Hey,” Kessler says sharply, gripping your jaw hard enough to force your head back up. “Stay awake. It's not fun for our viewers if you die right now." You whimper, trying to inch away from him. He chuckles, low and mean. A broken sound leaves your throat as your body jerks weakly against the restraints. Spencer’s breathing changes instantly.

“What just happened?” Emily demands. Spencer stares at the screen.

“The poison’s already active,” he says quietly. Garcia looks horrified.

“But there’s still fifty-seven minutes left—”

“The timer isn’t for symptom onset.” Spencer swallows hard. “It’s for fatal dosage completion.” Nobody speaks. Onscreen, Kessler steps back toward the camera.

“You have one hour,” he says conversationally. “Find me before the drip finishes…” He shrugs. “And maybe she lives. But I should warn you,” he continues. “Removing the IV incorrectly triggers the failsafe.” He taps the side of the electronic pump. “And if the line stops prematurely…” Another small shrug. “The dosage accelerates.” Garcia lets out a strangled noise.

“That’s impossible,” Luke snaps.

“No,” Spencer says faintly. Everyone looks at him again. Spencer’s eyes stay locked on the screen. “It’s not.” Hotch spins around, his chest heaving.

"Garcia, get me a list of Kessler's known adressesses, a list of his spending info- maybe he rented out a place- i want everything you have on him, now !"

Garcia is already moving before Hotch finishes the sentence.

“I’m on it, I’m on it - okay- okay - ” Her voice is high and strained, fingers slamming across the keyboard like she’s trying to outrun panic itself. Multiple windows open and collapse across her monitors. “Known addresses are mostly burned, he went dark after his brother's death but - there’s financial ghosting here, offshore shells, prepaid infrastructure - he’s not staying anywhere with a paper trail -he’s not staying anywhere period -”

“Focus,” Rossi says sharply, but even he sounds strained now. Emily is already leaning over her shoulder.

“What about municipal access points? Abandoned government facilities?” Luke shakes his head.

“We’re checking transit grids already. He’s not static - he’s moving through infrastructure, not occupying it.” Spencer doesn’t blink.

His eyes are locked on the screen. On you.

00:53:18.

Your head droops again, just slightly, and Spencer’s breath catches so hard it sounds like it hurts.

“Hey,” JJ says quietly, noticing him. “Reid, stay with us.” But he doesn’t answer. Because his brain is already somewhere else. Already rebuilding everything Kessler just showed them.

The IV pump. The feed latency. The lack of metadata. The stabilization pattern. Spencer swallows hard.

“He’s not in a building,” he says suddenly. Garcia looks up.

“What?” Spencer’s voice tightens.

“The signal stability - there’s too little fluctuation for a fixed structure. No HVAC interference, no power grid variance, no reflective bounce patterns consistent with concrete reinforcement -” Emily frowns.

“Then where is he?” Spencer doesn’t look away from the screen.

“Mobile containment unit,” he says. “Or a retrofitted transport shell. Something insulated enough to mask environmental noise.” Luke curses under his breath.

“Like a van.” Spencer shakes his head once.

“Bigger.” Silence. Hotch turns slowly.

“Bus?” Rossi suggests grimly. Spencer finally looks at them.

“No,” he says. “Something that can support medical-grade equipment, power draw for a stabilized livestream, and internal temperature control without drawing attention.” Garcia’s hands freeze mid-type.

“Oh my God.” Emily’s voice drops.

“A mobile medical unit.” Rossi’s jaw tightens.

“Like disaster response.” Hotch’s eyes sharpen instantly.

“Ambulance.” Spencer nods once. But it doesn’t feel like relief. It feels worse. Because that still leaves too many possibilities. Too many jurisdictions. Too many vehicles. Too much ground to cover while the clock keeps bleeding out.

00:53:04.

Onscreen, Kessler steps back into frame briefly—just enough to adjust something near the IV stand. You flinch sharply. Harder this time. Hotch makes a sound low in his throat—barely audible, but it cuts through the room anyway. Spencer’s hands curl into fists at Garcia’s station.

“Garcia,” he says quickly, voice suddenly urgent. “Cross-reference registered medical transport units within a fifty-mile radius of the crash corridor. Anything that went off-route in the last hour.”

“I’m already - ” Her screen updates rapidly. “Got it, got it - Okay, there’s twelve possible matches - ”

“Twelve,” Luke repeats sharply.

“We don’t have time for twelve,” Emily snaps. Hotch steps forward again.

“Cut it to three,” he orders. “Now.” Garcia swallows hard.

“I can filter by signal - give me thirty seconds - ”

“Twenty,” Hotch says. Nobody argues. Because on the screen— You shift again. Barely conscious. Barely holding on. And Spencer Reid, who has spent his entire life turning chaos into patterns, suddenly looks like he’s staring directly into something he cannot solve fast enough.

Garcia’s screen updates again. Once. Twice. Then locks. Her breath catches so hard it hurts.

“I’ve got him,” she says. Nobody speaks. Hotch turns instantly.

“Where.” Garcia swallows.

“Abandoned agricultural zone outside Leesburg—old county service land. There’s a decommissioned livestock processing facility on the property. Signal’s cleanest there—he’s stationary.” Spencer is already there before she finishes the sentence.

“How far?” he asks immediately. Garcia glances at the route mapping.

“Forty-six minutes,” she says quietly. The number lands like a gunshot. Silence. Emily shakes her head once.

“We don’t have forty-six minutes.” Rossi is already moving toward the SUV.

“Then we don’t waste a second.” Hotch stares at the map like he can force the distance to shrink through sheer will. Spencer’s voice breaks through again, sharper now.

“How long—how long until completion?” Garcia’s fingers tremble over the timer feed.

“Fifty-three minutes,” she whispers.That finally shifts the math in the room. Because everyone understands it at the same time. Forty-six minutes to reach you.Fifty-three minutes until the drip completes.

Seven minutes.

That’s all they’ll have once they get there. Seven minutes to find you. Seven minutes to neutralize Kessler. Seven minutes to keep you alive. Hotch exhales once, slow and controlled—but his eyes are shattered.

“Let's move,” he says. The SUVs tear down the highway in formation, sirens splitting the night open. Inside Hotch’s vehicle, no one speaks anymore unless they have to. The countdown is on every screen.

Every phone. Every live feed Garcia refuses to close.

00:52:41.

Spencer stares at the map overlay like he can bend it into something faster. Luke grips the seat hard enough to go white-knuckled. Emily keeps her eyes forward, jaw tight, blood still drying at her temple. Rossi drives like a man refusing to accept physics as final. Hotch doesn’t move.

Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t look away from the road even once.

“Forty-six minutes,” Luke says quietly, almost to himself. Spencer’s voice is barely audible.

“That’s if nothing goes wrong.” Nobody responds to that. Because they all know what it means.

------------------

00:07:00.

Your body feels like lead.

Your veins are on fire.

Your mouth has gone dry, and you can barely breathe- every breath sounds like a rusty rattle of child's mobile. Your vision flickers in and out like a broken signal. Your body isn’t yours anymore. It’s heavy in the wrong places, light in others. Your fingers twitch weakly against the restraints, but there’s no strength left behind it.

The IV pump beeps steadily beside you. Too steady. Too calm. Like it doesn’t care that you’re dying.

You groan, trying hard to stay awake, to stay concsious.

They're coming for you. They have to be.

The room hums with fluorescent light and something worse underneath it—your heartbeat, irregular now, stumbling against the poison like it’s losing the argument. Kessler circles you slowly, hands behind his back like he’s inspecting something he built.

“Do you know what your father hates most?” he asks lightly. Your head lolls a fraction toward him. It takes effort just to keep your eyes open.

“People like you,” he continues. “Not weak. Not careless. Just… loved.” Your throat tightens. Spencer’s name tries to form in your mind and doesn’t quite make it. Kessler steps closer, studying your face like he’s waiting for something interesting to happen.

“You’re very difficult to break,” he says thoughtfully. “That’s what makes this worth watching.” The IV pump beeps again. Too steady. Too final.

Your fingers twitch weakly against the restraints. Kessler leans in just slightly.

“I wonder how long it takes,” he murmurs, almost curious. “For Aaron Hotchner to choose between duty and family.” Your stomach drops hard.

“Don’t,” you rasp, but it’s barely sound. He smiles faintly.

“Oh, he already has.” And then— The doors behind him explode inward. Not an opening. An impact.

Wood and metal snap as tactical force hits the room like a wave.

“FBI! DOWN!” The shout is immediate chaos. Hotch is first through, weapon up, eyes scanning—locking instantly on you like everything else in the room ceases to exist.

“Aaron!” Rossi calls, sweeping left. Emily and Luke split right. Derek comes in hard behind them, already moving. Kessler barely has time to turn before Hotch has him pinned against the nearest surface, gun pressed high, voice ice-cold.

“Don’t move.” Kessler actually laughs once. Spencer doesn’t even look at him. He’s already across the room. Everything else collapses into noise and motion behind him—Hotch securing Kessler, Rossi shouting commands, Emily cuffing him down—but Spencer doesn’t register any of it. He reaches you like gravity finally remembered him.

“Hey—hey, hey,” he breathes, hands shaking as they go to your face immediately. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” Your eyelids flutter.

"Spence ?" He nods, hands working at your restraints atfer he softly tears the IV out of your arm.

"Yeah, yeah, it's me. I'm here, alright, i'm here." Your body falls forward, exhausted, the second those restraints stop holding you up, your body folding like it’s been waiting for permission to collapse. Spencer catches you before you hit the ground. Immediately. Completely.

“No - no, no, no - hey, hey, hey - stay with me,” he says, voice cracking violently as he pulls you into him. “Stay with me, okay? Stay with me-look at me.” Your head lolls against his chest. He’s on the floor now without even realizing it. One arm under your shoulders. One hand pressed hard against the bandages on your abdomen like he can physically stop what’s happening inside you. He looks up, his eyes frantic.

"Derek ! Derek !" He calls as Hotch and the others disappear outside, pushing a cuffed Kessler with them. Derek's head snaps over and his face drains of color.

"Holy shit." He gasps, his chest heaving. Spencer chokes on a sob, pushing your hair away from your face.

"We-We need an ambulance. She-She's losing blood, she-" He gasps in a breath, shaking his head. "He’s got to have—he’s not carrying something like this without a reversal agent.” Spencer doesn’t look away from you. “Shelves,” he says instantly, voice raw but focused only on survival. “Look—look everywhere. Cabinets. Lockboxes. He wouldn’t leave it unbalanced.” Derek moves immediately. The timer ticks down like a taunt.

00:04:53.

Derek rummages through shelves, cabinets, drawers, cursing under his breath as he throws things on the ground. You clutch weakly at Spencer's vest, your hands shaking.

"Spence.." He shushes you, pressing his lips to your forehead.

"Hey, hey, don't talk, okay ? You're going to be fine. Just fine, okay ?"

"I-I'm so cold." You manage, shivers coursing through your body. Spencer grimaces.

"I know, baby, i know." He looks up. "Derek, where the fuck is that antidote !" Derek rips open another metal cabinet so hard the hinge screams in protest.

“I’m looking, I’m looking!” he snaps back, breathless, scanning shelves packed with medical bags, vials, and sealed containers that absolutely should not be here. “This guy is insane—”

Spencer hears none of it anymore. All of it narrows down to you. To the way your fingers are trembling against his vest. To the shallow, uneven rise of your chest. To the way your skin feels wrong beneath his hands—too cold, too fast to lose heat.

“I’ve got you,” he repeats again, but it’s not steady anymore. It’s breaking apart at the edges. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you—just stay with me, okay? Just—just stay with me.” Your head tips slightly against him. And for a second, his entire body goes rigid.

“No,” he whispers immediately, like he can undo it with the word alone. “No, no—hey—look at me. Look at me.”

Your eyes barely open. Barely there. But they do. And it ruins him.

“Got something!” Derek suddenly shouts from the far side of the room. Spencer’s head snaps up so fast it hurts. Derek holds up a small locked case - medical-grade, reinforced, labeled in a way that makes Spencer’s stomach drop immediately. “Is this it?” Derek demands. Spencer doesn’t even hesitate.

“Yes. Yes, that’s it - bring it here, now!” Derek slams it down beside them and Spencer’s hands are shaking so badly he almost fumbles the latch. The lock clicks open.

Inside: syringes. A sealed ampoule. A vial clearly marked in clinical print- ANTIDOTE.

He’s already drawing it up.

“Where do I—”

“Her arm,” Spencer says instantly, tearing his own focus into something sharp and functional because if he doesn’t, he’s going to fall apart completely. “Right arm - no, no - left - there, there - ” Derek moves in, steady hands taking over what Spencer can’t control anymore.

“I’ve got it,” Derek says low. Spencer nods too quickly, not letting go of you for even a second. His other hand stays pressed to your shoulder like an anchor. “Okay,” Derek says. “Injecting now.” The syringe depresses. For half a second, nothing happens. Then your body jerks—just slightly. Spencer makes a sound that’s halfway between a gasp and a sob.

“Hey - hey, hey,” he says immediately, hand cupping your cheek. "You're gonna be okay." But you're still slipping somewhere he can’t follow fast enough. “I’ve got you,” he repeats again, but now it’s desperate. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’ve got you - please - please don’t do this - ” Derek looks up sharply at the doorway, where JJ stands frozen.

"We need medical backup now!” JJ nods, rushing away.

Spencer sobs, then immediately chokes on it, pressing your hand tighter against his chest like he can force you to stay by sheer will alone. Footsteps thunder back in—Hotch, Rossi, Emily. Hotch sees you on the floor. And something in his face breaks cleanly. But Spencer can’t look at him. Can’t look at anyone. Because you’re right there in his arms and still not safe.

“Hey,” he whispers, voice collapsing completely now, tears spilling down without permission as he holds you closer. “Hey, hey- don’t leave me. Don’t leave me, okay? Please - please don’t leave me.” Your fingers twitch once.

Weak. Barely there. But it’s enough. Spencer grabs your hand immediately like it’s a lifeline.

“Yeah,” he chokes out, crying openly now, forehead pressing to yours. “Yeah, that’s it. That’s it. Come back to me. Come back—please, just come back to me.” Your shiver, a soft whimper drawing from your lips.

"I-I'm tired." You manage, shaking your head. Blood from your abdomen is still soaking your shirt, your pants, and Spencer is shaking.

"You-You can't sleep, baby. You have to- You have to stay awake. Keep your eyes open." The antidote has taken effect. The colour that had drained from your skin over the hour is coming back, and your breathing has returned to a normal pace. And the pain flooding back into your body is unbearable. You can feel the blood pumping out of you from your abdomen, and you groan weakly as you try to press your hand over the wound, only to find Spencer's hand already lodged there. You gulp, bringing your hand up to softly touch Spencer's cheek.

"Yo-You came for me." You rasp. Spencer chokes on a laugh, a desperate, wet thing.

"Of course I did." He mumbles. "How could I not ? God.." He gulps, shaking his head. "I love you." You smile, holding back tears as you cough. Your body trembles with shivers, and you groan.

"I-I'm sorry." You rasp, shaking your head. Spencer's heart drops. He shakes his head.

"Hey, hey- no. Don't apologise, you're going to be just fine, okay ? Y-You're going to be fine." You nod, smiling through the pain. You want to believe him.

You really do.

The antidote is working.

Derek said it is. Spencer knows it is. But you’re still so cold. Still shaking in his arms like your body can’t decide whether to stay or let go.

Spencer sniffles, brushing your hair away from your face.

"The ambulance is gonna be here any minute. They're going to make you all better. Okay ?" You nod.

"Okay." You say, forcing a smile, choking on the blood that creeps its way up your throat. "I love you, Spence." You rasp, shaking your head. Spencer’s heart hammers against his ribs, a frantic, desperate drumbeat of denial. He tightens his grip on your hand, bringing it to his lips, pressing a kiss to your cold knuckles.

“Don’t you dare say that like it’s a goodbye,” he orders, his voice a raw, broken thing. “It’s not a goodbye. You hear me? It’s an ‘I’ll see you in a minute.’ We’re going to have so much to talk about. Y-You're gonna rub this in my face, yeah ? Brag about how you-you survived this and i panicked for nothing.” He’s rambling, his brilliant mind reduced to a single, primal function: keep you here. Keep you with him. Your eyes are still on him, but they’re starting to lose focus, the light in them dimming like a candle in a draft. The smile on your lips is a ghost, beautiful and terrifying.

“Spence…” you whisper, and it’s the worst sound he’s ever heard, thin and reedy, threaded with the liquid rattle of fluid in your lungs. “It’s… so quiet.” He doesn’t understand what you mean. The room is chaos-Hotch’s clipped commands, Derek’s frantic pacing, the sound of JJ’s voice on the phone with dispatch. But then he realizes. For you, the world is collapsing. The sounds are fading, the pain is receding, and all that’s left is this.

Him.

“No, no, it’s not quiet,” he argues, his voice rising in panic. “It’s not. Just listen. Listen to me. I’m right here. I’m so loud, remember? You say I never shut up. So just… listen to me. Stay with me.” He’s pressing harder against the wound in your abdomen, a futile, desperate attempt to physically hold your life inside you. His hand is slick, warm, and the smell of copper fills the air, thick and suffocating. It’s the smell of his failure. Your breath hitches, a shallow, wet gasp.

"Tell… tell my dad… I’m sorry.” The words hit Spencer like a physical blow. Dad. Hotch, who is standing just feet away, right behind that door, pacing and shouting orders. Spencer can’t call for him. He can’t give him that. He can’t acknowledge the world beyond the circle of his arms.

“You’ll tell him yourself,” Spencer chokes out, tears streaming down his face, dripping onto your cheeks. “You’ll tell him tonight. When we get home. We’ll order Chinese food and you’ll tell him you’re sorry for worrying him, and he’ll pretend to be mad but he won’t be, and we’ll all be fine. We’ll be fine.” Your fingers, the ones he’s holding, twitch weakly. Your grip loosens. The pressure is gone. “No,” he whimpers, a sound so pathetic and full of pain it doesn’t even sound like him. “No, hold on. Hold my hand. Don’t let go. Don’t you let go of me.” Your eyes open again and you nod. He smiles, kissing your forehead. And then, through the cacophony of his own despair, he hears it. Faint at first, then growing stronger, clearer. A high, insistent wail that cuts through everything else.

Sirens.

Relief so profound it’s dizzying crashes over him. It’s the cavalry. It’s the answer. It’s another chance.

His head snaps up, his tear-blurred vision finding the window ahead.

“Did you hear that? They’re here. They’re almost here.” He looks back down at you, his face breaking into a wild, desperate grin. “You hear that, baby? You hear that? The ambulance is here. They’re here. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.” He’s laughing now, a wet, hysterical sound of pure relief, staring at the window as the red and blue lights start to show.

“We did it. We made it. Just hold on. Just a few more seconds. Please, just a few more seconds for me.” He looks back at the doorway, expecting to see the paramedics burst through with their bags and their machines and their magic. But the sirens are still distant, screaming down a street that’s too far away.

He looks back down at you. And the world stops. Your eyes are still open, but they’re not seeing him anymore. They’re fixed on a point just beyond his shoulder, glassy and vacant. The shallow rise and fall of your chest has stilled. The hand he’s clutching is limp and cool in his.

The silence in the room is absolute.

“No,” he whispers. The smile is gone from his face, wiped clean away. “No… no, no, no, no, no.” He shakes his head, a sharp, jerky motion of denial. “Hey… hey, look at me. Look at me. They’re here. The ambulance is here.” He shakes you gently, then a little harder. “Hey.. hey, look at me. You’re not allowed to do this. You’re not allowed to leave me. You hear me? C'mon, this isn't funny." He shakes you."Come on! Look at me.” But you don’t. You can’t. The sirens are closer now, screaming, a piercing, torturous sound. They’re the sound of hope arriving seven minutes too late. The door bursts open. Emily is the first one in, her face flushed and triumphant.

“Spencer! The ambulance is here, they’re coming, they’re—” She stops. Her eyes find Spencer, cradling your still body on the floor, and she sees everything. The blood. The stillness. The absolute, soul-crushing devastation on his face. Her triumphant shout dies in her throat, replaced by a small, choked gasp. Hotch is right behind her. He takes in the scene with one sweeping, all-seeing glance. He sees Kessler’s handiwork, he sees the discarded antidote, he sees Spencer on the floor. And then he sees you. He doesn’t make a sound. The unit chief, the man who faces monsters for a living, simply breaks. His shoulders slump, his face goes slack, and all the color drains from his skin. He stumbles forward a half-step, his hand reaching out, then falling back to his side. He knows. Emily rushes to Spencer’s side, her hand hovering over his shoulder, afraid to touch.

“Spencer…?” He doesn’t answer. He’s lowered his head, burying his face in the crook of your neck, his body wracked with huge, silent, violent sobs that shake him to his core. He holds you tighter, rocking you back and forth, a desperate, rhythmic motion.

And Spencer Reid - who has spent his entire life understanding loss in theory before he ever had to survive it in practice - lets out a sound that is not human.

It rips out of him.

Raw.

Shattered.

“No - no, no, no, please - please, please - ” He pulls you closer instantly, like he can reverse it if he just holds you tighter.

Like physics can be negotiated.

Like love is supposed to win this.

“I’ve got you,” he says again, but it’s falling apart now. “I’ve got you, I’ve got you, I’ve got you- You're okay. You're okay, you're okay, you're okay-”

"Reid." Derek's voice echoes around the small space. Spencer shakes his head. Spencer doesn’t hear him anymore.

Doesn’t hear Emily crying.

Doesn’t hear the radio chatter suddenly erupting outside as the medics arrive too late.

He just holds you. Like if he stops, even for a second, the truth will finish settling. Sirens flood the building outside. Red and blue light strobing through the broken doorway.

And still -Spencer is whispering your name into your hair like it’s a spell.

Like it’s the only thing left that still makes sense.

The paramedics finally burst through the doorway, their practiced efficiency grinding to a halt as they take in the scene. No one moves. No one breathes. The paramedics slowly back out of the room, hushed whispers echoing in the small space.

Spencer looks up, devastated.

"No.. No, where are they going ? They-They have to save her, they-"

"Reid." Derek rasps again, wiping at the tears falling down his face. He looks back down at you like it’s instinct, like he can anchor himself in you. But you don’t move. Not even a tremor. Not even the smallest betrayal of life returning. Just stillness. Heavy and final.

Spencer’s breath stutters.

Once. Twice.

Then completely stops behaving like it belongs to him.

His hand shakes as it smooths over your hair. So careful. So tender. Like you’re made of glass and he’s terrified of what happens if he presses too hard.

Emily makes a sound behind him—small, broken, human.

“Spencer…” she tries again, stepping closer like she might physically pull him out of it. But he flinches at her voice like it burns.

“No,” he snaps instantly, sharper than he means it. Then it collapses immediately into desperation. “No, no—don’t—” Hotch is still at the doorway. Still completely still. Like something inside him shut off in self-defense the second he understood. But his eyes don’t leave you. Not once. Not even when Rossi puts a hand on his arm and squeezes like he’s trying to hold him together by force. Spencer presses his forehead to yours again.

Harder this time. Like proximity alone can reverse biology.

“I got you,” he whispers, voice breaking into pieces now. “I got you, I got you, I got you—” His sentences stop making sense. They turn into fragments. Into breath. Into something raw and animal and terrified. “I didn’t—” he chokes, pulling you closer like he can physically shield you from the truth, “I didn’t get here fast enough. I didn’t—I didn’t—”

Derek steps forward again, slower this time. Careful. Like approaching something sacred and shattered.

“Reid,” he says quietly. “Kid…” Spencer shakes his head violently again.

“No,” he says again, but weaker now. So much weaker. “No, no, no- Just - just help her. Just - just fix it. Fix it - please - ” His voice breaks completely on the last word. And then he tries again, because Spencer Reid has always believed that understanding something well enough means you can change it. “If I - if I give her CPR - if I - if we - ” His hands move like they don’t belong to him anymore as they lay you down on the ground, flat on your back.

One presses to your chest. Wrong. Desperate. Begging.

“Spencer,” Emily says softly, tears finally spilling over now. “Spencer, stop—”

“No!” he shouts suddenly, panicked, frantic. “No, no, I can— I can do it. I can fix it. I can- I can-” His voice disintegrates mid-sentence. Because your body doesn’t respond. Because nothing changes. Because time doesn’t care how hard he tries. And that’s when it hits him all at once.

Not gradually. Not gently. All at once. Spencer goes completely still.

His hands freeze where they are on you. His breath catches like it’s been hooked on something sharp. He falls backwards, his hands coated in blood coming up to press against his eyes as he sobs. Emily is by his side in an instant, pulling him into her, rocking him as Derek sniffles and gets to his feet, walking over to your and softly guiding your eyes shut. Hotch swears under his breath, wrecked sobs escaping him, and he turns away from you, gasping for air as he rushes out into the night. Luke, Tara, JJ and Rossi have gathered in the doorway, watching as Derek grabs a folded sheet from one of the drawers and lays it down over you, clearing his throat.

"The- uh, the EMT's should come back in here. Take-" He clears his throat, "Take her to the morgue."

The timer beeps behind them like some sick alarm clock. They all look back and the flashing numbers.

00:00:00.

The seven minutes are up.

taglist !

blackout | ⚡︎ ❀

⤷ a power outage strands you and reid in the basement records room. his flashlight is useless, your lighter keeps flickering out, and you’re pretty sure you said too much — but somehow, he never makes you regret it.

bullseye | ❀

⤷ you didn’t plan on staying late at the bar, hustling reid at darts, or flirting with him after trivia. you definitely didn’t plan on the coffee waiting on your desk the next morning, either.

gambit | ❀

⤷ spencer pulls out a travel chess set on the jet and offers to teach you. it’s a harmless way to kill time… until you realize how much you like the way he looks at you across the chessboard. // ficlet written for my 2k celebration event!

hot topic | ❀⚡︎ᢉ𐭩

⤷ after an injury in the field, you patch spencer up with a skull-print bandage. he gets a little jealous, you get a little deflective, and a quiet moment passes at 30,000 feet where you both admit more than you mean to.

fever dream | ꩜ ❀

⤷ you don’t get sick. you don’t let coworkers into your apartment. and you definitely don’t have vivid, full-body sex dreams about spencer reid. except today, apparently, you do all three. 18+ MDNI

night watch | ❀ ⚡︎

⤷ ever since he showed up at your apartment (and ever since that fever dream you’re pretending didn’t happen), you’ve avoided being alone with reid. unfortunately, hotch has another plan: assigning the two of you to an overnight stakeout.

liquid courage | ❀

⤷ you never call anyone when you’re drunk — except tonight, you do. margaritas, glitter, and one reckless drunk dial later, you’re in spencer reid’s car at 1am, wearing his coat and trying not to notice how good he smells.

head rush | ❀ ⚡︎

⤷ dayton, ohio. one asshole cop, one concussion, six hours of stay-awake poker, and a kiss that makes you see stars — right up until you slam on the brakes.

lies | ⚡︎

⤷ after ohio, you rebuild your armor and pretend the kiss didn’t happen. two weeks of awkward distance, a charged moment at the gun range, and a stairwell conversation later, you tell spencer the cruelest lie you can think of. it should end there — but then he finds the only evidence that can prove you wrong.

truths | ⚡︎ ❀ ᢉ𐭩

⤷ spencer shows up at your door with irrefutable proof you’ve been lying — to him and to yourself — but that doesn’t stop you from trying to deny it anyway. what follows is a late-night reckoning: small truths, careful boundaries, and the soft kind of honesty you usually run from.

adagio | ❀

⤷ at work, you and spencer try out adagio tempo until a hotel room debrief tests just how slow you can go.

heart eyes | ❀

⤷ spencer tries to focus on the case, but watching you translate grief into gentleness ruins his concentration until morgan snaps him out of it. // ficlet written for my 1k celebration event!

limited exposure | ⚡︎ ❀

⤷ at rossi’s book release party, the team’s playful teasing pushes you and reid’s “not-a-relationship” into a quiet fight, a real apology, and a red-velvet photo booth that develops more than just pictures.

october nights | ❀

⤷ you can’t hide the fact you love autumn from anyone — especially spencer. he gives you all the best parts of the season in a single day: leaves in the park, halloween decorations, classic horror films, and a night that spooks you in a way you hadn’t planned for.

just socks | ⚡︎ ❀

⤷ you buy spencer funny socks because they reminded you of him. which is totally normal. and casual. and definitely not girlfriend behavior. // ficlet written for my 2k celebration event!

scorpio season | ❀

⤷ you’ve never been a fan of birthdays, but celebrating spencer (and reluctantly allowing him to celebrate you too) might just change your mind.

out of the doghouse | ❀

⤷ your neighbor’s shy, sweet dog doesn’t trust men, and she definitely doesn’t trust spencer when he shows up to your place like he belongs there while you’re dogsitting for the weekend. // ficlet written for my 2k celebration event!

raincheck | ❀ ᢉ𐭩

⤷ you finally say yes when spencer asks to take you on a real date, but work interrupts the night before the entrees arrive.

shelter from the storm | ⚡︎ ᢉ𐭩 ꩜

⤷ in the cold aftermath of a fight left unresolved, you & spencer get stranded as a storm rolls in. with the roads underwater and only one vacant room at the motel, you’re left with nowhere else to run but straight into him. 18+, MDNI. sfw/under 18 version

call it what you want | ⚡︎ ❀

⤷ things between you and spencer are perfect, right up until a flirty grad student and a mandatory ethics training force you to decide what, exactly, to call the thing you’ve been pretending doesn’t need a name.

wear & tear | ꩜

⤷ after a brutal week on a case and an evening at o’keefe’s spent hiding your relationship from the team, you and spencer finally get each other alone — and your fishnets do not survive the night. 18+, MDNI.

can’t keep my hands to myself | ❀ ꩜

⤷ spencer can’t keep his hands off of you during a rare day-off movie marathon, so you call him out and turn it into a no-touching bet with paperwork on the line. 18+, MDNI. // ficlet written for my 2k celebration event!

operation mystery girl | ᢉ𐭩 ❀

⤷ when the team realizes spencer has a secret girlfriend, garcia launches a glitter-covered investigation that’s equal parts profiling and meddling. the only problem? their “mystery girl” profile is so wrong it hurts — and then the case cracks wide open, whether you’re ready or not.

something borrowed | ❀

⤷ a very simple, very sweet, very boyfriend-coded gesture from spencer in the BAU bullpen becomes the team’s newest obsession. // ficlet written for my 2k celebration event!

the comet | ❀

⤷ you wake up in spencer’s bed to feather-light fingers tracing your freckles like they’re constellations. // ficlet written for my 2k celebration event!

tethered | ᢉ𐭩

⤷ spencer has spent so long being the one who steadies you, up until an unsub he sees too much of himself in knocks him off-balance. he asks for space but ends up at your door anyway, and you become the tether you didn’t know he needed.

liminal | ⚡︎ ᢉ𐭩

⤷ you’re caught between breaths, between doors marked STAFF ONLY, between the life you had and the one you might not wake up to. spencer waits on the other side, choking on words he should’ve said sooner while a ghost from your past sits beside him in the waiting room.

house rules | ᢉ𐭩 ⚡︎ ❀

⤷ getting shot was dramatic, but recovering is worse. especially now that spencer reid has a key to your apartment and a color-coded plan for your survival.

like real people do | ꩜

⤷ a follow-up doctor’s appointment leaves you with medical clearance, a filthy dream, and a rapidly deteriorating ability to act normal around your boyfriend spencer reid.

nothing serious | ❀

⤷ you agree to girls’ night to celebrate your first week back at work and end up a little too drunk, a little too honest, and very much forced to confront how serious your relationship with spencer has gotten.

you’re all i have to lose | ⚡︎

⤷ after spencer is exposed to anthrax, the hardest part isn’t being afraid. it’s knowing you love him for the same reasons you’re furious with him.

& more, coming soon!

what are greenaway!reader’s vibes .ᐣ.ᐟ

extras

⟢ greenaway!reader pinterest finds

⟢ headcanons 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

⟢ text messages 📱💬 | text messages pt 2

⟢ greenaway!reader fanart by gummy-cat-writes

⟢ apartment moodboard

⟢ hotch & emily’s relationship w/ reader

⟢ spencer said he “notices things” about reader. what does he notice?

⟢ why is greenaway!reader so avoidant/afraid of relationships?

⟢ greenaway!reader’s complex relationship with her sister Elle

⟢ how would greenaway!reader react to spencer going to prison? / part 2

⟢ things spencer has said to greenaway!reader that made reader not want to run

⟢ what did spencer & greenaway!reader each do with their photo booth strips from limited exposure?

⟢ greenaway!reader timeline

⟢ greenaway!reader marathon event

⟢ greenaway!reader’s MySpace page

⟢ greenaway!reader series playlist

⟢ a peek inside greenaway!reader’s camera roll

You can’t really see him, but you can feel him. You feel the tremor in his grip, the way he’s holding on like he can keep you from slipping away through sheer stubbornness. His thumb strokes the side of your hand once, twice, three times.

“Please, baby,” he begs, but his voice barely sounds like the Spencer you know. It’s desperate and broken and terrified.

You try to answer, but nothing comes out. Your tongue feels too big for your mouth. You manage a breath that tastes like copper.

Spencer’s face swims into view as the hallway lights flicker across him. He looks… wrong. Too pale. Too sharp around the eyes. Like someone took the idea of Spencer Reid and scraped all his softness off with a blade.

“Look at me,” he begs. “Keep your eyes open, please. Please baby, please keep your eyes open.”

You do. At least… you think you do. It’s hard. Your vision keeps sliding away.

A voice cuts through the air again, this time from farther back, tight and controlled. Hotch. Then Morgan. Emily, too. You can’t really make out what they’re saying, but you can tell they don’t sound like themselves either.

Another hall appears ahead, marked by double doors with a red sign: STAFF ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT.

The gurney accelerates.

Spencer keeps up for a few more strides. His hand tightens around yours. It’s the only thing you can sense at the moment that feels like it actually belongs to you.

More voices. Ones you don’t recognize, arguing with the one voice you’d recognize anywhere. Telling him he can’t go any further, that he has to let you go.

Don’t let me go, you try to yell, but nothing comes out.

Spencer squeezes your hand even harder before his fingers slip from yours — slowly, then all at once. Your hand feels cold and empty and suddenly, pain is all you can feel.

They push you through the doors.

The air changes back here. Cooler. Sharper. Louder. The lights above you are brighter, almost angry.

You try to remember what it feels like to breathe. You try to remember what it feels like to be alive.

The ceiling keeps moving above you.

Then everything goes dark.

—

Spencer stays exactly where the doors cut him off.

He stands there with his shoulders pulled tight, like his body is bracing for an impact that already happened. His hands hang at his sides miserably.

Hotch gets everyone moving, steering them down the hall into a waiting room that smells like stale coffee and disinfectant. The chairs are bolted to the floor. A vending machine hums in the corner.

Garcia sinks into a seat and immediately stands again. JJ’s hand hovers near her shoulder, unsure whether to offer comfort or space. Emily stands near a window, arms crossed, eyes fixed on nothing and everything all at once. Morgan paces, then stops, then paces again, anger doing laps underneath his skin.

Spencer just keeps staring at the doors.

Hotch’s phone rings once. He silences it, then pockets it without looking away from Spencer. “Reid.”

Spencer’s head snaps toward him, too fast. “Huh?”

Hotch’s voice stays even. “I need you to take a breath.”

Spencer does, albeit reluctantly. His eyes are wet. He looks lost.

Hotch nods in tentative approval and turns to Penelope. “Garcia, pull up Greenaway’s file and access her emergency contact information.”

Garcia blinks twice then fumbles for her laptop. Her fingers shake. She forces them into motion anyway, because this is what she’s trained to do when the world is on fire.

“Emergency contact info. Yes. Okay. I can do that,” she whispers, and her voice wobbles on the edge of breaking. “Let’s see, let’s see…”

Then she freezes. “Oh,” she whispers, a sad, wobbly smile appearing and disappearing within seconds.

Hotch’s gaze sharpens. “What is it, Garcia?”

Garcia swallows hard. “She, um, she updated her emergency contact info a few months ago. Before that, she didn’t have anyone listed at all. But now, it’s… it’s Reid. Spencer is her emergency contact.”

Spencer’s expression empties out again, something raw flashing underneath. He looks haunted, like the fact that you chose him makes the universe feel even crueler.

Hotch nods once. “Unfortunately that doesn’t help us right now. We need to track down a family member who can give consent.”

Garcia’s eyes widen. “Consent for what?”

Hotch does his best to soften it. “If something changes during surgery. If… certain decisions need to be made. The hospital is going to ask for a family member to make those decisions on her behalf.”

The waiting room goes quiet in a way that makes every small sound louder. The hum of the vending machine. The squeak of Morgan’s shoe as he stops moving. Garcia’s breath catching.

Garcia’s hands hover over her keyboard for half a second, then slam down with purpose. A few stubborn tears leak out and she wipes them away with the heel of her palm.

“Okay. Family. Right. I’ll… I can find Elle,” she says.

Morgan’s brows lift. “You can?”

Garcia’s mouth trembles before determination hardens it. “She changed all her numbers and didn’t leave the Bureau with an updated address after she resigned, but this is me we’re talking about here.” Garcia’s fingers fly again. “I can find her.”

Spencer finally looks away from the doors long enough to meet Hotch’s eyes. There’s something in his expression that feels like a confession without words.

Hotch’s gaze softens. “She’s going to get through this, Reid.”

Spencer’s throat bobs. He nods once, as if agreeing will somehow keep you alive.

And then his eyes snap back to the doors, because that’s where you went, and he still hasn’t figured out how to exist on the side of them where you aren’t.

—

The hospital chapel is, mercifully, empty when Spencer slips inside. He sits in a pew with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped so tightly his knuckles go white.

He’s so lost in thought that he doesn’t hear the door open at first. He doesn’t hear footsteps. He barely even hears his own breathing.

“I didn’t take you for the praying type, kid,” Rossi says behind him.

Spencer’s head jerks up. He looks startled to be seen.

“I’m not,” he says quietly. “I just… I didn’t know where else to go. I couldn’t stay out there with everyone looking at me like that.”

Rossi nods once and doesn’t ask for an explanation as to what Spencer means by like that. He stands in the aisle for a beat, letting Spencer have the space to decide whether he can handle another person in the room.

Once he realizes Spencer isn’t going to shoo him away, Rossi slides into the pew one row behind him and leans forward.

“She’s going to be fine, Spencer,” Rossi says. “And when she wakes up, she’s going to lose her mind cackling at the idea of you sitting in a chapel.”

A sound escapes Spencer that might be a laugh in a different universe. Here, it’s just air breaking. He’s silent for another full minute before saying anything.

“I can’t stop thinking about the last thing I said to her,” he admits, staring down at his hands as if they might tell him the answer. “I keep trying to remember what it was, but… I can’t. It’s not there. It’s like my mind totally erased it.”

His fingers flex, then tighten again, like he’s trying to pull the memory out through his skin.

“I should know,” he says, voice pitching with frustration. “I mean, I remember pretty much everything. I remember every mathematical equation I’ve ever learned and I can recite all 1,312 unabridged pages of The Count of Monte Cristo, but I can’t remember the last thing I said to my girlfriend before—”

His throat closes. He drags a breath in through his nose, harsh and shaky. “It was probably something stupid, anyway,” he says finally. “And no matter what it was, I know for a fact it wasn’t what I should’ve said.”

Rossi’s gaze stays on him. “What should you have said?”

Spencer stares at the altar, then away from it, then down at his hands again. His jaw works like he’s chewing on something too big to swallow.

“That I love her.”

Silence expands around the words. Spencer’s shoulders bow in on themselves, like he’s been holding up something impossible and finally set it down.

“I’m in love with her,” he adds, as if the clarification is necessary.

“Of course you are. I already knew that, kid,” Rossi says.

Spencer looks over his shoulder, eyes flashing wide. “How?”

Rossi lifts his brows. “It’s written all over your face every time you look at her. And, for whatever my opinion is worth, it’s written all over hers every time she looks at you, too.” He pauses, choosing his words with care. “She may act like she’s made of steel, but when that girl looks at you, she melts. And when you look at her, it’s like the rest of the universe ceases to exist. That’s love if I’ve ever seen it, and despite what my three failed marriages may lead you to believe, I do in fact know a thing or two about love.”

Spencer’s breath catches. He scrubs a hand over his mouth, like he’s trying desperately to keep himself from falling apart.

“It’s been so hard not to tell her,” he admits, and the honesty in it is almost unbearable. “It would be the easiest, most natural thing in the world to say those words to her.” He swallows, blinking fast. "I literally feel them in my mouth all the time, but I’ve had to swallow them back constantly, because I’m terrified of what’ll happen if I say it out loud. I’m terrified it’ll change something.”

Rossi tilts his head, listening in that earnest way he always does.

Spencer’s fingers twist together. “I don’t even need her to say it back. I mean— I want to hear it, obviously. I… I hope she loves me too.” His voice dips, gentler, almost reverent. “But that’s not why I want to say it. I just… I want her to know I love her. I want her to feel loved. But she’s… she’s been through so much. Words like that are scary for her. She could feel like she’s about to be trapped, or disappointed, or left behind.” His voice drops. “And I can’t… I can’t be another person who makes her feel like love is a weapon.”

Rossi’s tone turns firm without turning cruel. “So you’ve been keeping it to yourself.”

Spencer nods once, miserable. “I didn’t want to scare her away.” He exhales shakily. “And now she’s in surgery with a bullet lodged in her abdomen and I can’t even remember what I last said to her and I’m realizing I might never get the chance to say what I should have said.”

Rossi leans forward a fraction, voice low and certain. “You will. When she wakes up, you can tell her.”

Spencer’s laugh is broken, disbelieving. “But what if—”

“No if, Reid. When she wakes up, you tell her. Don’t wait.” Rossi insists. “She deserves to know, and you deserve to love her as loudly as you want.”

Spencer’s throat works. He nods, but it looks more like a tremor than agreement.

“I’m just—” His voice catches. “I’m so scared.”

Rossi’s hand reaches forward and settles on Spencer’s shoulder. “I know you are, kid. We’re all a little terrified right now,” he admits. “But she’s strong. She’ll get through this.”

He squeezes Spencer’s shoulder gently, then adds once more, for good measure:

“And when she wakes up, you’re going to tell her.”

—

The waiting room itself flinches when Elle Greenaway walks in.

JJ is the first one to stand. Her face does something complicated in the space between recognition and regret. Hotch follows a beat later, all straight lines and control, like the reasons why Elle walked out of the BAU have been folded into his suit jacket and carefully buttoned away.

Morgan’s pacing stops mid-stride. Garcia’s breath catches like a hiccup. Emily turns from the window, taking Elle in for the first time with a quick, assessing look.

Elle looks… the same, and also not. Her hair is longer, and her bangs have grown out. Her eyes are darker somehow, like they’ve seen too much and turned to stone.

She takes in the room with one sweep, and for a second, it’s like she’s back in it. Like she never left.

“Elle. Hi,” JJ says in quiet greeting.

“Jennifer.” Elle’s voice is steady, but her gaze flicks over all of them like she’s counting. “Hotch.”

“Elle,” Hotch says with a nod. There’s a tremor of regret hidden in his tone, but he covers it in that well-practiced way any seasoned unit chief can.

Garcia breaks the tension, bounding out of her seat and across the room, arms flung around Elle before anyone can decide if it’s appropriate or not.

“Oh my god,” Garcia says into her shoulder, muffled and tear-soaked. “Do you know how freaking hard you were to find? Even for me? I had to— I had to do things I’m pretty sure are illegal in, like, at least thirteen states. And then you didn’t answer my first two phone calls!”

Elle’s arms hover for a second, then settle, brief and stiff around Penelope’s torso.

“Well, I never did like the phone,” Elle says simply, eyes cutting to Morgan.

He huffs a humorless laugh. JJ’s mouth twitches, and then she’s serious again.

Hotch gestures toward the seats. “Sit. We’ll fill you in. Your sister was shot during a takedown.”

Elle’s expression doesn’t change, but something inside her tightens. “Where?”

“Her side,” JJ answers, words clipped and careful. “The bullet somehow managed to sneak through between the straps of her vest.”

Morgan’s jaw works. “Before you ask, the unsub’s dead,” he says sternly. “I took him down right after he got the shot off.” He doesn’t say it out loud, but it’s clear he blames himself for not getting there first.

Hotch continues, calm in the way he has to be even when everything is very much not calm. “She lost a lot of blood. The bullet lodged somewhere in her abdomen, and the surgeons haven’t told us yet how extensive the damage is.”

“So she’s in surgery right now?” Elle asks.

“Yes,” Hotch says. “All we know for sure is that it’s serious.”

Elle drags a hand down her face, then glances around the room again, startled by how rattled they all look. “Yeah, I can tell it’s serious by the looks on all of your faces,” she says. “I mean, damn. You all look awful,” she adds, hoping a brief moment of teasing isn’t totally inappropriate.

Morgan snorts. “Watch it, Greenaway. And hey, if you think we look like hell, you gotta see how much worse Reid looks.”

Elle’s brows knit with the realization that Spencer isn’t there. She looks around the room, as if his lanky frame might be tucked behind the vending machine in the corner. “Yeah,” she says slowly. “Where is Reid, anyway? And… wait, hold on. Why would he look any worse than the rest of you?”

The air in the room goes completely still as a somber realization hits the team:

Elle doesn’t know about you and Spencer. She doesn’t know anything about your life.

Garcia’s eyes widen. JJ’s gaze flicks to Hotch, then away. Morgan’s face freezes in a way that would almost be funny if it weren’t devastating. Emily watches the pause like she’s watching a door swing open into a room none of them want to be the first to enter.

Elle’s eyes move over each of them, quick and suspicious. “What? What am I missing?”

Morgan’s throat bobs. He looks like he’s about to tell the truth, and then decides he’s not allowed to. Instead, he just says, “You need to talk to Reid, Elle.”

She stares at him for a beat, then nods. “Okay. Tell me where to find him.”

—

The chapel door clicks softly behind Elle when she finds her way inside.

Rossi is the first person she sees — she never knew him personally, but he’s basically a Bureau legend, so she recognizes him immediately. He’s already rising, hand reaching out to pat Spencer’s shoulder one last time before leaving the two of them alone.

Spencer doesn’t look up at first. Elle walks slowly to the edge of the pew he’s sitting in and clears her throat.

His face lifts, and she feels the impact of his expression like a blow to the ribs. He looks completely hollowed out. Like someone scraped him down to the bone and stranded him there.

Spencer stands. “Elle,” he says breathlessly. He blinks a few times, worried he’s hallucinating.

They hug. It’s awkward, because everything is awkward when standing in a hospital chapel at a time like this, but there’s a warmth and familiarity to it still. Elle’s hand presses once between his shoulder blades, a quick, grounding pat that almost feels like apology.

They separate and Elle gestures down towards the pew, encouraging Spencer to sit before she slides in beside him.

A heavy silence settles between them. It makes Elle itchy, so she reaches for humor to break the ice. “Wow. Morgan really wasn’t kidding. You do look even worse than the rest of them.”

Spencer’s mouth tries to lift, but it doesn’t quite make it there. His eyes flick away, then back.

Elle studies him slowly. She takes in the shaking hands he’s trying to hide. The rawness around his eyes. The way his fear doesn’t look like concern for a colleague. It looks like something private. Something intimate. Something… more.

“Oh,” she whispers.

Spencer’s shoulders tense.

Elle swallows as the pieces of a puzzle she didn’t expect to be solving arrange themselves in her mind. “Oh my god,” she breathes. “You’re… you’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

Spencer looks up at her miserably. “We’ve, um, kind of been together for a while.”

Elle blinks. “Together,” she repeats, like the word tastes strange.

Spencer nods once. “Yes. She’s… she’s my girlfriend.”

Elle’s eyes burn for a second, the hurt of her sister leaving her out of such an important part of her life flashing sharp and ugly before she can cover it. She looks away toward the altar, jaw tight.

“I didn’t know,” she whispers.

“She told me once that she wanted to tell you, but… I don’t think she knew how,” Spencer says.

Elle’s laugh is quiet and brittle. “Yeah. Can’t say I blame her. I probably wouldn’t tell me anything either if I were her.”

Spencer shifts, restless, then decides not to touch the complicated-estranged-sister-dynamic of it all and move on to more practical discussion.

“They said she lost a lot of blood,” he says. “She was barely conscious when they wheeled her into the operating room.” His voice falters, and he swallows it back. “They probably won’t be able to tell us much until she’s out of surgery.”

Elle looks at him again, really looks, and whatever she sees there rearranges something in her. He probably knows her better than I do now, she thinks to herself. He deserves to fall apart, but I don’t. I lost that right a long time ago.

“Okay,” she says briskly, as if she can muscle her way through her emotions by treating them like a job. “Then we need to go back to the waiting room with everyone else. We need to be there when the doctor comes out so we don’t miss anything.”

Spencer hesitates, eyes flicking down to his feet.

Elle’s voice goes firm, but not unkind. “Reid.”

He looks up at her.

“She’ll be okay. She’s a Greenaway, you know. If I can survive getting shot on the job, so can she,” Elle says. She stands, offering him her hand.

“C’mon. We’ll face it together.”

—

Time becomes a cruel, shapeless thing in hospitals.

Minutes stretch until they feel indistinguishable from hours. The clock above the vending machines keeps ticking like it isn’t personally offending everyone in the room.

Hotch stays near the doorway, posture rigid, eyes trained down the hallway as if focus alone can summon good news. JJ sits with her hands clasped in her lap, gaze fixed on a spot on the floor. Garcia keeps wiping her cheeks with her sleeves, smearing mascara she doesn’t have the energy to care about. Rossi walks back and forth between the coffee machine and whoever needs caffeine most. Emily’s still by the window, lost in thought. Morgan’s still pacing.

Spencer, on the other hand, doesn’t pace.

He can’t. He’s frozen in place.

He’s been stuck in the same chair for so long that the fabric has creased under him. Elbows on his knees, hands laced together so hard his fingers ache, eyes locked on the STAFF ONLY double doors at the end of the hall like he’s bracing for the worst. Every so often his thumb drags over his knuckle like he’s trying to keep himself anchored in his own body.

Elle stands off to the side, distanced from the cluster. Her arms are crossed tight, jaw clenched, gaze sharp and distant. Her posture reads as defensive until you look closer and realize it’s the only way she knows to keep her hands from shaking.

Then, in the middle of all the quiet, the doors open.

The surgeon moves with the measured calm of someone who’s done this too many times to let it affect him anymore. His mask is down around his neck. He reaches up and takes his scrub cap off his head as he approaches.

Hotch stands immediately. JJ and Garcia are up a second later. Emily turns from the window and plants herself next to Rossi. Morgan stops pacing so abruptly his shoes squeak against the linoleum floor.

Spencer doesn’t stand so much as unfold. Like his body has been coiled around panic for hours and forgot how to be upright.

Elle steps closer, arms still crossed tight.

“Are you all here for Agent Greenaway?” the surgeon asks.

“Yes,” Hotch says. “How is she?”

“She’s out of surgery,” he says. “We were able to remove the bullet and repair the internal damage, but she lost a significant amount of blood. Things were touch and go for a while. She made it through surgery, but her condition is still critical.”

“What now?” Hotch asks.

“Well, the next twenty-four hours will tell us a lot,” the surgeon says. “She’s being transferred to the ICU floor now so she can be closely monitored for complications — bleeding, infection, organ failure, blood pressure. She’s still sedated, but we’ll start weaning her off the anesthesia slowly to see how she responds.

Spencer’s throat bobs. “Can we see her?”

The surgeon looks at him, eyes flicking over his rumpled suit and raw face. “Normally it’s family only in the ICU, but… you’re FBI, so I think we can make some exceptions. There’s a max of two people allowed in the room at a time, though. I’ll send someone out to bring you to her.”

Spencer nods with sincere understanding. “Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.”

Hotch shakes the surgeon’s hand and turns toward the team. “All of you except for Elle and Reid, go home. Get some rest. We’ll come by in shifts tomorrow.”

JJ looks at Spencer sympathetically. “Call us if anything changes,” she says.

Morgan claps Spencer’s shoulder once, firm. “Don’t do that thing where you forget to eat, kid. You know your girl will kill you when she wakes up if she finds out you’ve got nothing in your system but shitty hospital coffee.”

The corner of Spencer’s mouth twitches. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “She will.”

—

You look smaller in the ICU bed.

Not like you’ve shrunk. But… like the world finally managed to nearly swallow you up.

There’s tubing everywhere and tape keeping wires stuck to your limbs and the steady beep-beep of monitors filling the air.

Spencer freezes, breath catching like he’s afraid to exhale too hard and disturb you.

Elle moves first. She steps in next to the bed, eyes darting over the machines, then reaches down and touches your wrist gently. Her fingers linger there for a moment before she pulls back and crosses her arms, looking around the room as if she knows she shouldn’t be seeing you like this.

“I’m going to—” She stops, glances at Spencer, and something passes between them that doesn’t need words. She steps back. “I’ll let you spend some time alone with her.”

He nods gratefully and watches her go until the room is only you and him and the machines.

He moves to the bedside, hand finding yours like a magnet. Your fingers are cool, so he wraps his other hand around them as well. He knows how much you hate being cold.

“Hi,” he whispers. His voice cracks on that single word. He clears his throat, blinking tears out of the way. “Hey, sweetheart.”

He swallows, thumb stroking your knuckles in a slow, desperate pattern. “The whole team stayed the entire time you were in surgery,” he tells you, even though he knows you can’t actually hear him right now. “Hotch, Rossi, JJ, Morgan, Garcia, Emily… they— they didn’t leave until they knew you made it through. I think Garcia might’ve cried enough to flood the whole floor, which is… pretty on-brand.”

His laugh is wet, but it doesn’t last. He presses his forehead to your hand for a second, eyes squeezed shut.

“And, uh, Elle’s here too,” he adds, softer, like he’s bracing for you to flinch even though you’re unconscious. “Garcia somehow tracked her down. She got here before you even made it out of surgery.”

He inhales shakily. “You— god, you were in that operating room for hours. I don’t think I’ve ever been that terrified before. I’m still terrified, because the doctor’s don’t even know if you’ll wake up. Normally I’d try to calculate the odds on this sort of thing, but it… it sort of feels like I left my brain in another room. I can’t make sense of anything. It’s all just random numbers jumbled around in my head,” he admits. “But you have to wake up, because I… I have something I need to tell you. And I need you to hear it. I need you to really be here when I say it.”

A tear slips free. He wipes it with the back of his hand, angry at himself for breaking, then immediately looks guilty, like you’d scold him for being mean to his own feelings.

He leans down until his lips brush your knuckles, kissing them softer than he ever has before.

“Please,” he whispers against your skin. “Please wake up as soon as you can.”

—

All night long, Spencer refuses to leave.

He shifts positions. He stands and moves out of the way when the nurses come in. He sits again, knee bouncing. He learns the rhythm of the monitor the way he learns facts, memorizes it like it’s a language he can speak back to you.

A doctor tells him the anesthesia can take a while to wear off, especially after major trauma and blood loss, especially when they’re keeping you comfortable and stable. He nods like knowing the reason makes the waiting any less brutal. It doesn’t.

Elle drifts in and out. She watches Spencer watching you and looks away every time. But even when she leaves, she never goes farther than the cafeteria downstairs.

Night folds into morning. The window shifts from black to gray to the shy, watery light of dawn.

You still haven't woken up. But as the hours pass, the room starts to change.

At first, your bed was surrounded by equipment and machines and too many lines disappearing into your body. Now the wires have thinned. The tubes were removed one by one as you stabilized, like the hospital has been slowly giving you back to yourself. A monitor still tracks your heart in patient little beeps, but it doesn’t sound as frantic. Your breathing is steadier. Your color looks… closer to normal, if you squint.

Spencer’s still in the chair beside you, pulled so close the armrests bump the bed frame. His body is folded forward, forearms crossed on the mattress, head resting on them in a miserable attempt at getting some rest. His curls are a mess. His tie is gone. His shirt is wrinkled and slightly untucked. One of his hands is still wrapped around yours, fingers laced like he’s afraid you’ll slip away if he lets go for even a second.

Then — quietly, almost stubbornly — you start to come back. Consciousness returns in pieces.

First, pain. Dull and deep, like your body is just a giant bruise with a heartbeat. Then, the weight of the blankets. The dry, cottony taste in your mouth. The faint sting of antiseptic in your nose. Sound swims in next — the monitor, the low hush of the AC, a cart rolling down the hall.

You try to breathe in and it hurts, sharp at your side.

Your fingers twitch without permission.

Spencer’s hand tightens reflexively. His head lifts, eyes snapping open.

For a second, he just stares at you, and you stare back at him.

Then his face crumples in a way you’ve never seen before. Relief and fear and pain crash together so violently they all morph into one heartbreaking expression.

“Hi,” he whispers shakily.

You swallow, wince, and immediately regret having a throat. “Hi,” you rasp.

Spencer makes a sound that could be a laugh and also could be a sob. He helps you take a sip of water before leaning in closer, free hand hovering near your face, desperate to touch you but cautious not to overwhelm you in such a fragile state.

“You’re awake,” he says in disbelief.

You blink slowly, the room swimming around you. You look at him and your brain catalogs the details: the red in his eyes, the shadow of stubble across his cheeks, the way his shoulders are hunched like he’s been frozen in that chair for hours.

You manage a tiny smirk. “Geez, Spence,” you murmur. “I got shot, yet somehow you’re the one who looks like hell.”

A laugh actually breaks free from Spencer’s throat for real this time. “That’s—” He exhales hard, eyes shining. “That’s seriously the first thing you have to say?”

“Gotta stay on brand,” you whisper, then wince again.

Spencer’s thumb strokes your knuckles. His touch is careful, reverent. He lowers his forehead toward your hand like he’s about to pray into it, then stops himself and just… holds on tighter.

“I thought—” He swallows. His eyes squeeze shut for half a beat. “God, I was so scared.”

The words land in your chest even heavier than the pain. You try to lift your other hand to touch his face, but you only make it halfway there before gravity wins. Spencer catches it, guiding it back down gently.

“Easy,” he murmurs. “Don’t— don’t move too much.”

You breathe out through your nose, a weak huff. “Bossy.”

His mouth twitches. “I’m not trying to be.”

“I know,” you whisper softly. You clear your throat, trying to find your edge again. “What… what happened?”

His expression flickers, panic trying to surge back in. He steadies it with effort. “You were shot between the straps of your vest on your left side,” he explains quietly. “You were rushed into surgery. It—” He takes a breath. “You lost a lot of blood. Really scared everyone half to death.”

“Sounds like something I’d do,” you mumble..

Spencer’s eyes crinkle with something like gratitude, like your humor is proof you’re really here. He leans in just a little, careful not to jostle you, and presses a kiss to your knuckles.

You stare at him, woozy at the tenderness. Your heart does something stupid. Before you can acknowledge it, the door opens.

A nurse slips in first, followed by the doctor. Spencer stands immediately, but he doesn’t let go of your hand.

“Welcome back,” the doctor says, voice calm and practiced. She shines a light in your eyes. Asks you your name. Where you are. What day it is.

You get most of it right. You get some of it wrong, which is understandable considering the fact your head feels like it’s full of jello and static.

They check your vitals, ask about your pain levels, adjust your meds. Your side throbs. Spencer answers questions for you when he can.

When they finally leave, you take a slow breath.

Spencer sits back down, the chair scraping softly as he somehow pulls it even closer than it was before.

“You’ve been here the entire time, haven’t you?” you ask, voice quiet.

He nods. “Of course I have.”

“Spencer,” you whisper. “You look… wrecked. You didn’t have to stay this whole time, really.”

He swallows. His thumb pauses against your skin, then resumes, slower. “Yes, I did,” he insists, and it makes your chest ache. “I didn’t— I didn’t want to miss it.”

“Miss what?”

“Anything,” he says quietly. “Any… time with you. Just in case.”

You stare at him. Your throat tightens in a way that has nothing to do with being in the ICU.

He hesitates, then says, “So… Elle is here.”

Your stomach drops. “What the fuck?”

Spencer nods. “Yeah. Garcia got ahold of her. She’s been here since you were still in surgery.”

You blink, trying to reconcile that with the last time you heard her voice. With the years of silence that followed. Your hand tightens in his automatically.

Spencer notices. Of course he does. His grip firms, anchoring you, and his eyes search your face. “Do you want me to go get her?”

“No,” you say quickly, then pause, because you aren’t actually as sure of your answer as you thought you’d be. “Maybe. I— I don’t know.”

Spencer nods like he understands exactly what that means. “Okay,” he says with a soft, comforting smile. “It’s just us for now. I’ll get her when you’re ready.”

—

Hours later, after the room finally settles, when the lights feel less harsh and your breathing doesn’t sound like it’s scraping against your organs on the way out, you look at Spencer and whisper, “Okay.”

His eyes sharpen instantly. “Okay?”

You swallow. Your throat still feels a bit like sandpaper. “You can get her,” you say.

Spencer nods. He squeezes your hand once. “Alright, as long as you’re sure.”

You squeeze his hand back. “I’m not, but this is probably as sure as I’m gonna get, so it’s time I rip the bandage off.”

He gets up then, walking to the door and looking back at you once more before turning the handle and stepping into the hall.

A minute passes. Maybe two. Maybe twelve. It’s hard to say.

Then the handle turns again.

Elle steps in slowly, as if she’s prepared to navigate around potential booby traps. Spencer follows behind her, gaze flicking to you.

You hold it long enough to nod.

Spencer hesitates, then walks to your bedside and murmurs, “I’ll… give you two some privacy.” He reaches down and squeezes your arm lightly before disappearing back out into the hall.

The room suddenly feels like it’s suffocating you.

Elle hovers near the end of the bed.

“You look like shit,” she says finally.

It would almost be funny if it didn’t make your chest tighten. You manage a weak, unimpressed blink. “So do you.”

Elle’s mouth twitches, but it doesn’t turn into a smile.

“So,” you say. “Did you seriously think I’d want you to show up here just because I almost died?”

Elle’s eyes flash with something defensive. “Garcia called me and said you were bleeding out on an operating table. What was I supposed to do, ignore that?”

“It’s been nearly two years, Elle,” you reply, voice hoarse and flat. “Two fucking years of nothing. No calls. No emails. You quit the Bureau and then you were just… gone. You left the FBI, and you left me.”

The sharpness in your voice costs you. You have to breathe through it, slow and careful, because your body is fragile right now. Your rage, however, is not.

“I didn’t plan on leaving you,” she says, and it comes out too quiet. “I only meant to leave the BAU.”

You let out a rough laugh that turns into a wince. “Well, congratulations. You managed to do both, and for no good reason, because I was still with the New York office when you quit the BAU. I wasn’t connected to this team at all. Leaving me behind along with it never made any fucking sense.”

Elle’s eyes go shiny for half a second, then harden again, because that’s what she does when she’s cornered. “You don’t understand what it was like for me.”

“You’re right,” you say. “I don’t. You never told me.”

Elle opens her mouth. Closes it. Her gaze drops to the blanket, then to your hands.

“I couldn’t,” she says finally, quieter. “I couldn’t talk about any of it. I was so angry all the time. I was—” She exhales, sharp. “I didn’t know how to come back from it. And I especially didn’t know how to talk about it with you while you were on your meteoric rise through Bureau ranks.”

“So your solution was to disappear?” you ask angrily, the words tasting bitter. “It felt like you died, Elle.”

She flinches.

Good.

There’s pressure behind your eyes that has nothing to do with the pain. You blink it away, furious at your body for being weak in front of her.

“You want to know the worst part?” you ask.

Elle’s gaze lifts slowly.

“You’re the whole reason I transferred to the BAU.”

Elle goes still. “What?”

“Yeah. I was so messed up by you ghosting me that I chose to come to this unit just to try to understand why it made you leave your entire life behind,” you explain. “I needed answers. I wanted to understand how you could walk away from everything you’d ever known and not even look back once.” You take a slow breath. “And… joining this team ended up accidentally becoming the best decision I’ve ever made, because of, um, reasons I’m sure you’ve deduced by now.” Your gaze flicks toward the door, mind drawing up images of Spencer pacing on the other side. “So I don’t regret it. But I never got the answers I came here for. I still don’t understand any of it. I don’t understand why you had to leave me behind too.”

The silence that follows is heavy.

Elle swallows hard. For a second she looks younger, like the person she was before the BAU hollowed her out.

“I could never have predicted that you’d transfer here,” she manages. “I didn’t think you’d rebuild your whole life around my mess.”

“You’re my sister, Elle. And you know how stubborn I am. Did you really think I’d let go that easily?” you ask, exasperated.

“I just… I thought I was protecting you,” she says, voice quiet. “I thought if I stayed away, you wouldn’t get pulled into it. You wouldn’t get… contaminated. I— I didn’t want my issues to rub off on you. You deserve better than that. I never wanted you to be afraid of the job the way I was at the end.”

You stare at her for a long moment, heartbeat steadying. Then you say, more tired than angry now, “I don’t scare easily, Elle.”

Elle’s throat works. “I know.”

“Ghosting me was unfair, and unnecessary. I could’ve handled it. Maybe I could’ve even helped you.”

Elle node and steps closer, finally, to the side of the bed.

“I can’t go back and change it now, but, for what it’s worth, I am sorry,” she says quietly.

It’s worth more than she probably thinks, but you don’t offer up forgiveness that easily, so you just nod.

“Sooooo. Reid,” she says abruptly, changing the subject completely with the sound of his name. “I’ve never seen him like that before.”

Your pulse trips, annoying and obvious. You keep your face neutral with effort. “Like what?”

Elle’s eyes flick to yours, sharp with the kind of teasing that’s also a test. “Terrified,” she says. “Wrecked. Like the other half of his soul was being ripped away from him.”

You roll your eyes, but it lacks bite. “He’s dramatic.”

“No,” Elle says immediately, and her tone is so certain it almost makes you laugh. “He’s not. That’s the thing. Spencer Reid has always been… careful. And practical, and thoughtful. He usually keeps himself together.” She pauses, and when she speaks again her voice is lower, more sincere. “You should’ve seen him in that waiting room, sis. He looked like he was dying right alongside you.”

Your throat tightens in a different way. You stare at the blankets and pretend they’re the reason your face is flushing. “He said he hasn’t left the hospital once.”

“Yep” Elle confirms. “Not once. I came in a few times to check on you before you woke up, and he was always in the same spot. Holding your hand like it was the only thing keeping him afloat.”

You don’t answer right away, because if you do your voice might crack, and you refuse to give her that satisfaction.

Elle leans back slightly, studying you. “How long has this been going on?” she asks, nodding toward the door, toward the hall where Spencer’s definitely pacing. “You and him.”

You hesitate. It feels weird to talk about this sort of thing with her after all this time.

“A while,” you reply.

Elle huffs softly. “That’s rather vague.”

“Do you want dates and timestamps?” you mutter. “I barely know what day it is. Cut me some slack, I just got shot.”

Elle’s mouth twitches. “Fair.” She looks at you for a beat, then adds, “He’s a really good guy, you know.”

You blink. “I know that.”

Elle’s brows lift. “And he looks at you like you’re… everything. It’s actually kind of terrifying, how intense he’s been. He’s, like, completely devoted to you. Obsessed might be a better word.”

Heat crawls up your neck. You shift slightly, regret it instantly, and cover it by making a face. “Oh my god, Elle. Stop.”

Elle’s smile finally appears, small and crooked. “What? You know I’m not wrong. And I approve, in case you were wondering how I feel about it.”

You stare at her, half irritated, half… oddly grateful. “I didn’t ask for your blessing.”

“Obviously not. But you’re getting it anyway, so suck it up, sis.”

That makes you laugh, which hurts, which makes you glare down at your own ribs with a sigh.

Elle watches you, and something soft passes over her face. “You’re lucky to have him,” she says. “And he’s even luckier to have you.”

Your lips twist awkwardly as you suppress a smile, gaze flicking toward the door again without thinking.

Elle catches it immediately.

“My god, you’re just as obsessed with him as he is with you, aren’t you? You can’t stop looking for him.”

You blink. “No I’m not.”

“You so are,” Elle says, delighted in the way only sisters can be about humiliating you at the worst possible time. “You’re completely obsessed.”

“I’m not—”

Elle cuts you off, eyes bright. “You’re as bad as he is.”

You scowl. “He’s definitely worse.”

Elle snorts. “Probably. But still.”

You fall quiet again, your anger draining down to something tired and unresolved but much lighter than it was before. Elle’s hand finally settles on the blanket near yours, not quite touching you, but close.

“I’m not—” Elle starts, then stops. Her voice shifts, less sharp. “I don’t know how to fix what I did.”

You swallow. Your eyes burn. “I don’t know if you can, Elle,” you admit. Then, softer: “But… you’re here. You came when I needed you. So let’s just… try again from here.”

Elle’s eyes go glassy as she nods, hand finally grasping yours. “Yeah,” she agrees. “We can start right here.”

You breathe in slowly, careful around the pain, and let the moment sit.

A soft shuffle of movement floats in through the door — the sound of Spencer hovering.

You glance toward it again before you can stop yourself.

Elle’s smirk returns. “Alright, alright,” she says, voice low. “I’ll tell your boyfriend to come back in before he combusts. I mean, seriously, I think he’s a real fire hazard out there.”

You roll your eyes, but your mouth twitches. “Don’t make fun of him.”

Elle lifts both hands in surrender, still smiling. “I’ll stop,” she says as she walks to the door. “But only because I’m saving it for when you can fight back.”

She slips out into the hall, door clicking shut behind her.

And for the first time in two years, the hole her absence left inside you feels a little less hollow.

—

Golden hour is a strange experience inside a hospital room.

Outside the window, the sky is turning molten. Sunset washes the room in soft shades of orange and amber, painting the sterile white walls with something warm. It makes the ICU feel significantly less miserable, even if only for a few minutes before the sun sinks below the horizon.

Spencer sits beside you, angled toward the bed. His hand is wrapped around yours again.

You feel more awake now. More yourself. The brain fog has cleared enough that you can hold a thought without losing it halfway through. You can track his eyes as they flit across the pages of the book in his lap. You can read the exhaustion in the slump of his shoulders and the stubbornness in the way he keeps trying to sit up straighter anyway.

“You look slightly less like you’ve been through a war compared to how you looked earlier,” you murmur to break the silence.

He looks up from his book and huffs a quiet laugh. “Wow, what a compliment.”

You realize he’s wearing a sweater now. It looks much more comfortable than the dress shirt he’d been wearing for god knows how many hours straight.

“When did you change your clothes?” you ask.

He smiles softly. “Morgan dropped off my go bag while you were sleeping a couple hours ago,” he explains, nodding towards the duffel bag sitting on the floor across the room.

You hum in acknowledgment, oddly comforted by the knowledge that he still hasn’t left your side.

Spencer’s thumb strokes your knuckles, slow. “Do you… remember anything else?” he asks after a moment.

“Not much,” you admit. “I remember chasing the unsub, but I don’t remember going down. I remember being on the gurney being wheeled down the hall, and I remember you being there until you weren’t. Other than that, it’s all pretty blank until I woke up to you hovering by my bedside looking like a Victorian ghost.”

That earns a soft, shaky laugh. He looks down, blinking like he’s trying to clear something out of his eyes without letting you see it.

“You were gone,” he says after a minute, and the words are barely above a whisper. “And I— I couldn’t do anything.”

Your fingers curl around his, weak but deliberate. “You did do something, Spence. You stayed.”

His mouth twitches. “I didn’t want to leave.”

You stare at his hand around yours. His knuckles are slightly raw. You wonder how many times he washed them in the hospital bathroom just to have something he could control.

“What’s wrong?” you ask quietly.

His brows knit. “What do you mean?”

You gesture vaguely at his entire existence. “You’re… vibrating.”

Spencer looks down for a second, then back at you, and his eyes are shining in a way that makes your stomach drop.

“I don’t know how to be normal right now,” he admits.

You try for sarcasm, but it comes out too soft. “Yeah. You’re being a little intense.”

“I know,” he whispers.

He stares at you like he’s trying to hold himself together with eye contact.

Then he says, very carefully, “I— I can’t remember the last thing I said to you. Before it happened. Before you—” He swallows. The muscle in his throat jumps. “It was probably something stupid. And it feels—” He shakes his head once, frustrated. “It feels wrong that the last thing you heard from me might have been… small.”

Your throat tightens. You can’t fix that for him. You can’t rewrite the seconds before the shot. You can’t remember what he said either.

So you do the only thing you can: you squeeze his hand.

“I need to tell you something," he says after a long beat of silence, voice nearly a whisper. “You don’t have to say anything back. I just need you to listen.”

You nod. Spencer inhales. His shoulders tense like he’s bracing for impact.

Then, his eyes soften as he looks into yours and says, voice sounding terrified and incredibly certain all at once:

“I love you.”

Woah.

Your mouth goes dry.

“I’m— I’m in love with you. I have been for a while, but I never said it because I was trying to be careful. But now—” His voice catches. He swallows hard. “Now I feel sick about it, because being careful almost cost me the chance to ever get to say it.”

You open your mouth to respond, but no sound comes out.

Spencer’s thumb brushes over your knuckles, trembling. “You don’t have to say it back. You don’t have to say anything at all, honestly,” he says quickly. “I’m not… I didn’t say it to get a response. I just need you to know that while you were in that operating room, the fact that I love you was the only thing in my head that felt real.”

He watches you, breathing shallowly, nerves on edge like he’s waiting for you to flinch.

But you don’t flinch. Instead, you whisper, “Say it again.”

He freezes.

“What?”

“Say it again. Please.”

Spencer’s expression shifts into something so tender it hurts to look at. Like he can’t believe you’re asking for more of something he’s been rationing for so long. He leans closer, careful not to crowd you, and says it like a secret meant only for you:

“I love you.”

The words hit your chest and sit there, heavy and warm.

“I love you,” he repeats again, slower this time.

You stare at him, eyes shining, lips curled up helplessly into a grin.

“I’m— I’m probably going to say it too much,” Spencer admits with a dry laugh. “Like… all the time. You’re going to get so annoyed with me.”

“Good,” you whisper.

His brows lift, surprised at the softness of your answer.

You watch him for a second. The tremor in his fingers. The way his breath still isn’t fully steady.

And you realize what you need, sharp and immediate.

“Come here,” you say.

Spencer blinks. “I am here.”

“No,” you insist, voice rough. “In bed. With me.”

His eyes go wide, alarm immediately rising. “What? I— I can’t. That’s against hospital policy.”

“I got shot, Spencer,” you say flatly. “I almost died. I’m in the fucking ICU and you just told me you love me. I do not give a rat’s ass about hospital policy right now.”

Spencer’s mouth opens, then closes again. He looks like he’s trying to fight an internal battle against a lifetime of rule-following in a matter of moments.

“You need rest,” he tries.

“So do you,” you counter. “You haven’t slept in, like, seventy years. You’ve been folded into that chair like a sad paper crane.”

Spencer lets out a helpless little laugh. “I’m not—”

“Please,” you whisper.

Spencer goes still. His gaze drops to your face, to your eyes, to the way you’re trying to look tough while asking for something you desperately need.

He nods once. “Okay.”

He stands carefully, kicking off his shoes because, above all, he’s still Spencer Reid and cannot stand the idea of germs on the sheets. He hesitates at the edge of the mattress then slides in, settling down next to your good side.

You shift toward him with a small, careful movement that your body, mercifully, barely protests. Spencer’s arm comes around you, so gently you could sob, anchoring you against him.

Your cheek ends up against his shoulder. You can smell him— coffee and soap long faded, replaced by hospital air and stress and him. You close your eyes. Your body relaxes in a way you didn’t realize it was refusing to.

“This feels so illegal,” Spencer murmurs.

You hum weakly. “I’ll let you arrest me later, Agent.”

His laugh shakes against your hair. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Mm,” you hum. “Say it again.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

You roll your eyes. “Not that, doofus. You know that’s not what I mean.”

You feel his smile against your temple before he speaks.

“I love you,” he whispers finally.

You lift your head just enough to look at him. He’s gazing down at you, face just a breath away from yours. His eyes are soft and wrecked and devoted in a way that makes you feel unbelievably seen. The feeling nearly overwhelms you, so you do the only thing you can think of:

You kiss him.

It’s gentle, careful, more of a simple press than anything else, because you’re fragile and he’s terrified and your heart is still being monitored by machines that could start yelling at any moment. Spencer makes a quiet sound against your mouth that cracks something open inside you.

When you pull back, your forehead rests against his.

Spencer’s thumb strokes your cheek, feather-light. “I love you,” he says again.

You let out a shaky breath that might be a laugh if you had more energy. “I know,” you whisper.

—

By the next morning, you’re out of the ICU.

You’re nowhere close to fine, but you’re stable enough to get moved to a different floor. The new room is quieter. The nurses don’t hover with the same tight urgency.

Spencer is still there, of course.

At some point in the early hours, between vitals checks and pain meds and drifting in and out of sleep, he braided your hair. You remember the gentle tug, the way his fingers moved with startling confidence, like he’d studied the way you do it ages ago and filed the steps away for later. The braid lies over your shoulder now, neat and contained, making you feel a little less like a patient and a little more like yourself.

Elle is gone.

She left after sitting with you for a while this morning with a quiet promise to call. A promise to text. A promise to try. You don’t know what that means yet, or if you can trust it, but it’s a start.

The team stops by mid-morning. They don’t stay long. They talk in short bursts, careful not to exhaust you. They tease. They scold. They try to make you laugh.

When they finally file out, Garcia blows you a kiss and Morgan points two fingers at his eyes before turning them to you as if to say he’s “watching you.”

And, like clockwork, Spencer’s hand finds yours again the second the door closes.

—

Golden hour arrives again, just as it did the day before.

White hospital walls warm into amber. The plastic on the bed rail glows. Even the IV line catches a sunbeam and looks almost delicate, which is offensive, because nothing about the last forty-eight hours has been delicate.

Spencer has another book open, but you can tell he’s been on the same page for a while. His long fingers keep tracing along the margins. His leg bounces. His lashes flutter when eyes flick up to you and back to the text, like he can’t resist checking on you.

You don’t say anything. You just watch him.

You watch the pinch between his brows and the way his mouth softens. The way the light catches in his eyes and turns them into pools of honey. The way he looks tired in the most human, heartbreaking way — like exhaustion has settled into his bones yet he’s still choosing to stay upright for you.

You realize then that you know him in a hundred tiny ways. Maybe a thousand, even.

You know the rhythm of his breathing when he’s pretending to be calm. You know the angle he tilts his head at when he’s listening intently. You know the way he replaces your chewed-to-death pens without ever making it a thing. You know how he used to hand you coffee with a doodled sleeve, back when “you” and “him” were still a slow, careful story he was letting you write at your own pace.

And you also know the way he loves you.

His love is an action verb. It’s constant. It’s something he does with his hands and his eyes and his patience, day after day, even when you give him nothing in return except a sharp remark and a look that says don’t get used to this.

He said the words for the first time yesterday. In this same amber light, with you stitched together and half gone, he said I love you like he’d die if he waited another second to let it out.

You’ve been carrying that around ever since, turning the words over like a stone in your palm until your skin is warm from it.

Spencer finally flips the page. Then he pauses and looks up, expression shifting into that soft, amused patience he saves for you when you’re being difficult in a way he finds strangely endearing.

“You’ve been staring at me for seven minutes and forty-two seconds straight,” he says teasingly. “It’s… rather intimidating.”

You roll your eyes. Your body might be fragile, but your personality is still very much intact. “Maybe you’ve got something on your face.”

“I don’t have anything on my face,” he murmurs. His smile lingers a beat longer than usual, and then it fades into something quieter. He closes the book and sets it down on the tray table.

“Is something on your mind?” he asks gently.

You should say no. You should deflect. You should make a joke about hospital food or the nurse’s shoes or the fact that the giant teddy bear Garcia dropped off is staring into your soul.

Instead, you hear yourself say, “Can I ask you something?”

Spencer nods. “Anything.”

You look down at your hands for a second, because the question is embarrassingly vulnerable in its simplicity. “When did you… know?”

“Know what?”

Your throat tightens, but you swallow around it. “When did you know that you loved me?”

Spencer goes still, like he’s handling something fragile.

“I don’t know if there was one specific moment,” he says. “It was more like… a feeling that just kept happening. Over and over. Even in ways that didn’t make any sense at first.”

You hold his eyes. “Like what?”

He exhales, the sound soft. “Remember that time you tried to make a smoothie but forgot to put the lid on the blender, so fruit ended up all over my kitchen ceiling? I felt it then, even though I was so annoyed with you. And I felt it on the jet every time you handed me one of your earbuds and gave me those pouty eyes to guilt me into listening to your 90s punk playlist. And that time you fell asleep with your head in my lap after insisting you weren’t too tired for one more episode of Doctor Who.” His thumb brushes your knuckles once, careful. “There came a point where I realized I’m not just… impressed by you, or curious about you, or attracted to you. I’m… invested. In your day, and your mood, and whether or not you slept. In whether or not you smiled.”

You feel your chest tighten, warm and painful in equal measure.

“It became very easy to imagine my future with you in it,” Spencer says. “And nearly impossible to imagine one without you.”

You swallow. “Why didn’t you say it when you first realized you felt it?”

Spencer’s jaw shifts. His leg stops bouncing for the first time in hours.

“Because I wanted to keep you,” he says simply. “And I was worried it would scare you away.”

Your breath catches.

He continues, voice steady. “You’ve always been honest with me about how… loud certain feelings can be for you. How quickly they can turn into pressure. And I didn’t want you to hear I love you and feel trapped under it.” His gaze softens. “I wanted you to hear it when you could take it as what it is for me. Just as something I feel, and something I choose. Not as something that means you owe me anything, or that I’m expecting more than you can give.”

Guilt twists behind your ribs. “God, that wasn’t fair to you, Spence. You shouldn’t have had to manage me like that,” you say.

Spencer’s eyes hold yours. “It didn’t feel unfair,” he promises gently. “I was just trying to love you the best way I knew how, and that meant keeping it quiet.”

You look away for a second, because if you keep looking at him, you might crack open entirely. The sunset stripe across the sheets blurs a little. You blink it back into focus.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper.

Spencer shakes his head. “You don’t need to be sorry.”

“Yes, I do,” you say. You breathe carefully through the ache in your side. “I mean, I’m not sorry for being who I am. I’m not sorry for having… whatever this is in my brain that treats love like a fire alarm. It’s just a part of me.” Your mouth tightens. “But I am sorry for not giving you any signs that I wanted to hear you say it, because… I did. I think I’ve wanted to hear those words for a while now. So I’m sorry for how long you swallowed it back, and for how long you thought you had to make your feelings smaller so I wouldn’t bolt.”

Spencer’s expression shifts, something tender and painful crossing his face like a shadow. “I didn’t mind.”

You give him a look. “Yes, you did.”

He exhales a small laugh, caught. “Okay,” he admits softly. “I did. Sometimes. It wasn’t… comfortable. Holding it back kinda sucked.” His thumb strokes your knuckles again. “But it was worth it.”

You breathe. You can feel the beat of your heart against your chest. You can also feel how close you came to not getting to have this moment at all.

“When I woke up in the ICU,” you say slowly, “it mattered to me that yours was the first face I saw.” You swallow hard. “It made me realize that I don’t want to be the kind of person who only tells the truth when it’s convenient, because life isn’t convenient. Getting shot sure as hell wasn’t convenient.”

You shift your hand, lacing your fingers between his.

“I’ve been… feeling your love for a while now, to be honest,” you admit. “It’s been this, like, steady undercurrent that weaves through every moment we spend together. So even though you waited to say it, you didn’t wait to make me feel it.”

Spencer’s throat moves as he swallows. His gaze doesn’t leave your face.

“And then I almost died,” you continue with a humorless chuckle, “and the only thing I could think after I woke up was that I didn’t want to waste any more time acting like this isn’t the realest thing I’ve ever felt.”

The words hang between you, bright and frightening.

Spencer’s eyes are wet now, lashes darkening. He doesn’t interrupt. He just leans closer, like he’s drawn to you the way the tides are drawn to the moon.

“Can we each share one true thing?” you ask nervously.

Spencer’s mouth trembles, almost a smile, almost disbelief. “We haven’t done that in a while,” he murmurs.

“I know,” you whisper. “But… we started with one truth a day to make it easier for me to open up. So I figure if it worked then, maybe it can still work now, because I have a truth for you.”

Spencer nods, a slow, steady yes. “Okay,” he says. “Go ahead. One true thing.”

Your heart pounds so hard you can feel it in your fingertips.

“My one true thing…” You swallow. “My one true thing, Spencer Reid, is that I love you too.”

His face changes instantly, like he’s been struck by something bright. His breath stutters. He looks stunned — genuinely stunned — and then his expression collapses into relief so intense it makes him sway.

“You…” he whispers, almost soundless. “You love me?”

You huff a small laugh. “Yes,” you murmur. “That is what I said, is it not?”

Spencer lets out a shaky exhale that sounds like he’s been holding it for months. He stands decisively, like his body needs to be closer to you right now. He leans over the bed, careful of your injured side, one hand braced on the mattress.

His other hand cups your cheek, warm and steady, and then he’s kissing you.

It’s slow at first, reverent, as if he’s making sure you feel all of it. Then it deepens, because you finally have enough strength to kiss him back like you mean it.

His mouth is warm, soft and hungry in that controlled Spencer way — desire threaded through devotion, like he’s holding you and wanting you and protecting you and worshipping you all at once. A quiet sound slips from him when you pull him closer with your hand on his bicep. He shifts, careful, and sits on the edge of the bed so he can lean in without hurting you.

When you finally break for air, his forehead rests against yours. His eyes are bright and wrecked.

“I love you,” he whispers, like he’ll never make it scarce again.

“That’s good,” you murmur with a smile. “Because it would’ve been pretty embarrassing if I made that whole speech and finally said it back just for you to decide you didn’t mean it.”

He laughs and kisses you again — shorter this time, gentler — and then he lingers close, thumb brushing your cheekbone.

After a few breaths, his expression shifts into something full of love and practicality at the same time.

“Okay,” he says softly. “My one true thing is going to be annoying, so brace yourself.”

You squint. “Oh geez.”

His mouth twitches. “You’re going to be stuck in here for at least another day or two,” he says matter-of-factly. “Maybe longer. The doctors want to watch your labs and your incision and your pain control. You’re probably going to go a little stir-crazy by the end of it.”

“Shocking.”

“And when they discharge you,” he continues, “it’ll be with some serious restrictions. No lifting anything heavier than ten pounds. No driving. No stairs if we can avoid them.” His eyes hold yours, gentle but firm. “And… I’m going to be with you for all of it.”

An instinctive protest rises in your throat, familiar and sharp.

Spencer sees it coming, and speaks before you can get it out. “Not because you can’t take care of yourself. I know you’re more than capable,” he promises. “But your body needs time to recover, and you have a habit of treating pain like… like it’s an inconvenience you can bully into submission.” His thumb brushes your cheek again. “I’m not letting you prove toughness at the expense of your healing.”

You glare weakly. “You’re insufferable.”

“I know,” he says, completely unbothered. “I’ll stay at your apartment, and stock your fridge, and make sure you take your meds on time. I’ll drive you to all your follow-up appointments, and I’ll make sure you don’t overdo it and tear your stitches because you decided you’re invincible.”

“I am invincible,” you argue.

He gives you a look. “You were shot, honey.”

You wave a hand dismissively. “Meh. That was a fluke.”

Spencer laughs softly. “I’ll talk to Hotch about working cases remotely from Quantico as much as possible instead of traveling. I don’t want to leave you unless I have to.”

“You can’t stop doing the job,” you protest, even though something inside you glows at the idea that he’d choose you without hesitation. “Don’t— don’t make your world smaller because of me.”

Spencer’s gaze steadies on yours. “I’m not making my world smaller,” he says quietly. “I’m just… recentering it around the things that matter most.”

Your chest tightens at that.

He squeezes your hand gently. “You’re going to heal,” he adds, voice certain. “You’re probably going to hate physical therapy and you’re definitely going to pretend you’re fine even when you’re not, but I also know for a fact that you’re going to recover faster than anyone expects you to, because you’re you.”

You exhale a shaky breath that almost feels like a laugh. “And you’re going to be annoying about it the entire time.”

“I’m going to be relentlessly annoying,” he teases.

You glare. “Ugh. You’re lucky I love you.”

Spencer’s smile turns soft and devastating. “Yeah. I am.”

You stare at him for a long moment, heart pounding, and squeeze his hand.

Spencer stays close, warm at your side. You’re still in the weird in-between: stitched up, sore, not fully back to yourself—

but his hand is in yours.

And because of that, this liminal space feels survivable.

ᝰ.ᐟ

➜ next part

this fic is part of the greenaway!reader universe/series! you can read more about this pairing here ♥️

On paper, nothing’s changed. You come in separately. You don’t touch in the bullpen. You sit in your usual seats at the round table. But your lives have stitched together enough that the seams will definitely show if anyone looks too closely.

He finds your eyes faster in briefings now. Your chairs drift closer together. You pass each other in the hallway and don’t touch, but you both feel the almost in the space between your hands. You feel that unnamed thing between you, getting louder.

It hits a new decibel on a Wednesday evening in a Georgetown auditorium.

Spencer’s guest-lecturing for a criminology seminar, so you tagged along to sit in the back row and watch him talk about offender typologies in a suit that should be illegal. He’s in his element up there, long fingers sketching invisible graphs, voice steady. Several students are blatantly gone for him, laughing too hard at his nerdy little asides, pretending to take notes while they’re probably just doodling his name paired with theirs inside a heart.

You should be rolling your eyes. Instead, you sit there with your chin in your hand and think, with a clarity that makes your stomach drop, I want him to be mine. Wait, he is mine. Oh, I’m in so much trouble.

Class ends. He’s barely capped his pen before a cluster of students descends, all smiles and eager questions. You stay in your seat with a file open in your lap, giving him space, pretending you’re not blatantly eavesdropping.

One of the female grad students hangs back until the rest clear out, then steps closer. She’s twisting a mechanical pencil between her fingers, leaning in with deliberate, practiced brightness.

“I just wanted to say your lecture was amazing,” she says, breathy. “Some of us are going to Martin’s Tavern after this. If you’re free, maybe you’d like to join? I’d love to buy you a drink. Or just get your number?”

There’s a tiny pause. You don’t look up, but every nerve in your body goes live.

“Oh, uh, I’m flattered,” Spencer says, gentle. Then, without stuttering, like it’s the simplest fact in the world: “But I have a girlfriend.”

The word punches straight through your ribs.

Girlfriend.

He said it easily. Like it’s obvious. Like of course he has a girlfriend, and of course that girlfriend is you. He reached into his chest, pulled the thing you’ve been hiding in the dark, and brought it out under fluorescent lights with one sentence. 

The part of you that wants to bask in that feeling melts a little. Then the part of you that remembers every label you’ve ever had — daughter, sister, agent, liability, mistake — bolts for the exit.

You snap your folder shut before you can hear her disappointed reply.

By the time she’s gone and he looks up toward the rows, you’re already on your feet, bag over your shoulder. “Ready, genius?” you call down, casual, because if your voice shakes you’re going to eat your own tongue.

He flushes. “Yes. Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you wait.”

“You’re fine,” you say, meeting him at the bottom of the stairs. “C’mon. If we don’t leave now one of your fangirls is gonna come back in and ask you for some very creative extra credit.”

He huffs a soft laugh and follows you. In the hallway, when no one’s looking, his fingers brush yours. You let them curl around your hand for one stolen second, because despite whatever’s happening in your chest, you still want his touch more than you want to protect yourself from it.

On any other Wednesday, he’d come home with you and you’d ask him to stay the night at your place without a second thought. Tonight, when you reach the curb and he unlocks the car, the word is still echoing in your skull like a gunshot.

Girlfriend.

You manage to get through the drive mostly intact — teasing him about one student's terrible question, letting him ramble about an article the class clearly didn’t read. You even let him walk inside your building with you to your apartment like it’s any other night.

He waits for the usual move: you unlocking the door and tipping your chin in silent invitation.

Instead, you lean against the doorframe and lie. “I’m wiped,” you say. “We’ve got the Memphis consult in the morning, and I still have to finish my write-up. I should probably just crash.”

You watch it hit him. The little hitch. The fraction of a second it takes him to fold the hurt away. The heartbeat of disappointment he swallows so you don’t have to see it.

“Oh,” he says. Then, quickly, “Right. Of course. You should get some sleep.”

You hate how careful his voice goes, like he’s trying not to spook you.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” you add, too bright.

“Yeah,” he says, and gives you a small, real smile because he refuses to make you feel guilty for needing space. “Yeah. I’ll see you then.”

You nod, tell him goodnight, and close the door.

You stand with your back against it for a long minute, listening to the muffled sound of his footsteps retreating down the hall, fighting the impulse to rip it open and drag him inside.

Instead, you sink down on your couch alone, apartment too quiet, skin still buzzing with the phantom feeling of his hand around yours and that word in his mouth like it belonged there.

That night, you fall asleep without his heartbeat under your ear for the first time in weeks.

Everything is good. Stupid good.

As long as you don’t look directly at the part where, in one scared little pivot at your front door, you proved you’re still capable of running from the one thing you actually want.

—

Mandatory ethics training always feels like the most boring form of punishment ever created.

You drop into your usual seat at the conference table. Morgan is already there, spinning a pen between his fingers. Emily’s got a cup of coffee and the dead-eyed stare of a woman facing down forty slides of HR-approved clip art. JJ glances at the ceiling like she’s hoping for the fire alarm to save her.

Garcia slumps down with a theatrical groan. “Why do they do this to my spirit,” she whispers. “My soul is a delicate ecosystem. And so what if I call Morgan ‘chocolate thunder’ every now and then!”

Spencer slides into the chair next to yours, shoulders a little too straight, tie a little too neat. His knee bumps yours under the table, then pulls back like he’s not sure if he’s allowed. Normally, you’d bump his knee back on purpose just to watch him blush. Today, you stare a beat too long at the empty space between you and pretend you don’t notice the way his fingers tap nervously against his thigh.

“My sources say conduct violations are up across the Bureau this year,” Rossi says menacingly, taking the seat opposite you. “Some of us are just good at not being caught.”

His eyes flick to you, then Spencer, then back down to his notes with a smirk.

A woman from Human Resources with a laminated name tag reading STACY and a too-bright smile sets up at the projector. The first slide pops up: BUREAU STANDARDS FOR PROFESSIONAL CONDUCT & ETHICS, with a generic image of diverse coworkers beaming at a whiteboard. It’s the stock photo-equivalent to a tampon commercial.

“Kill me,” you mutter.

Spencer’s mouth twitches. “Statistically, actively enforced ethics policies do actually correlate with a reduction in—”

“Reid,” you cut in. “If you throw statistics at me right now, I’m reporting you to HR for harassment.”

Hotch clears his throat at the front. “This is required,” he says, scanning the room. “I expect everyone’s full attention.”

Garcia lifts her hand. “If my full attention dies of boredom, can I go home?”

Hotch does not dignify that with a response. Smiley Stacy thanks him and launches in.

Harassment examples. Reporting protocols. Conflict-of-interest policies. Power imbalance studies. Quid pro quo. You’ve heard it all before, in FBI Academy auditoriums and field office conference rooms and Bureau-wide email blasts. The vocabulary changes, but the message is always the same: don’t be a fuck up.

You tune in and out. Spencer’s taking actual notes, because of course he is. Every so often, he shifts just enough that his sleeve brushes your arm, which only heightens your awareness of the fact that the two of you are, technically, a walking HR violation.

Then the next slide appears: WORKPLACE RELATIONSHIPS & MANDATORY DISCLOSURE.

The presenter clicks her little remote. “As a reminder,” she says, “while they aren’t encouraged, the FBI does not prohibit consensual inter-Bureau relationships. However, any relationships between agents in the same unit must be disclosed to Human Resources and your Unit Chief. Failure to disclose can be cause for reassignment or termination.”

Her eyes skim the room. “If your personal circumstances have changed since last year, please update your information by the end of this week. Disclosure forms are in the packets you’ve been given.”

Your mouth goes dry.

You imagine checking a box and writing Spencer’s name on a line somewhere, your entire life with him boiled down to a paragraph in a file cabinet. You’ve seen your world reduced to Bureau paperwork before — incident reports, disciplinary memos, Elle’s name next to the word “shooting.” You’re not exactly eager to hand them a fresh variable to circle in red.

Smiley Stacy keeps talking. Rossi’s pen taps once on the table. Emily shifts in her chair. The projector hums.

Beside you, Spencer is very still.

You flip your packet open, eyes skating over sections about harassment and grievance procedures, until you hit WORKPLACE RELATIONSHIP DISCLOSURE.

There it is, in neat, bold font:

Are you currently engaged in a romantic and/or sexual relationship with another Bureau employee?

Underneath, two boxes:

☐ Yes

☐ No

And another line:

If yes, please provide the employee’s name, unit, and position.

Your heartbeat stumbles.

You shouldn’t be surprised. You knew it was coming the second that slide appeared. But seeing the question in black and white, poised there like a lie detector, does something ugly in your chest. It feels less like an administrative form and more like a dare: admit this exists, and see how we ruin it.

Next to you, Spencer’s packet rustles. You glance sideways.

He’s already on the same page. His pen is uncapped. He doesn’t even hesitate at first — it’s automatic. The tip of his pen drops toward Yes.

Then his eyes flick, quick, to you.

You’re not sure exactly what your face is doing, but whatever he sees makes him stop. His hand stills. The pen hovers a fraction of an inch above the paper and his fingers tighten around it like he’s physically holding himself back.

For a second, you see it: the hurt he’s trying very hard to swallow. The quiet, careful question under it — are you really about to pretend this isn’t something real?

You look away fast.

You force your own hand to move and check a different box on a different page, something meaningless about previous ethics trainings attended. You do not touch the relationship section. You flip the packet closed like you’ll deal with it later, like the question will somehow evaporate if you don’t look at it too hard.

At the front, the presentation winds down. “…and again, if you have any questions or concerns, please come to HR or your Unit Chief directly.”

Stacy smiles another bland, borderline creepy grin as Hotch steps up beside her. “All forms need to be returned by end of day tomorrow,” he says. 

Chairs scrape. Morgan stretches with a groan. Garcia yawns and fans herself with her packet. JJ and Emily fall into quiet conversation, flipping pages as they walk out together.

Spencer exhales next to you, slow and careful, like he’s afraid of blowing something over. You don’t look at him right away. You tuck your own packet under your arm like it’s just paperwork, nothing special, not a lit fuse you’ve decided to sit on.

“Busy afternoon?” you ask, because small talk is safer than anything else banging around in your skull.

“Couple of consults,” he says. His voice is steady, but there’s a new caution wrapped around it you haven’t heard in weeks. “You?”

“Catching up on after-action reports,” you lie.

You stand. So does he. For a second you both just… hover. There’s too much you’re not saying in the space between you, and you can feel the new crack you put there with one unchecked box.

“See you tonight?” you ask quietly, like it’s an optional thing, like you don’t already know exactly where you’ll end up when the sun goes down.

He looks at you, really looks, and for just a heartbeat you can see the question there: What are we doing?

“Of course,” he replies instead. “We can order Chinese food for dinner.”

You nod, clutching the ethics packet a little tighter under your arm and heading for the door, knowing there’ll be a lot more to discuss than just egg rolls — and that this time, if you flinch too hard, you might not be the one who walks away.

—

Spencer’s apartment smells like sesame oil and garlic when you walk in. Cartons of food from your favorite Chinese place are spread out on the coffee table, chopsticks lined up too neatly.

“Hey,” he says from the kitchen. Tie gone, sleeves rolled, hair a little mussed like he’s run his hands through it too many times.

You drop your bag by the door. “Smells good. Please tell me you remembered dumplings this time or I’m walking right back out.”

He nods. “Pork and chive with extra chili oil.”

“Look at you. Growth.” You shrug off your jacket. “Very sexy.”

Color creeps up his neck. He steps closer like he wants to kiss you and then hesitates, just a fraction, as if he’s not sure what he’s allowed to do tonight.

You close the distance because you know what you want, even if you’re busy pretending you don’t. You press your mouth to his and he kisses you back, soft then deep, hands hovering at your waist like he’s afraid to hold on too tight.

It would be so easy to let it melt into the usual — your back hitting the wall, your fingers in his hair, both of you forgetting how to breathe. You break away before you allow yourself to fall into that kind of distraction.

“Hi,” you say.

His eyes search yours, careful. “Hi.”

For a second, things feel normal. Takeout, post-work exhaustion, the hum of his fridge. You could almost pretend disclosure forms and words like girlfriend don’t exist. You could almost pretend you didn’t close your front door on him last night and a metaphorical one in the conference room this morning.

When you migrate to the couch, you don’t sit in your usual spot pressed against his side. You take the opposite cushion instead, cross-legged, fried rice carton held like a shield.

It lands. You see it. The brief flicker in his face — surprise, then a quiet recalibration. He picks up the lo mein and sits, leaving just enough space between you that you could close it if you wanted to.

You don’t. Not yet.

You talk about nothing: traffic, Agent Anderson’s new haircut, paperwork Rossi dumped on you. None of it sticks. The silence between topics gets heavier every time.

You’re halfway through the last dumpling when he asks, finally, “Did I do something wrong?”

You keep your eyes on your food. “You ordered lo mein instead of chow fun. Grave error.”

“I’m serious.” His voice catches. “Did I?”

You set the carton down and scrub a hand over your face. “No,” you say finally. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

He nods once, like he wants to accept that, but it doesn’t quite land. “Is this about what I said to that grad student yesterday?” he asks. “Or is it about the HR form? Or both?”

You stare at a grease stain on the takeout menu. “You really want to do this now?”

“I don’t really want to do it at all,” he admits. “But I don’t like… this.” He gestures vaguely between you. “The… distance. It feels like I’m waiting for something bad to happen and I don’t know if I caused that.”

That lands in your chest with sick, precise blow. Truth is, he didn’t cause it. You did.

“Okay,” you say, because you did promise him in a motel room once that you were done running. “Which part do you want to start with? The part where you told a stranger at a lecture you have a girlfriend, or the part where the federal government wants a written statement on my sex life?”

His ears go pink. “We can start with the lecture.”

“It was…” You try to find words that don’t make you sound insane. “It was a lot.”

“In a bad way?” he asks, small.

“In a… loud way,” you correct. “First it felt… good. Like. Stupid good.” You grimace. “I liked hearing it. More than I thought I would.”

His shoulders loosen a fraction. “Okay,” he whispers. “And then?”

“And then my brain threw up,” you say bluntly. “Because you just… said it. Out loud. To a stranger. In public. Like it was settled law. Like you didn’t even have to think about it. Meanwhile, I can’t even get the word out in my own head without feeling like the walls might cave in.”

You finally look at him. He’s watching you like every word matters.

“I didn’t say it to pressure you,” he says, and you can tell he means it. “I didn’t even think about it, honestly. She was flirting with me, and the idea of seeming available felt wrong, and explaining what we are to each other would’ve taken forever and probably confused her. So the word just… came out.”

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “I noticed.”

“If it made you uncomfortable, I’m sorry. I just—” He searches for something; finds it. “It felt true. In my head, that’s what you are to me.”

You lean back into the couch, heart doing something ragged. “I know. It felt true for me too. That’s what freaked me out.”

He goes still again, like that admission is both a relief and a new kind of terror.

“And the form?” he asks.

“The form is its own special little nightmare.”

“I saw you freeze,” he says. “You turned the page like it was radioactive.”

You huff out a dry laugh.

“Is it…” He frowns. “Is it just the idea of HR knowing? Or is it… labeling it at all?”

You pick at a stray grain of rice on your jeans. “I don’t like the idea of some stranger in a cubicle having an opinion about who I sleep with,” you say. “I don’t like the idea of my life with you being a checkmark in a file next to the same forms that cover every mistake I’ve made at this job.”

He listens. Really listens.

“And I hate,” you add, quieter still, “the idea of giving the Bureau one more thing it can take away. They’ve already taken enough. My time. My sanity. My… my sister. If I put this down on paper, suddenly it’s theirs to fuck with.”

Spencer’s hands flex on his knees like he’s resisting the urge to reach for you. “It won’t be theirs,” he says softly. “It’s always going to be ours. But… I get what you mean. It’s possible that mistakes we make in the future could get blamed on our relationship, and one of us could end up reassigned.”

You swallow. “Yeah. Something like that. I don’t like the idea of handing someone a loaded gun and hoping they just… don’t use it.”

He nods slowly, like puzzle pieces are clicking into place. He shifts closer, not touching yet, just near enough that you feel the heat of him.

“Can I tell you what got to me?” he asks. “About today? And yesterday?”

You nod, throat tight.

“It scared me,” he says quietly, “that my first instinct was to check yes and yours was to close the packet. And it scared me that last night you heard me use the word girlfriend once and decided to send me home.” His mouth pulls, self-conscious. “Obviously we don’t have to spend every night together. That’s not what I mean. But…I knew the timing wasn’t a coincidence. It felt like we’d been moving in one direction for a while, and then all of a sudden you were… pulling back. It’s hard for me not to worry that this is the start of you deciding this was all a bad idea.”

You open your mouth to speak, but he goes on, words rushing a little like he’s afraid if he stops he won’t say them at all.

“I don’t mean that like an accusation. I know it’s complicated for you. I just—” He exhales. “I’ve been all in for a while. You know that. And most of the time, especially since the motel, I feel like you’re all in with me. But then something like this happens and I realize there’s still a line in your head you haven’t crossed, and it’s… hard not to shake the feeling that maybe I’m the only one who thinks of us as—” His mouth twists. “As real.”

“Spence,” you say, voice breaking a little. “You’re not the only one.”

“You say that,” he says, voice soft. “And I believe you. I do. I know you want to mean it. But I also can’t get it out of my head that you could still look at one question on a form and feel like admitting we’re together is an insane idea. Or look at your doorway and decide letting me in is suddenly…”

“Dangerous,” you offer. It tastes like guilt. “That’s what it felt like. Not because of you, though. Because of me. Because of them.” You drag a hand through your hair. “It’s not because of you. My hesitancy has never been because of you. You know that, right?

He nods, but his eyes say not entirely.

“I just…” You force yourself to keep going. “Every time I’ve let someone put a label on me, it’s gone to shit spectacularly fast. Either I fuck things up, or the world does, or some cruel combination of both. So yeah, letting the Bureau stamp ‘girlfriend’ on me feels a little like volunteering for disaster. Like I’m putting a countdown clock on the one thing in my life that doesn’t feel like an accident.”

He swallows. “What about when it’s just me using that label?” he asks, small. “Is it different if I say it? If I think it?”

You hate how his voice sounds — like he’s braced for you to say no. Like he’s already preparing to start untangling his life from yours if that’s what you need.

“It’s always different when it’s you,” you say, honest and low. “I just don’t know how to be good at this. Being a girlfriend has never exactly been my strong suit. But I know that I like waking up with you more than I like waking up alone, and I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want to lose…” You gesture weakly between the two of you. “Any of this.”

Something in his face softens, but he doesn’t rush to reassure you. He sits with it, which is somehow worse and better at the same time.

“What if,” he says slowly, “we stop worrying about what HR calls it. Or anyone else. What if we just decide what we call it? You and me.” Then, quieter: “But if you tell me we need to slow down, or that you want less, I’ll do that. I’m not going to push you into something you’re not ready for.”

That hits you harder than anything else all day, because there it is: the choice. Not an ultimatum, but an exit ramp. Him saying if you want to pull away, I’ll let you. I’m putting your needs above my own, yet again. I always will.

Before you can respond, he goes on. “Whatever we call this, I need you to understand it doesn’t change anything. We…we already act like a couple. I know you know that, even if you won’t let yourself think about it long enough to admit it. So I’m not going to suddenly start looking at you differently or expecting more from you if we put a label on things. I like this—us—exactly the way it is.”

The room goes very quiet. The TV hums. The city murmurs outside. You can hear your own pulse in your ears.

You realize, in slow, stupid stages, that he’s right: nothing will actually change between you if you call this what it is. You already spend your nights in his bed and your mornings in his kitchen. He already knows what you look like when you cry and what you sound like when you laugh and every ugly, sharp edge you usually try to hide. He’s still here, not because you tricked him by pretending to be someone you’re not, but because he keeps choosing you. He wants you. You, exactly as you are.

The only difference would be a label that’d tell him you’re choosing him back just as hard as he’s choosing you.

The Bureau can call it whatever it wants. HR can put it in a file. None of that feels as terrifying anymore as the new image that flashes through your mind: Spencer slowly pulling away from you because you were too scared to say one true word.

“Spence,” you say, because saying his name has always helped you anchor. “Look at me.”

He does.

You take a breath that feels like standing at the edge of something high and finally letting yourself fall:

“One true thing: You’re… you’re my boyfriend.”

The words come out small and hoarse and absolutely honest.

For a beat he just… stares. Like you’ve spoken in some rare dead language he’s studied his whole life and never heard aloud.

“Say it again?” he asks.

You roll your eyes, because you’re you, but you lean in anyway. Your hand finds his knee, squeezes. “Don’t get greedy,” you murmur, then repeat it anyway: “You’re my boyfriend.”

His laugh comes out half-choked. He reaches up like he’s not sure where to put his hands and then finally settles one against the side of your neck, thumb brushing your jaw like he’s confirming you’re real.

“I am,” he says, a little wrecked. “And you’re my girlfriend.”

You make a face. “That title sounds so ridiculous on me.”

“No it doesn’t,” he says immediately. “It sounds right.”

You would normally mock him for being cheesy, but his eyes are too earnest in that way that always makes you melt, and it does sound right, so you lean in and kiss him instead.

It’s not the eager, pull-each-other-apart kind of kiss you’ve fallen into so many nights lately. It’s slower, weighted. His hand slides to the back of your head, fingers threading into your hair. You shift closer until your legs slot between his, the whole world narrowing to the press of his mouth and the quiet sound he makes when you tilt your head and open to him.

When you finally pull back, his forehead rests against yours. You can feel his smile, small and disbelieving.

For a few breaths, it’s just that. Warmth. The steady press of him. You could stay here forever and not think about anything outside these four walls.

But then he swallows and ruins it, very gently: “We should probably talk about that other deeply romantic part of this now. You know, the whole… ‘telling the federal government’ part.”

You groan against him. “You really know how to kill the mood, Spencer.”

“I know,” he admits, wincing, squeezing your hip softly with affection to soften the blow. “It’s just— at some point we have to stop pretending. On paper, I mean. The forms, Hotch… all of it.”

You make a face because he’s right and you hate that he’s right. “Yeah,” you say quietly. “I know, you’re right. The FBI wants signatures.”

His brows knit. “Tomorrow, maybe we could fill them out. Together. Check yes, write each other’s names down, then go talk to Hotch ourselves instead of letting the news show up in his inbox from HR. Besides, he likes both us, even if he’s too stoic to show it. He’s gone up against HR and Strauss before, I’m sure he’d do it again if he had to.”

You sit with that for a beat, thumb brushing his wrist. “It does feel riskier to let work find out by accident,” you admit. “At least if we do this, we get to say it our way first.”

He studies you like he’s trying to memorize this moment. “We don’t have to tell everyone else yet,” he offers. “Honestly, it might be better if we don’t. I don’t think I’m mentally prepared for the incessant teasing Morgan is going to throw at me.”

You nod. “And we’re absolutely not telling Garcia yet,” you say. “She’ll commission matching couple’s sweaters and attack our desks with confetti.”

He laughs, real this time, the tension finally cracking. “So… Hotch. HR. Rossi already knows.”

“Yeah. Everyone else can mind their business until we’re ready to be the number one topic of bullpen conversation.”

He nods, relief and something like wonder moving through his face. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

You lean into him, tucking yourself against his chest like it’s the most natural thing in the world. His hand settles on your shoulder, fingers sliding absentmindedly along your collarbone.

Your ethics packet is still in your bag by the door, waiting, but it feels… smaller now. Less like a bomb, more like a step you’ve already started taking.

Whatever the Bureau ends up calling you on paper, it doesn’t matter, because you know what you call him:

Boyfriend.

—

You’ve faced serial killers with less dread than you feel on the walk to Hotch’s office.

At the end of the day after everyone else cleared out, you and Spencer signed the disclosure forms together at his desk, shoulders brushing, pens moving in parallel. It felt stupidly anticlimactic for something that’d been rattling your ribcage for months. The real part is what comes next.

Your form is folded once in your hand, creased right through the little checked Yes box. Spencer’s got his copy tucked into a folder like that makes it less humiliating.

“Last chance to fake our deaths and move to Canada,” you mutter.

“Canada would just extradite us back here,” he says.

“You’re killing the fantasy, Reid.”

He gives you a quick, nervous half-smile and knocks on Hotch’s door.

“Come in.”

Hotch is behind his desk, jacket off, tie tight as always. Case files in a neat stack. Coffee that’s probably gone cold.

You step in first, and Spencer closes the door behind you.

“Everything alright?” Hotch asks. His eyes go from you to Spencer and back again, taking in the forms you’re each holding.

You clear your throat. “We, uh.” Great start. You swallow. “We’re here about the… ethics forms.”

Hotch just waits.

Spencer’s voice goes careful and professional. “We wanted to disclose a… change in personal circumstances,” he says. “Officially.”

You hold out your folded form. He holds out his.

Hotch takes them both, glances down just long enough to register the matching answers and names, then sets them on the desk. When he looks back up, his expression is mostly neutral, with the faintest hint of I am very tired and I clocked this months ago.

“How long?” he asks.

You exchange a look with Spencer. “That’s, um… kind of a complicated question. Officially? Brand new. Unofficially? Uh… a while.”

Hotch nods once, and you swear you almost see the ghost of a smirk. “I appreciate the disclosure,” he says. “I had a feeling this was coming.”

You try not to visibly combust. “I— what?”

“Well, I’m very good at what I do. Plus, Rossi may have suggested that I should ‘keep those workplace relationship forms handy’ several months ago.”

You’re going to kill Rossi.

Hotch folds his hands together on the desk. “Your personal lives are up to you,” he says. “I only care about whether it impacts the work. So here’s what I expect: no favoritism on cases or letting your feelings affect your decision making. If one of you feels compromised, you come to me immediately so we can sort it out. If I think your relationship at any point is affecting your judgment, I will separate you on cases, and if I have to, I’ll recommend reassignment.” His gaze sharpens, then softens by a degree. “I’d rather not have to do that. You’re both good at what you do, and I don’t want to lose either of you. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Spencer says immediately.

You nod. “We know how to be professionals,” you say. “Total tight-ass professionals.”

That wins you the faintest flicker in his eyes that might, on a looser man, qualify as amusement.

“Good,” Hotch says.

“We’d like to keep it private from the team. For now,” Spencer adds.

Hotch nods. “You can tell the others when you’re ready. Just don’t make me find out anything important from anyone but you.”

“Deal,” you say.

He nods again, already turning back to the paperwork he’d been working on when you walked in. “Then we’re done here. Get out of here, it’s late.”

You and Spencer mumble your thank-yous and back out before Hotch changes his mind and hands you another case file.

Back in the bullpen, you both exhale at the same time.

“That went… better than it could have,” Spencer says.

You glance at him, at his still-slightly-flushed face, the way he’s looking at you like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to be relieved yet.

You bump your shoulder into his. “Come on,” you say, low so it doesn’t carry across the bullpen. “Take me home, boyfriend.”

He stumbles over absolutely nothing, smile breaking slow and helpless.

“Okay,” he says, eyes sparkling. “Yeah. Let’s go home.”

ᝰ.ᐟ

→ next part

this fic is part of the greenaway!reader universe/series! you can read more about this pairing here ♥️

A deer jumps out of the treeline and freezes in your lane. You brake — hard — and the car skids to a stop. The deer stares, flinches, bolts. Your heart lodges in your throat and hangs there, choking you.

In the middle of the panic, Spencer’s left hand slapped to the dash. Not to your knee to steady you. Not across your chest to hold you back. Not to you at all.

The sound of his palm hitting plastic lands louder than the storm.

“Sorry,” you say, because apologizing for a deer feels easier than touching anything else going on between you. Your voice comes out flatter than you meant it to.

“It’s not your fault,” he answers.

He means the deer. At least you think he does.

You swallow. Your throat tastes stale, like the bad coffee you didn’t finish because the mug smelled like old pennies. You ease your foot off the brake and the car crawls forward again.

—

(48 hours earlier)

You burned out of the precinct on a hunch and didn’t come back for four hours. Your phone went from one bar to no bars and stayed there. You told yourself you’d only be gone twenty minutes. You told yourself if you left a note on the whiteboard or gave the team a heads up, someone would try to talk you out of it, and then you’d have to stand there and defend yourself, and that would slow you down. You told yourself confidential informants bolt the second they smell an entourage. You told yourself, Move. Think later. That trick usually saves you. Sometimes it slices you open.

But you were right. The CI did show. He talked. He gave you something usable.

So you came back with grit on your boots and adrenaline in your chest, already halfway through composing the I told you so in your head.

Spencer was waiting where the asphalt met the chain-link, his lanky silhouette tensed, phone white-knuckle clenched in his hand.

“Where were you?” he asked, stepping out in front of you to block the path from the parking lot to the sheriff’s office.

Not how did it go? Not are you okay? Not even hi.

“Following a lead,” you said.

“The lead Hotch specifically told you was too dangerous to follow alone?” His voice was low and controlled in a way that made the air around you feel thin. “The lead you were supposed to bring me in on tomorrow, with a tactical team in place, in case things went sideways?”

You rolled your shoulders back, irritated at the tone. At the implication. At him, of all people, acting like you couldn’t be trusted with your own job. “I got something we needed,” you said. “The CI might’ve just given us a major break in this case. We don’t get that if I show up with a battalion.”

“I am not a battalion,” Spencer replied, and it came out cracked. You heard the edge of panic under the anger. Then, quieter: “You don’t always have to do everything alone.”

The sentence hit you low, right in the part of your spine that convinced itself long ago that asking for help means showing weakness.

“I can handle myself,” you said. “And I never asked you to worry about me.”

“Yeah, well, I did it anyway,” he snapped, and the snap was so un-Spencer-like that it stunned you into stillness. He let out one small, humorless breath of a laugh and dragged a shaking hand through his hair. “I called you seven times. Seven. Hotch was five minutes from sending Morgan and two sheriff’s units to sweep the city looking for you. Do you—do you understand what it felt like to look up and you were just—” His jaw worked. He swallowed hard. “Gone?”

The word hung there between you — gone.

It wasn’t theatrical, or manipulative. It was just naked.

And then he added: “In the middle of a case like this.”

You knew exactly what this meant. This meant six women in four weeks. All in their twenties and thirties, roughly your height, your build, your coloring, all physically capable of fighting back but knocked unconscious before they had the chance. All abducted and killed and horrifically mutilated in the same neighborhood as that warehouse you’d gone to.

“I thought you were hurt,” he went on, steamrolling through his own panic now that it had found a crack. “Or—or worse. We got a call about a body in an alley, in the unsub’s comfort zone, but it was too mutilated for a visual ID, and—”

“You assumed I was dead,” you said for him. “Breaking news: I’m not.”

“That isn’t the point,” he said instantly.

“The point is I did my job and it paid off.” You shifted like you were going to step around him.“If you can’t handle—”

“What I can’t handle is not knowing where you are when we’re hunting a guy who kills women who look exactly like you,” he cut in. “He’s smart, and he’s dangerous, and we don’t have him yet. And I—You’re—” He caught himself on the edge of saying something too raw and too obvious and too big. “You’re too important to me to lose,” he said instead.

It was too intimate. Way, way too intimate. Way more than you could hold in the open air like this. So you did what you always do with things that threaten to rearrange you: you knocked it out of his hands before it could stick.

“I’m not your fucking girlfriend, Spencer.”

You heard the words leave your mouth and couldn’t pull them back. You felt them hit him.

He froze. You watched it happen in real time — the way his face went from heartbreak to self-defense to anger, all in one brutal flicker.

“That’s not—” His voice cracked. He swallowed it down and tried again. “Christ,” he said, finishing the sentence with your name like an angry punctuation mark. “We’re—” He cut himself off and pressed the heel of his hand between his eyes. When he looked at you again, his tone was lower. “Don’t pretend that we’re strangers. At this point, the word girlfriend is just semantics that terrify you, and I’ve been too polite to push you on the labels thing, even though it’s starting to eat at me. Don’t act like you don’t know what you are to me. Don’t act like you don’t know what I am to you.”

Heat rose under your skin so fast it almost made you sway.

He wasn’t done.

“And don’t make it sound like I’m trying to put a leash on you, because you know I’d never want to control you,” he said, softer but somehow more intense. “I just can’t keep doing this thing where you disappear for hours in the middle of a case and I have to stand there pretending I’m fine while my chest feels like it’s being crushed in a vise. I mean, seriously, you do this constantly. Constantly! You show zero regard for your own safety and you don’t seem to care at all what that does to me. I’ve seen what happens when the line between instinct and impulse gets blurry. I watched it happen to Elle. I won’t watch it happen to you.”

You felt your face go hot. Shame and anger and something almost like guilt crackled in you, sparking in every direction at once.

The worst part was, you heard the truth in it. You heard the care, and the fear, and the feeling you won’t let either of you name.

But under all of that, you also heard one unforgivable word: Elle.

“Don’t,” you warned, and your voice didn’t even sound like yours. “You don’t get to compare me following a lead—a lead that got us what we needed, by the way—to what Elle did just because you’re pissed off and scared and your giant genius ego is bruised that I won’t stamp a label on us.”

He flinched. You hated yourself for how good that felt for half a second.

“And you sure as hell don’t get to weaponize my sister’s actions against me like that,” you went on. “You don’t get to use her name to scare me, or guilt me, or punish me.”

“I wasn’t—” He broke off. “That’s not what I was trying to do.”

“Felt like it.”

He exhaled, shaky, losing some of the fight left in him. “Next time, just loop me in,” he said quietly. “Please.”

It would’ve been so easy to say yes. It was sitting on your tongue: Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you because if you’d asked me not to go I would’ve stayed. I didn’t bring you with me because I care about you too much to force you into danger you don’t have to be in. I can’t lose you. I can’t lose you. I can’t lose you.

But the yes was stuck in your throat like a fish bone. You couldn’t get it out without bleeding.

“Yeah, sure. Next time,” you said instead, sarcastic and shitty on purpose, shouldering past him and through the station door before you could hear him answer.

You and Spencer barely spoke for the rest of that day. Or the next. You only talked when it was about the case, and even then it was like you had gloves on.

Then Hotch assigned the two of you to drive hours out of town to interview a key witness the following morning.

That authoritative, meddling bastard.

—

Back in the car, the road narrows around a fallen tree branch. You take it slow. Spencer checks the time, then turns to look out the window again. His profile is all clean lines and tension. You want to lick your thumb and smudge those lines, just to prove you still can.

“The bridge might be dicey,” he says. “The river last crested a few hours ago, but that was before this new storm cell moved in.”

“Mhm.”

He clears his throat. “If the bridge is under water, we’ll cut over across Route 11. Adds twenty minutes.”

“Fine,” you say.

If this were you from three days ago, you’d poke fun at him for carrying an actual paper map like it’s 1979. You’d tell him to hit you with a county road fun fact. You’d let him light up. You always liked watching that happen. You’d pocket it and carry it like a handwarmer.

But this is you today, so you keep both hands on the wheel and keep your mouth shut.

Another mile swallows itself. Pines. A billboard for a fireworks warehouse that probably violates six state laws. A dented mailbox shaped like a trout. The sun dipping below the horizon.

Spencer’s phone buzzes in the half-second when service returns—flash flood warning—then dies back to black. He sets it in the cupholder and clutches the map between his fingers again.

He used to put his hand palm-up on his knee, a quiet invitation you’d take without thinking. You used to lace your fingers with his and rest there like you’d always have this.

You want to tell him you’re sorry about the four hours you disappeared. You want to explain that you didn’t tell him because if he’d asked you not to go you would’ve stayed, and that scared you more than the CI did. You want to tell him you’re sorry for saying “I’m not your fucking girlfriend” and for pretending this thing between you is undefined when there’s barely been a single night in weeks that didn’t end with one of you asleep on the other’s shoulder.

You want to be honest and you want to be kind but you don’t know how to be both at once, so you settle for just being quiet.

Outside, the rain keeps coming. Inside the car, you’re already under water.

—

The witness’s house is the color of wet cardboard and wrapped in a porch that sags. You flash your badges and get ushered into a living room that smells like mothballs.

The job slides over both of you like a uniform you don’t have to think about. You take the chair closest to the witness, angle your body open, let your voice go warm. Spencer hangs back a foot to the left — non-threatening, softened posture, eyes careful. You ask the simple questions; he gently pulls out more details. It’s an old rhythm that fits so well it almost hurts.

Back at the car when you’re done, you barely look at each other.

“Good work,” he says, quiet.

“You too,” you mumble.

You radio the team the broad strokes. They radio back a clipped “Copy, drive safe.”

The rain gets louder as you pull back onto the road. The job is taken care of. Nothing else is.

—

The river you crossed earlier has officially eaten its bank. Two police cruisers block the bridge; a deputy in a poncho waves you down with his flashlight.

“Closed both ways,” he shouts through your cracked window. “Route 11 is washed out, too. County’ll reassess at dawn, try to get things reopened.”

“Any other routes?” Spencer asks.

“Not unless you got a boat. Best bet is to wait the storm out ‘til morning and try again at sunrise.” The deputy jerks his chin toward a side road you hadn’t even noticed through the rain. “Pioneer Motor Lodge is about a quarter mile that way.”

You nod and thank the officer. You do not look at Spencer, and he does not look at you. You just U-turn in slow motion and follow the road to the motel.

—

The Pioneer Motor Lodge looks like the set for a movie titled “Places To Go When Your Life Falls Apart.” Single-story horseshoe, doors that open to the parking lot, soda machines on one side. A clerk sits behind the counter, watching the weather try to peel the world from its edges.

“Two rooms,” you say, and it sounds brisk enough to pass as professional.

“Wish I could help ya there,” the clerk says, sympathetic. “We’ve only got one left. Storm’s filled us up with stranded travelers.”

You feel Spencer tense beside you.

“We’ll take it,” you both say in the same miserable tone. The clerk slides over a key that’s seen better decades and a blue pen. Spencer signs; you swipe your card and pretend not to feel your pulse in your ears.

The walkway is slick. Your room is last on the strip, next to the ice machine and water fountain with an “out of order” sign that looks permanent. When you walk in it’s pitch black, and all you can smell is damp carpet, lemon cleaner, and the faint linger of years-old cigarette smoke.

Spencer finds the light switch, and that’s when you see it:

Only one bed.

Fucking fantastic.

He does a much better job at pretending to be unaffected than you do — while you’re frozen in place, he’s performing a routine sweep of the room the way he does in every hotel — checks the functionality of the smoke detector, makes sure the windows are latched, scans the mattress for bedbugs. You force your feet to work and set down your go-bag, which you miraculously had the forethought to throw into the trunk.

You both go through the motions: unzipping duffels, taking out toiletry cases, finding your pajamas. It’s silent and tense and the air feels like it’s made of pea soup.

After a few minutes, Spencer points his chin at the dilapidated armchair in the corner. “I can sleep—“

“No. That’s stupid,” you cut in, too fast. You don’t know if you mean his chair offer or this whole arrangement or the way your heart is acting like it absorbed caffeine intravenously. “We’re adults. It’s a queen size. It’s fine.”

He nods once, too drained to start another argument. You watch his throat move as he swallows.

“Do you want to shower first?” he asks, neutral, an olive branch disguised as logistics.

You shake your head. “You can go ahead.”

You listen to the water beat the tile, then sputter for a moment when someone flushes a toilet in the room next door. You stand at the window and watch the rain thrash the parking lot like it has a grudge. Your phone coughs out a single bar just long enough to text the team an update before it collapses again.

Spencer emerges in the world’s most modest t-shirt and flannel pajama pants, hair damp, contact case in hand and glasses fogged. He keeps his eyes carefully on the carpet when he says, “All yours.”

You take the fastest shower of your life and still feel like you’re in borrowed skin you don’t know how to wear. When you come back out, he’s sitting on the far side of the bed on top of the covers, watching the weather report on mute.

You sit down on the mattress (as far away from him as 60 inches of width will allow), and your weight dips his side just enough that you both feel the shift. He clicks the TV off. You reach for the bedside lamp. It hums, then gives up, plunging the room into the kind of darkness that feels thick.

“Goodnight,” he says to the ceiling.

“Night,” you say to the wall.

You lie very still. The storm hammers at the windows, the heater rattles, and somewhere under all that is whatever you’re not saying. You wait to see what’ll give first — the power, the storm, or your ability to pretend you don’t want to roll over and ask him for one true thing.

—

You hold out as long as you can.

You lie on your side, facing the wall, hands shoved under the motel pillow because you don’t trust them not to reach for him in your sleep. The rain hammers the windows, steady and mean. You count the seconds between the lightning and thunder.

It doesn’t work. Your thoughts keep circling the same place.

Meanwhile, Spencer is glued to his half of the bed like someone drew a chalk line down the middle of the mattress and ordered him to respect the boundary. His back is to yours, one arm folded under his head. You can hear him not sleeping. His breaths are too measured. You know he only breathes like that when he’s trying not to unravel.

“Spencer?” you whisper.

“Yeah?” he answers, quiet and wrecked and awake. The reply was immediate, like he was just waiting for you to speak first.

Your chest does a dumb little stutter at that.

You’re still staring at the wall when you say, “I can’t sleep.”

“Me neither,” he admits.

Another few beats go by. You realize you’re holding your breath and let it out slowly.

“Can you—” You stop. The words feel huge, like lifting something heavy. “Can you look at me?”

There’s a pause, and then he rolls.

You feel the mattress move under you, the dip of his weight pulling you a fraction closer. You roll to face him, and now there’s maybe eight inches between you. It feels like standing at the edge of a cliff.

His glasses are off. His hair is still a little damp and curling at the ends. The light from the parking lot sneaks in through the curtains and cuts a faint line across his cheekbone. His expression is sad in a way that says I’m barely keeping it together.

“Hey,” he whispers.

You swallow. “Hey.”

You sit in that for a second, just looking at each other in the dark.

Then you say, because if you don’t say it now you’re going to choke on it, “I hurt you.”

He exhales slowly. “Yeah.”

“You hurt me too.”

His eyes flicker. “I know.”

Your pulse is in your throat. You pull in a breath. “You compared me to Elle.”

He flinches; it’s tiny, but you feel it because you’re close enough to, and something bittersweet twists under your ribs at the proof that he still cares what you think of him.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says.

“I know you didn’t mean it like that,” you say. Your voice comes out tight, too sharp. “But you still said it. I’ve told you so many times how much I hate being compared to her. I trusted you enough to tell you that, and you still did it. I can’t—” Your throat closes, just for a heartbeat. You push through it. “You don’t get to hold her over my head like a threat. You don’t get to take one of the worst days of her life and aim it at me because you’re scared.”

He’s very still. You can hear his breathing. You can hear your own.

Then he says, quiet: “You’re right. I shouldn’t have brought her into it. That was wrong.”

You were braced for him to explain himself, defend himself, anything. The simple that was wrong disorients you.

“It wasn’t fair,” he continues quietly. “What happened with Elle was not the same thing as you going after a lead. I wasn’t—” He breaks off, swallows. His voice goes softer. “I wasn’t trying to say you’re like her.”

You breathe out slowly. “Then what were you trying to say?”

“Knowing that you’re walking toward something dangerous and not being allowed to go with you makes me feel like I’m going to throw up,” he says. “And that’s not… rational. I know that. I know what our job is, and I’d never want us to get in the way of it. But it’s like—” He winces at himself. “It feels like the universe has its hands wrapped around my throat and they’re just… holding. Not squeezing yet. Just taunting me, letting me know they could.”

The picture hits you so hard you actually feel it, phantom fingers pressing up under your jaw.

“And I hate it. I hate not being in control of it, and I hate that I’m putting it on you. You’re not responsible for what my nervous system does when I worry about you. That’s on me. But I—” He swallows hard. “When you were gone, I was standing in a parking lot thinking, ‘She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone,’ and then you walked up all smug, and my brain just—” He makes a helpless little motion with his hand. “I said something unfair, and I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to hurt you intentionally. I was just terrified.”

You stare at him in the dark and your chest aches in a tight, unhelpful way. You hate how much you needed to hear that.

“I know you were,” you say quietly.

“Do you?” His voice frays a little. “Because I don’t think you do. I honestly don’t think you can understand how it felt. You were just doing what you always do — you had a lead, you trusted your instincts, you thought you’d be fine. And, to your credit, you were. You weren’t wrong about that.” He takes a breath. “But for four hours, twenty-one minutes, and thirty-seven seconds, I thought you could be dead. I was genuinely terrified that they were going to tell me the mutilated body in the alley was yours.”

“Oh,” you whisper.

He laughs, broken and humorless. “Yeah. Oh.”

You’re quiet for a full, solid beat, letting that sink under your skin and settle.

“I should’ve told you where I was going,” you say finally. The words scrape on the way out, but you say them. “I just—I knew if I told you, you’d ask me not to go, and if you’d asked me not to go, I wouldn’t have gone.” You pause, then add: “No one else holds that power over me.”

Something shifts under his expression, fast and deep and not at all subtle.

“But we needed that CI. I thought putting the case first was… I don’t know. Noble, or something. Professional.” You shake your head against the pillow. “But it wasn’t only that. It was me trying to prove to myself that how much I care about you doesn't have to mess with the job. And I thought if I didn’t tell you, then you couldn’t interfere with me being ‘objective.’”

Spencer swallows. “And how’d that work out for you?”

You let out a weak little breath that’s almost a laugh. “Well, you spent four hours thinking I was dead, so… not great.”

He exhales through his nose.

“And for the record,” you say, quieter, “I know I scare you. I know I run too hot. I know I move first and think later, and that I act like I’m never afraid.” You swallow. “I am afraid. I just… I don’t know how to show it without feeling weak. And I hate feeling weak in front of anyone.”

He nods, eyes locked on you. “I’m not just anyone.”

“No,” you whisper. “You’re not.”

“I know you thought I was mad at you for doing your job, but I wasn’t,” he says. “I just can’t keep being put in situations where I have to pretend I’m fine while I’m picturing you covered in blood on a metal slab. I need you to try to be a little less reckless on the job. I’m not asking you to not be you, but you can’t keep operating like you’re indestructible, or like no one would miss you if you were gone.” His breath catches. “And I know I didn’t say it right. I know I made it sound like I was trying to control you, but I swear, that’s not what I meant. I just— I can’t lose you. I can’t. Not before I’ve even told you—”

He cuts himself off.

Your pulse trips. You nod, steady. “I know, Spencer. I know.”

He shifts a little closer. It’s barely anything — just an inch, maybe two — but it might as well be an earthquake.

“I shouldn’t have said I’m not your girlfriend,” you force out. “That was mean. I knew it would hurt you and I said it anyway because I panicked and needed to get the attention off the fact that you—” Care about me. Like me. Maybe even…more than like me. You swallow the words and change course. “—the fact that you said I’m important to you.”

Spencer’s eyes go very shiny for a second, and you have to look down at the cheap motel duvet to keep talking.

“And you’re right,” you add, barely above a whisper. “We’re not strangers. We haven’t been strangers for a long time. I know what we are to each other. But I keep thinking if I just don’t call it anything, I can’t break it. Which is… stupid. I know it’s stupid.”

“I didn’t like hearing it,” he admits, voice small and honest.

“Yeah,” you say. “I know.”

He bites his lip. “I—I know you’re not mine in the way I want you to be. I’ve gotten used to that, mostly. But… I’m yours.” His voice wavers, then steadies. “You may not realize it, or want to hear it, but I am. I don’t know how to be okay pretending I’m not yours when I am. When that's all I want to be.”

Oh.

Something inside you — some stubborn barricade you’ve had up for years — gives a little under that.

“Spencer,” you whisper, and your hand moves before you can second-guess it. You slide your palm over the mattress, find his wrist in the dark. “I know you are.”

He closes his eyes like relief is physically painful.

“And I’m—” You breathe. Swallow. You owe him this much. “I’m yours, too. I just don’t know how to do it out loud yet.”

His eyes snap open. He looks wrecked and stupidly happy and still terrified all at once.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

Your thumb presses gently where you’re holding him, like you’re warning him and soothing him at the same time. “But you can’t expect me to know when you want something without saying it. I’m a good profiler, but I’m not a mind reader. I didn’t know the title thing was eating at you. We could’ve talked about it earlier.”

“Is it really all that surprising?”

You sigh softly. “No,” you admit. “But I’m already so far out of my depth here. So unless you say otherwise, I’m going to assume everything’s fine, because I need it to be fine. I don’t let myself think about the alternative, because then I’ll have to deal with the fact I can’t give you what you deserve—yet. I’m working on it, I promise, but… I’m not there yet.”

He nods. “I know. I should’ve said something. But—for the record, I’m not trying to push you into something you aren’t ready for. I’m just…hoping you will be ready for it, one day. On your own time. But I do want that. I want to call you my girlfriend. I want you, and I can’t pretend I don’t. I can’t be casual about you.”

The word — girlfriend — pops and fizzles beneath your skin.

“I’m glad you still want that,” you whisper honestly. “I kind of spent the last two days thinking you were done with me.”

His eyebrows pull in, and he reaches out to brush his thumb along your cheekbone. “I could never be done with you, sweetheart.”

God.

You feel it hit low, dizzying. Under any other circumstances you’d chastise him for the pet name, but not now, not when he said it like that.

“Okay,” you breathe. “Okay. Good.”

For a second you both just lie there, staring at each other, breathing the same air. The hurt is still there, but under it, something else finally breaks through the surface — relief, hot and bright and shaking.

His voice drops, barely audible over the rain. “Can I—”

“Please,” you whisper, already moving, already finding his lips with yours.

The first kiss isn’t hungry — it’s overwhelmingly tender. It’s you’re here pressed mouth to mouth. It’s I’m sorry / I’m sorry too / Don’t ever do that to me again / I promise I won’t / I forgive you / I missed you so much I thought I’d crawl out of my skin / I missed you more / Impossible.

The second pass of his mouth over yours goes deeper without either of you meaning to. The sound you make is embarrassingly needy; the sound he answers with is worse. Your hand slips from his wrist to his jaw, then to the back of his neck. He inches closer across the sheets until his chest is pressed to yours, warm through cotton.

You break just long enough to breathe, foreheads touching. You’re both shaking.

“Spence,” you whisper.

He exhales like he’s been waiting days to hear you say his name like that. He whispers yours back.

There’s a beat where you could stop. You both know it’s there — you feel it hover between you like a hand on the brake.

Neither of you takes it.

Instead, your noses brush. His thumb is on your jaw. Your knee slides forward under the sheets and bumps his thigh.

When you kiss him again, it’s with intent, with gravity, with every hour of silence and every unsent apology and every inch of want you’ve been starving out of yourselves.

The night tilts.

—

You keep kissing because relief tastes like oxygen and you’ve both been underwater for two days. You kiss because you can. You kiss because stopping would feel like cutting off circulation.

You edge closer, and he meets you halfway like gravity. The mattress dips, and your knee slips between his thighs, and all at once you’re half over his hips, half draped across his chest, not even pretending to be polite about it.

“Need you closer,” you breathe.

He makes a noise that sounds torn out of him and moves under you — a slow roll of his hips up into yours that drags his cock against the heat between your legs through all the thin, flimsy layers in the way. The friction is instant and indecent. Your mouth stutters open on a gasp, and for a moment, you’re suspended like that.

“Hi,” Spencer whispers against your lips, bringing you back into yourself, voice so stupidly tender you could break.

You answer by kissing him messier. Less careful. You fist both hands in his t-shirt, straddle him completely, and roll your own hips this time.

He slides one palm down, grips the back of your thigh and starts to rock you, slow and filthy, helping you grind against the hard line of him. You whine into his mouth and feel him swallow it like it’s holy.

The rain outside is hammering so loud you couldn’t hear the voice in the back of your head if you tried. You give up on keeping quiet and let out desperate little breaths every time the pressure hits just right; he falls apart in soft curses that sound new in his mouth. He’s warm and solid under you and you can feel his pulse everywhere you’re touching him.

He pulls away just enough to breathe. “Can I—” His fingers hover at the hem of your top. “Do you want me to… Can I take this off?”

Everything in you goes still. You’re bare under the shirt, and you know — bone-deep know — that if you say yes, you’re not coming back from it. This is you stepping across the line and letting him see all the parts of you no one else gets to see without armor.

You hear yourself say, very small and very sure, “Please.”

He slides his hands under the fabric, palms warm against your ribs, like he’s telling your body what’s about to happen. Then he eases the cotton up, slow, reverent, knuckles ghosting over your stomach, the undersides of your breasts. You sit back on his hips to help him, arms raised, and he pulls the shirt off over your head and drops it somewhere you’ll worry about later.

Cold air hits your skin. You feel it pebble over you, and then you feel him looking at you.

Spencer goes silent in that awed, scientific way of his, like he’s staring at a comet that only passes by once a century. “I am trying very hard not to ruin the moment by telling you the precise number of milliseconds I’ve spent thinking about seeing you like this,” he admits. Then, simpler: “You’re so beautiful.”

Something warm blooms in your chest. You want to deflect the compliment — you’re wired to deflect — but the earnest look on his face won’t let you. It would feel cruel not to accept it.

“Spence,” you whisper. “Touch me.”

He makes a sound you feel in your spine as his hands come up to cup you with both palms, thumbs brushing over you in slow, reverent circles. You arch into him without a second thought.

“God,” he murmurs. He leans up to kiss your throat, the thin skin where your pulse beats high, then lower, his mouth tracing the line of your collarbone, the soft slope of your breast. He mouths at you like he’s grateful, like he’s starving.

“I need this off,” you whisper, shoving at his shirt like it offended you by existing.

He sits up on instinct, letting you push it up over his head. Underneath he’s all long lines and unfair softness — collarbone and sternum and that ridiculous waist you’ve thought about way too many times. You smooth your hands over him, just to feel. His chest jumps under your palms and he sucks in a breath through his teeth.

“This okay?” you murmur, tracing down, following the thin trail of hair below his navel, familiarizing yourself with skin you’ve only ever stolen touches of through clothes.

His eyes flutter. “Yeah,” he whispers, a little ragged. “Yes. Anything you want.”

Your heart does something dangerous at that.

You lean back in to kiss him and lose time for a while. Everything turns slow and greedy, unhurried but inevitable. Your nipples drag against his chest in a way that makes him groan into your mouth and makes you chase more just to hear it again. He sucks gently at your lower lip, and you answer by rolling your hips in a way that makes the both of you gasp into each other’s mouths.

Then his hands move, one at your waist and one at the back of your neck. You feel a shift in him — something steadier, more intentional settling in his shoulders.

“Lie back for me?” he asks, almost nervous, voice rough.

You let him roll you underneath him, your spine meeting the mattress. He hovers over you on his forearms, and you’re already breathing too hard, already slick, already trembling a little with adrenaline and want.

His mouth is on you again immediately, trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses down your throat, along your collarbone, down to your breasts. His tongue drags slow over your nipple and you arch clean off the bed, fingers diving into his hair. He groans against you like your reaction hit him straight in the spine.

“Spence,” you gasp.

His hands slip lower, following the curve of your waist, the flex of your stomach, reverent and a little shaky. He pauses at the waistband of your pajama shorts. Looks up. Waits.

You nod so fast you’re almost embarrassed.

He slides his fingers under the elastic, drags them down, and it’s so careful you could cry. There’s no hurry in it. No desperate ripping. Just his hands easing your shorts and underwear down your thighs, over your knees, past your calves. He discards them somewhere, and then he’s just looking at you.

You know that should make you feel vulnerable enough to crawl out of your own skin, but instead, you feel… wanted. Worshipped. Safe.

He touches you, finally. Long fingers tracing the outside of your thigh, then up, higher, higher, until he’s cupping the heat of you, feeling the way you’re already so, so wet for him.

“Oh,” he whispers, like you’ve just answered a question he’s been too polite to ask. “Here?” he murmurs, thumb circling your clit, featherlight at first, letting your reactions guide him. His middle and ring finger slip through your slick and gather you, just testing, just mapping.

“Spencer,” you say, needy and unpretty and not ashamed, and that’s his answer. He slides one long finger into you, slow.

Your hips chase it immediately, your body taking him deeper. He curves his knuckles and you gasp, eyes squeezing shut, and he makes a soft, reverent sound that should not be as filthy as it is.

“Like that?” he breathes.

“Yes—oh—yes.”

He doesn’t talk a lot after that — he just listens.

Every time your breath catches or your thighs tense, he adjusts. He slides a second finger into you when he feels you stretch for him, and the fullness makes your mouth fall open, your back bow off the mattress. His thumb finds your clit in these slow, tight circles that turn into perfect pressure when you whimper please, please, please without even realizing you’re saying it.

“That’s it,” he whispers, quiet encouragement that goes straight to your center, and for a moment you think any ounce of praise from him could probably make you come on the spot.

Your heel drags up the back of his calf, trying to get him even closer, pulling him into you. Your hand is in his hair because you need to hold on to something, need to ground yourself in him.

He starts kissing his way down your body while he works you. First the soft space between your breasts, then the underside of your ribs, then lower, down your stomach, slow enough to make you dizzy, giving you a hundred and one chances to tell him to stop.

You’re not going to tell him to stop.

By the time he settles between your thighs and looks up at you — curls mussed, pupils blown — you’re wrecked.

He waits, and you nod.

His mouth closes over your clit and you swear you see actual stars behind your eyes. His fingers keep fucking into you, curling up, finding that sensitive spot he located unbelievably quick (such an overachiever, as always). You’re babbling again without meaning to — yes, right there, fuck, don’t stop please don’t stop — and he just groans against you and does exactly what you ask like it’s the only thing he’s ever wanted to do.

You feel it build: warmth into need, need into pressure, pressure into please.

The coil in your stomach tightens, tightens, tightens—oh.

You come hard around his fingers, his mouth still on you through it, and you say his name the way you never say anything, like it’s the only word you know. Your whole body goes white-hot, shaking, and he holds you through it, stays with you, working you gently through the aftershocks until you’re trembling and over-sensitive.

He doesn’t stop until you ask him to. He withdraws slow, presses one more kiss to your inner thigh, and moves back up your body.

It hits you then, square between the ribs, just how stupidly beautiful Spencer is. It’s catastrophic.

The plush of his mouth, still a little swollen. The uneven stubble along his jaw that rasped against the inside of your thigh a minute ago. The long lines and soft edges of him — chest and shoulders and that ridiculous waist. The little crinkles at the corners of his eyes. The single freckle over the arch of his brow. All of him, right here above you, chin and fingers still slick with you, looking at you like you’re the best thing he’ll ever look at in this life.

You’ve always thought he was handsome. Even on day one, when he couldn’t hold eye contact with you for longer than three seconds, your stomach still did that humiliating, dizzying little swoop. But this is different. This is not just attraction. It’s not just god, you’re hot. This is… too much to process. This is no one has ever looked at me like this before but you’re somehow doing it like it’s the most natural instinct in the world.

You’re peeled open in a way you don’t normally let happen. Not with anyone. Not ever. But here you are: naked, breath uneven, nerves still buzzing where his mouth had you, and he’s above you, steady, eyes blown and soft and full. He’s bare for you, too — not just his skin, but all the careful, controlled parts of him, wide open and offered.

And then there’s the way he’s looking at you.

If you could bottle that look and take a swig anytime you needed it, you could fix yourself forever. Your worst days, the spiral ones where you’re convinced you’re hard to love / too much / too sharp / a liability — one taste of the way he’s looking at you right now and poof. Gone. It’s ridiculous and infuriating and dizzying all at once. It lights up under your breastbone like someone struck a match in all the places you thought were doomed to stay damp and dark forever.

It’s too much. You have to look away.

You turn your head into the pillow, gaze skittering to the wall, his shoulder, the wrinkle in the motel sheet by your hip — anywhere but his eyes, because if you keep feeling that much tenderness you’re going to do something irreversible like cry or tell him every secret you’ve ever had.

“Hey,” he whispers, tenderly nosing at your cheekbone and pulling you back into your body. “Where’d you go?”

You blink. Then blink again, and again, until you can force your eyes back to his. “‘M here,” you whisper, voice embarrassingly thin. You reach for him to ground yourself, fingers curling around his forearm.

He kisses your cheek before lifting his head to look at you again. “Physically, maybe. But your mind went somewhere else just now.” He studies you, concern knitting his brows together. “Was that… not okay?”

You snap back to him so fast your neck almost twinges. “What? God, no. Wait, I mean — yes, of course it was okay.” You groan, covering your face with your hand for half a second. “I’m screwing this up. Sorry. Let me try again.”

His mouth curves, worried and amused all at once. “Take your time.”

“It was more than okay,” you tell him. That part comes out clean. “Spencer, that was—you were unbelievable. Like, so good it’s insulting. I didn’t ‘go somewhere else.’ I just…” you trail off, searching for the right word and not finding one big enough. “I think I’m feeling more feelings than I’m used to feeling in…this particular situation, and my mind doesn’t quite know what to do with all of them.”

Smooooth. How many times can you possibly use the word “feeling” in one sentence? New record!

His eyes search yours for a few quiet moments before he speaks, confusion washing through his features. “Feelings like…?”

You blow out a slow, shaky breath. You hate this part. You hate saying the quiet thing. But you do it anyway, because it’s Spencer, and this is, apparently, what he’s turned you into: mush. Emotional, honest, vulnerable mush.

“I can’t remember the last time something like that felt so… intimate,” you admit. You feel the word catch in your throat on the way out. “I mean, I know the act itself is intimate, obviously. I’m not a robot. But I mean… you. You, doing that. Looking at me like that while you’re doing it. I haven’t— I don’t…” you swallow. “That was the first time in a long time I’ve done anything like that with someone I actually care about. And I’ve never done that with someone I care about the way I care about you.”

Spencer’s breath hitches so sharply you can feel it against your ribs. He looks as if all the oxygen in his body has been knocked out of him, and his face does that thing that half looks like he wants to laugh and cry and thank you and swear and maybe throw a parade, and half like he’s still terrified he messed something up.

“Is that a bad thing?” he manages.

“Of course it’s not,” you say immediately, a little too fast. “No. Just different. It’s a good thing, at least it’s supposed to be.” Your laugh scrapes out, self-conscious and breathless. “It’s just new for me, letting my feelings touch the rest of me. I usually put them in a box, shove the box into a dark corner and pretend that corner doesn’t exist. I’m very high-functioning that way, in case you haven’t noticed.”

He huffs a little, fond, because yes, he has noticed.

You don’t look away from him this time when you go on. “But I can’t do that with you. I’ve tried. Like, my god, I have tried.” Your voice drops. “But I can’t compartmentalize the way you make me feel. Especially not with this,” you say, gesturing weakly between your bodies. “You don’t belong in a box. You never have. I can’t get you to stay put.”

You watch him process that, calculus and probabilities firing behind his eyes. He swallows, nods, and when he speaks next, his voice is softer than you’ve maybe ever heard it. “Do you want to stop? I know it’s a lot for you right now. We don’t have to keep going.”

Another realization hits you at that moment: no, god no, you don’t want to stop. It’s not just that you’re turned on and want to keep going — it’s that the idea of going back to before makes something inside you bare its teeth. You have this sudden, terrifying clarity that you never, ever want to go back to starving yourself of him on purpose. You don’t want to go back to wearing a straitjacket you strapped on yourself. All the months of careful waiting, of kissing on couches but stopping when it got too real, of touching yourself after he’s gone just to try (unsuccessfully) to soothe the ache the restraint left behind — all of it has led here, to this.

You reach for him, both arms looping around his neck to pull him back down over you.

“No,” you breathe. “No. I don’t want to stop. I really don’t want to stop.”

You find his mouth in the dim — soft, grateful, a little ruined — and kiss him in hopes you can give him that answer in a language you’re actually fluent in.

When you finally part for air, you hold his face there, inches from yours. “I want you,” you whisper. “All of you. If you’ll have me.”

Spencer makes a sound that is not polished, not composed, not anything but yours. You feel his forehead settle against you like he had to bow just to keep from coming apart. “Yeah,” he whispers. “Yeah, I’ll have you.”

Thank the fucking universe.

You push his pants eagerly down his hips and they catch at his ankles, sending you into a fit of giggles. He laughs with you until he finds the strength to kick them all the way off, and for a second he’s just there, gorgeous and flushed and shaking over you.

His boxers are still on, tented and marked by a small damp spot where the tip of his cock rests. You gently palm him through the cotton because you need to feel him, need to know him in your hand. His forehead drops to your shoulder with a strangled “oh,” but you’re the one who goes a little dizzy.

He’s big. Much bigger than you’d expected.

“Oh my god,” you blurt, and he makes a mortified noise before starting to apologize. You cut that off immediately with a kiss, your hand stroking firmer, letting your thumb trace the shape of him through the fabric. “Don’t you dare be sorry,” you say against his lips. “You’re perfect.”

You feel him shudder. Then you feel him believe you.

He fumbles one hand blindly toward the nightstand, still kissing you, and comes back with his wallet. He fishes out a foil packet with shaking fingers.

You blink at him, breathless and fond. “You would keep a condom in there. Did Derek teach you that?”

His cheeks flush. “Preparedness is—”

“Sexy,” you finish.

He huffs out a broken laugh and pushes his boxers down. You help, because you want to, because you need his skin on your skin. The fabric slides away and then he’s bared to you for the first time and god, you’re overwhelmed.

He’s thick and flushed and leaking at the tip, and the sight hits you so hard you actually whimper. You wrap your fingers around him and he groans like you shorted out all of his higher brain functions on contact. You stroke him once, slow, and watch his mouth fall open, feel the way his hips twitch. You grin, high on the power of it, and help him roll on the condom. He’s concentrating so hard on not embarrassing himself that you could die from how much you adore him.

When he’s ready, he looks back up at you. He swallows. “Still okay?”

“Yes,” you promise, plain and sure. Your hands frame his face like you’re swearing on it.

He settles between your legs, one hand braced by your head, the other smoothing down your thigh, guiding your knee up around his hip. The first press of him against you is all heat and anticipation and stretch.

“Hey,” he murmurs, voice right there with you, low and steady. “Look at me.”

You open your eyes back to his. You didn’t even realize you’d squeezed them shut.

And then finally, finally, he starts to push in.

It’s a slow, claiming slide that makes your lungs forget how to function. Your nails bite into his shoulders, not to stop him, just to hold on. You feel every inch, feel your body make room for him, feel yourself give.

“Spence,” you gasp, half laugh, half prayer.

“I know,” he gets out, equally wrecked. “I know. You feel—” He loses the end of the sentence like his entire vocabulary disappeared and just kisses you instead, as if that’s the only method of communication left.

He bottoms out with a low groan, hips flush to you, and just stays there. He’s shaking. You’re shaking. You can feel his pulse inside you, and it’s obscene how good it feels. It’s obscene how right it feels.

“You okay?” he whispers, forehead pressed to yours.

You nod, desperate. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay. Please move.”

Something like relief punches out of him. “Okay,” he breathes. “Okay.”

He doesn’t start pounding. Of course he doesn’t — you knew he wouldn’t. He rocks into you slow, controlled, deep, like he’s memorizing the way you take him. It’s the kind of steady, dragging rhythm that makes you feel every inch of him, every withdrawal and push, sparks jumping low in your belly.

Your hand finds his forearm and holds, like you need him right there. His thumb strokes your cheekbone, so gentle you could almost sob.

You can hear yourself. You’re not quiet. You’ve admittedly never really been quiet in bed, but this is different. You’re making all these desperate, needy little sounds into his mouth every time he hits that spot, and you don’t care, you don’t care, you don’t care. You feel wild with it — not just the physical, but the fact that it’s him, that this is you and him, and no one else has ever had exactly this.

He’s not quiet either. You catch the soft curses he usually seldom uses, the reverent little oh my god, the way he whispers your name like it’s gospel. Every time you roll your hips up to meet him, he chokes on air.

“Just like that,” he pants into your mouth when you catch a rhythm that makes both of you see stars. “Yeah, just like that, that’s perfect, you’re— God, you’re so perfect.”

You clench around him and he nearly collapses.

“Jesus,” he gasps, burying his face in your neck for a second like he needs a safe place to fall apart. He rasps a strained “good girl,” but it isn’t filthy like that phrase normally would be. It’s just praise, pure and wonderful, straight from his heart.

After a few slow, rolling minutes like that — sweat sticking your chest to his, his hair damp at the nape, your legs wrapped high around his waist — something hungry wakes up in you.

“Spencer,” you whisper, smiling against his mouth, sweet and breathless. “Switch with me.”

His eyes go dark at that. He moves willingly, immediately, rolling onto his back and bringing you with him, hands steadying you at your hips like he’s afraid you’ll float away. You sink down onto him and both of you make a sound you’re pretty sure would get you evicted if anyone could hear you over the storm.

“Oh, fuck,” he blurts out, head tipping back, eyes squeezed shut. His hands flex hard at your waist, like he has to physically restrain himself from gripping you hard enough to leave marks.

You plant your palms on his chest and start to move.

It’s slow at first, exploratory. He’s flushed, mouth open, eyes glassy and desperate every time he blinks up at you. One of his hands slides up, cups your breast, thumb circling your nipple, and you whine, moving faster, chasing more.

“Yeah,” he pants, encouraging, voice so raw it barely holds shape. “Like that. You look—” He swallows hard. “You look unreal. You’re so beautiful.”

You find a rhythm that grinds you down where you need it and pleasure spikes, white and hot. Your head tips back. A sound falls out of you, loud and unpretty and honest.

He groans like you just took him apart molecule by molecule. “Angel girl. That’s it, just like that.”

Angel girl hits you like a train. You practically sob from how good it feels in your ears.

Your thighs start to tremble. He feels it instantly, hands slowing your hips to steady you. He sits up, chest to chest with you for a heartbeat, kissing you like he’s trying to memorize the shape of your mouth from the inside.

Then, with a gentleness that guts you, he murmurs, “Let me take care of you,” and flips you once more.

It happens so fluidly it doesn’t even register. One second you’re on top; the next you’re on your back again and he’s above you, braced, eyes blown, hair a total disaster, looking exactly like every dream of this moment you’ve ever had but better. So much better.

You wrap one leg around his waist. He pushes your other knee gently up toward your chest, opening you, and then thrusts in deep.

You see stars.

Your breath leaves on a noise that’s half moan, half plea. “Spence—please—”

“I’ve got you,” he whispers, and you believe him down to the bone. He slides one of your hands up over your head and laces your fingers with his, pinning it there against the pillow, holding you down in the sweetest way possible, owning you but only because you offered.

His other hand slips between your bodies, finding your clit without fumbling, circling with the exact pressure he’s already learned you like. It’s devastating. It’s perfect. It’s him, focused and shaking and so, so determined to make you fall apart again.

“That’s it,” he says, voice low and steady even though you can feel how close he is, how much he’s holding in. “That’s it. Let go.”

Your body answers before your mouth can. Your climax slams into you, a bright, overwhelming crest that arches you up against him, clenching tight around his cock. The moan that rips out of you is helpless and raw, and you barely even register you’re saying his name like a prayer until he groans at the sound of it.

He doesn’t stop. He works you through it, through every shaking aftershock, whispering it’s okay, I’ve got you, god you’re so pretty when you come, that’s it until the pleasure rolls and ebbs, leaving you ruined and open and panting.

You’re dimly aware that he’s falling apart above you. His rhythm goes ragged, hips stuttering like he’s right at the edge and trying to hold himself back just to be sure you’re all the way there.

“I’m—” he chokes, voice breaking. He’s so close he can barely talk.

You pull him down into a kiss and roll your hips up to meet him, giving him everything you have. “Please,” you whisper against his mouth, dizzy and wrecked and happy. “Come for me, Spence.”

He does.

His whole body locks, then shudders, and he lets out this strangled, gorgeous noise you feel all the way in your cells. He buries his face in your neck and gives himself to you, hips pressing deep as he spills into the condom. You hold him there, arms wrapped around his shoulders, fingers in his hair, murmuring his name while the last pulses work through him.

He goes heavy in a good way, boneless and trembling and laughing into your skin like he can’t believe any of this is allowed.

Then he remembers himself. Of course he does. He’s careful the second his brain comes back online.

“Hold on,” he murmurs, sweet and apologetic, easing out of you slow, like he’s afraid to hurt you now that the edge is gone. You hiss at the sensitivity and he winces in sympathy, kissing your cheek like sorry, sorry, sorry, and you cut it off with a lazy kiss because stop apologizing for my favorite thing that’s ever happened. He gets out of bed—much to your chagrin—and slips off the condom, tying it with the same precision he applies to solving homicides. You might laugh at that if you weren’t still actively floating.

He’s back almost immediately with a warm, damp washcloth from the bathroom. He cleans you up with this soft, focused tenderness that makes your eyes sting, checking in with a quiet “okay?” every time you twitch.

His boxers go back on. Your t-shirt comes back over your head. He helps you into it, like he can’t stop taking care of you now that you’ve finally let him.

And then you’re back under the covers, both of you loose-limbed and wrecked and stupidly gentle. You end up half on top of him without discussing it — your thigh slung over his hips and head against his chest, his palm splayed across the small of your back and nose tucked into your hair like he’s decided that’s just where it goes now.

He tries three times to speak before anything comes out. “I—” He laughs softly at himself, breath still uneven. “Are you okay?”

You tip your face up and kiss along his jaw, lazy, affectionate. “So okay,” you murmur, voice hoarse and happy. “You?”

“Same,” he says, and the word comes out so full you feel it in your chest. He nudges his nose against your temple. “You were—” He shakes his head, abandons it, finds something braver. “Thank you. For trusting me.”

Something warm and liquid rolls through you at that. “Thank you for making it worth the wait,” you whisper.

He makes a helpless sound that’s half laugh, half groan, and tightens his arm around you.

You lie there, too giddy to sleep and too wrung out to have another Serious Talk, so you don’t. You talk about stupid, safe things instead. How the rain sounds like a thousand people sprinting on a high school gym floor. How this motel has the worst wall art you’ve ever seen. How one day you’re absolutely going to make him tell you the number of milliseconds he spent thinking about seeing your boobs.

You admit, smug and sleepy, that you’re going to remember the way he called you angel girl for a month and use it against him whenever you want something. He blushes in the dark, the heat of it against you.

He asks if you’re warm enough. You are, because you’re basically plastered to him like a second skin, but he still hauls the thin motel quilt higher around your shoulders and tucks it in like a cocoon.

You make a lazy promise to act totally normal at work once you make it back to town. He makes a lazier promise to try not to stare at you like everyone should know you’re his. That makes your stomach flip in a way that has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the part of you that’s finally, finally letting itself be his.

Eventually your bodies go heavy in the right way. You’re still tangled — his hand at your waist, your fingers laced in his hair like you plan to keep him — both of you buzzing with the good kind of ruin.

You fall asleep mid-smile in a room that feels like it belongs to both of you.

Outside, the flood keeps the world shut. Inside, you’re his and he’s yours and there’s nothing between you but heat and breath and the slow, steady fact of tomorrow.

ᝰ.ᐟ

this fic is part of the greenaway!reader universe/series! you can read more about this pairing here ♥️

“Spooky,” you murmured, leaning back against a filing cabinet. “Either you’re about to murder me, or this is some weird new foreplay game.”

“What? N-no. Nothing like that.” He shook out his hands, wired tight in a way he usually isn’t with you anymore.

“I’m going to ask you something,” he said. “And I need you to know before I ask that you can say no.”

“…Okay.”

“And I mean it, because I know if you feel cornered or rushed you’ll just…” He trailed off. “You know.”

“Run?” you offered.

He flinched. “Yeah.”

“Why’s the word ‘run’ suddenly impossible for you to say?”

“Because I don’t like thinking about you running from me, much less saying it.”

Oh. That hits you square in the chest.

“Hey,” you said softly. “Just ask whatever you need to ask, and I promise I’ll hear you out.”

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while,” he said, eyes wide and devoted. “I told myself I’d wait until you felt—” He searched for the right word. “Steady. With me. Which is why I thought, maybe, I could ask you now.”

He was right — you are steadier now. You don’t pretend not to want his hands on you. You don’t pretend you don’t sleep better with his heartbeat beneath your ear on his couch than you do alone in your bed. He knows that.

“Ask me what, Spencer?”

He swallowed hard. “I would like to…to take you out. For a date. Not a night hidden in my apartment or a walk we don’t label. I mean a real, proper date where we both wear something nice and I pick you up and we eat in an actual restaurant and it’s—” a nervous pull of his mouth, “—just us being on a date. Together. Because we want to be.”

You stared at him.

The first thing that hit was a familiar panic, because dates mean something official. Dates are tangible and meaningful and real. But the second hit, right behind the panic, was a deep, quiet ache. This is Spencer, who brings you coffee the way other people breathe. Spencer, who falls asleep sitting up because your head is on his shoulder and he’d rather get pins and needles than wake you. Spencer, who never assumes, never takes, always asks. Spencer, who looks completely wrecked right now because the idea of pushing you too fast physically hurts him.

You could have run. Or said “not yet,” and he would’ve nodded and smiled understandingly and you’d’ve gone home hating yourself for making him wait for something you already know you want.

“Okay,” you heard yourself say before you could even realize you were saying it.

He blinked. “Okay what?”

“Spencer,” you laughed. “Okay. As in, yes. You can take me on a date.”

There was a beat where he went sincerely, scientifically stunned into silence. “Saturday?” he managed eventually. “Can we do it this Saturday?”

“Mhm,” you hummed. “It’s a date.”

Spencer’s face did something you weren’t prepared for. Relief, obviously, and joy, yeah, but also a grateful softness like you’d just granted his every wish.

You looked away because if you held that look any longer you would’ve done something reckless, like kissed him in an FBI supply closet.

“Saturday,” you said, reaching out to straighten his tie before heading to the door. “Don’t be late.”

—

You smooth your dress, check your lipstick once more, and grab your bag just as three careful knocks land on your door.

Spencer is five minutes early.

Of course he is. You knew he would be and factored it into your getting ready timeline.

You watch from the peephole as he shifts his weight in the hallway outside your apartment, fingers flexing like he’s working up the nerve to knock a second time.

You open the door before he has to.

“Hey,” you say, casual.

He looks at you and absolutely forgets how to be alive.

His whole system just… shorts. His eyes go wide, drag down, come back up slowly like he can’t decide where to land.

You’re wearing a dress, which is not unheard of for you, but isn’t your default outfit choice either. It hits high on your mid-thigh and clings like it was made for you, with a neckline that would definitely not pass Bureau dress code. Your usual leather jacket’s draped over it. Sheer black tights—not fishnets this time—with pointed-toe stiletto boots. Your lipstick is your classic vampy red and you did your eye makeup a tad more shimmery than usual.

“Hi,” Spencer manages to choke out.

You lean against the frame, pretending your pulse isn’t in your throat.

“You look—” He swallows. “Wow.”

That shouldn’t hit as hard as it does, so you smirk to cover it. “Gonna finish that thought?”

He blinks, gaze dropping again — slower this time, more shameless. “You look beautiful,” he says. “Really, really beautiful.”

Your stomach drops in a way that feels a little like vertigo. It’s not that you don’t know you’re hot, because you do. You’re well aware of the effect you have on people. But the way Spencer says it makes your heart twist.

“Yeah?” you say, trying for light. “You don’t look so bad yourself.” You’re underselling it, if you’re being honest. His suit is black, not brown or gray like usual, and the difference is obscene. His shirt is also dark, paired with a deep burgundy tie. His hair is actually tamed like he tried, but not enough to hide the curls completely. He smells like soap and something faintly warm that you determined long ago is just how his skin smells close up.

You let your gaze drag, slow, just to watch him flush.

“Trying to impress me, Reid?” you ask.

“Yes,” he says automatically, smiling sheepishly.

You laugh. “Okay. Points for transparency.”

He exhales, shoulders dropping in that way you’re addicted to. The tension in his jaw eases.

“Ready?” he asks.

You step out, locking the door behind you. “Ready.”

He offers you his arm as you walk down the hall. It’s such an old-fashioned, earnest gesture that for a second you just stare at it before sliding your hand into the crook of his elbow.

Finally, you feel him breathe.

—

It’s not just a casual night at the museum. You figure that out the second you see the line out front.

The building glows. The facade is lit up in warm gold against the evening sky, banner flags hanging off the columns. People in suits and dresses mill under string lights, badges on lanyards. There’s a registration table, which cements even more that this night isn’t just to “wander around the Smithsonian.”

You glance at Spencer as you walk up. “You brought me to a gala and I didn't even get a warning?”

“It’s not a gala,” he explains nervously. “It’s a fundraiser-slash-preview for a new exhibit. Guest list is by invitation, but it’s not— it’s not black tie, it’s—” He catches your expression, swallows, and recalibrates. “Is this okay?”

You bump his arm. “Yes, Spence. I like it when you show off.”

He swallows. “Right. Okay. Good.”

You tip your chin up to squint at the banner over the doors. FORENSIC SCIENCE ON TRIAL: FROM CRIME SCENE TO COURTROOM.

His eyes spark, quick and pleased. Nerd.

You huff. “You brought me to a homicide exhibit.”

“It’s a historical forensics exhibit,” he corrects. “They’re debuting a collection of crime evidence and investigative tools like autopsy photography, ballistics comparisons, blood spatter analysis, courtroom transcripts — those kinds of things — from across the last century.” He pauses, then adds, quieter, almost shy: “I thought you’d like it.”

You stare at him.

Because he picked this, for you.

Not dinner and a movie. Not “I heard normal couples go bowling.” He picked an after-hours event full of weapons evidence, postmortem bruising documentation, and archaic crime lab methodology because, in his brain, that’s romance for you.

And he’s right.

“Spencer,” you say. “If this is an attempt to seduce me with photographs of blunt force trauma, it’s disturbingly effective.”

He makes a desperate little noise like he just swallowed a live wire. “I— that’s— I didn’t— that’s not—”

You grin. “Relax. I’m kidding.”

“I really did think you’d like it, though,” he says, softer.

You can’t deal with the way he says that, so you nudge him forward. “Well. Are we going in, or are we just loitering on the sidewalk so all the rich donors can judge us?”

“Right. Yes.” He reaches into his jacket, pulls out two badges on lanyards, Your name is printed on one — your name, not “Guest,” which means he must’ve set this up long before he worked up the nerve to ask you on this date three days ago.

You blink at it. “Did you register me in advance?”

“Yes,” he admits. “Otherwise you would’ve just gotten a sticker badge, and I know you hate the way they always roll at the edges. And everyone else has these ones, so I didn’t want you to feel—” He falters. “—out of place.”

It hits you, stupid and hot, that he really did think of everything. You hook the lanyard over your head before you can say anything dumb about it.

Inside, it’s all low light and glass cases and soft instrumental music. There’s a roped-off display under a spotlight featuring a lined-up series of early police-issue sidearms, each labeled with case numbers, photographs of recovered bullets, and blown-up comparison images of rifling patterns.

You whistle under your breath. “Sexy.”

Spencer laughs softly. “Right? Look at that one. Analysis of the land & groove impressions helped scientists to identify exactly who fired it during a 1923 standoff between—” He stops himself and glances at you, almost sheepish. “Sorry. Too much?”

You shake your head. “Keep talking.”

You drift together through the first room, then the second. He doesn’t lecture at you — it’s not like that. He just leans in close, mouth near your ear, and shares details like he’s letting you in on secrets.

You hate how your skin reacts to the warmth of his breath. You also shift a fraction closer. Accidentally, obviously.

The next gallery is framed black-and-white morgue photos — bruise mapping, pattern analysis, angle-of-impact diagrams with neat arrows.

You linger on a forearm mottled with crescents. The placard under it explains inaccurate bite-mark comparisons done in the 1980s.

“Ask me how many convictions based on bite marks have been overturned,” he says, voice low.

“How many?”

“Thirty-six, at least.”

His knuckles brush the back of your hand where it rests on the case glass — barely there, and somehow everything. Your pulse gives you away.

“This is good,” he says quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” His eyes stay on you. “It feels like a date.”

A soft laugh slips out. “That’s because it is one.”

Before you can spiral at your own honesty, you push off the case and nod toward a side hall marked Restricted: Staff Only.

“C’mon.”

You can practically hear him internally litigating trespass statutes as he follows you into the dark.

The little alcove you duck into is out of sight from the main gallery, lit only by the glow at the end of the hall. You can hear the murmur of voices from the exhibit space, but it’s hushed.

Spencer steps in after you and, for a second, just looks.

He takes you in from this new proximity like he’s cataloging a miracle. His gaze flickers down slowly, then drags back up, and by the time he hits your mouth again he looks a little wrecked.

“What?” you ask softly.

He swallows. “Nothing.”

“Liar.”

He huffs. “You’re just— very distracting.”

“Good,” you murmur.

Something in his face flickers, then he does that thing you still haven’t built up immunity to: he lifts one hand and touches you like you’re precious. Just a gentle thumb along your jaw, a question he still asks even though you’ve already answered it a hundred times.

You lean into it before you can pretend you won’t.

It’s almost absurd, you think — barely ten yards from autopsy photos and here you are in an off-limits corridor with Spencer Reid looking at you like you’re the most exhilarating thing that’s ever happened to him.

Your voice comes out low. “Are you gonna kiss me, or are you just planning to stare at me like I’m Medusa until I turn to stone?”

A corner of his mouth lifts. “Medusa didn’t turn herself to stone, she—”

You pull him down by his tie. “Spencer.”

He grins, hovering a breath from your lips. “Yes. Yes, I’m going to kiss you.”

His mouth is warm and careful when it finally meets yours, then warmer, then just on the edge of not careful. His free hand slides to your waist, and yours stays in his tie without thinking. You like the feel of it against your knuckles, and you like the way his breath catches when you pull.

When you break, it’s only because you need air and not because either of you wants space. He stays close — forehead almost against yours, breathing a little uneven.

“I can’t believe I convinced you to kiss me in the restricted section,” you murmur, just to hear him laugh. “It’s like Harry Potter if it wasn’t a kids’ movie.”

Spencer breathes a chuckle against your cheek. “I think you could convince me to do almost anything.”

A shiver runs through you at that, and you turn your head to steal one more kiss. “Telling me that is a dangerous game,” you tease.

He pulls back just far enough to meet your eyes, and you see that look again — the glassy, stunned, happy one he gets when you show affection like this. You’re almost getting used to seeing it. Almost.

“Dinner?” he asks, soft. “I, uh, I made a reservation.”

You nod. “Lead the way, genius.”

—

The restaurant looks like somewhere you only get into if you “know a guy.” Low light, white tablecloths, real candles, wood-paneled walls crowded with black-and-white photos, quiet jazz. It smells like garlic and butter and something slow-simmered with wine.

Spencer is trying so hard to act normal.

You can see it in the way he hovers half a second like he’s debating whether to pull your chair out — he wants to, you can feel it — then aborts at the last second, second-guessing himself.

“You can pull it out, you know,” you murmur, tilting your head up at him. “It’s not gonna bite.”

He exhales, embarrassed. “Right. Yes. Sorry.”

He moves the chair for you and you let him, because you are soft for him in disgusting ways you refuse to examine. When he takes his own seat across from you, you watch him fold his napkin once, too precisely, and line his fork up like symmetry might steady him.

There’s already water at the table, bread, a saucer of olive oil that smells peppery and clean.

“Spence,” you say, leaning back a little, crossing your legs under the table. You let your heel graze up his calf to watch him almost drop the bread knife. “Traditionally, on dates, you’re actually supposed to talk.”

His mouth twitches. “I know, I’m just— I believe I have about a seventy-three percent chance of saying something right now that’ll make you roll your eyes at me.”

“Mm.” You tear off a piece of bread and drag it through olive oil. “And what’s the percent chance of you saying something that makes me want to make out with you in the bathroom?”

The tips of his ears go pink. “Seventy-eight.”

You grin. “Seems accurate enough.”

That gets the first real exhale from him since you left the museum. His eyes go a little soft as they settle on you in the candlelight.

“I like this,” he says quietly.

“Yeah?” You pick up a menu mostly to avoid having to look directly at the way he’s looking at you.

“Yes,” he says simply. “I like… you here.”

Against your will, heat climbs up your throat.

“You feeding me pasta is a strong survival strategy, I’ll give you that.”

“In my defense, it’s excellent pasta.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“Once,” he admits, a little shy. “With Rossi.”

That tracks. Rossi “knows a guy” everywhere up and down the mid-Atlantic.

“He said if I ever brought someone here that I ‘actually gave a damn about,’ I should ask for Giuseppe,” he adds, looking down at his napkin like he didn’t just say that sentence out loud in front of you.

Your pulse stutters, but you try for casual. “Will Giuseppe judge me if I order something with enough garlic to kill a man?”

“He’s Italian. I think he’ll judge you if you don’t.”

That earns a real grin out of you.

A server appears at your elbow, and the way he greets Spencer — “Dottore Reid!” — tells you this is definitely Giuseppe.

“Can I start you two off with anything to drink?” he asks with a robust Italian accent.

Before you can open your mouth, Spencer answers for you. “She’ll have a martini, extra dirty. Grey Goose if you have it.”

Your eyebrows go up.

Giuseppe claps once and winks at you. “And Signore, for you?”

“Just club soda with lime, please.”

You glance at him across the table, one brow still arched.

“Antipasti?” Giuseppe asks. “Chef Bruno is doing arancini tonight, and we also have a—” he pauses to kiss his fingers “— burrata with roasted figs and balsamico.”

“Both,” Spencer says without hesitation. “Please.”

When he leaves, you lean in, elbow on the table and chin in your hand. “So,” you murmur. “You planning to order for me all night like we’re in a mafia movie, or was that a one-time performance?”

Color blooms high on his cheekbones. “I just— you love martinis, and I know you always ask for them extra dirty and get annoyed if they use cheap vodka because you say it tastes like floor cleaner. And you always want to order appetizers for us to share when we get takeout, so I— I thought it would be easier. Not in a weird ‘I speak for you’ way.” His mouth quirks. “I wanted you to know I pay attention.”

“Hey,” you say, and he looks up quick, like he’s braced for teasing. “I like you knowing what I like.”

He goes a little wide-eyed, like you just palmed his heart. His thumb traces a slow circle in the condensation on glass, like he needs sensory grounding.

“I like knowing,” he says quietly.

Okay. Well. Now your pulse is in your throat.

Your martini arrives — cloudy, salty, cold with three plump olives — and his club soda in a short glass with extra lime. You clink a tiny “cheers” without making it a big production. His eyes crinkle when you do.

He watches your lips wrap around the rim of your glass when you take a sip and immediately looks down to pretend he’s studying his napkin again.

You could laugh, but you don’t. You’re too busy staring at him and having a small internal crisis.

Because sitting across from him like this is doing something to you that you weren’t prepared for. You knew you were in trouble, but you didn’t realize how much until he recited your drink order like he’s been rehearsing it for weeks.

“Tell me something,” you say, mostly to get air.

He looks up fast. “Anything.”

“How long have you had this planned?” You swirl the stem of your glass between two fingers.

“A while.”

“A while,” you echo, amused.

He glances down at the table, then back at you. “I, uh, made the dinner reservation two weeks ago,” he admits. “The museum took longer. Those passes were… not easy to get.” His smile tugs, crooked. “Rossi might have helped.”

Of course Rossi did.

“So you were just… sitting on this? For over two weeks?” you ask. “What would you have done if I said no?”

“Canceled the reservation and the passes,” he says, earnestly confused as to how that isn’t the obvious answer. When you raise your brows, he scrunches his and adds, “I’m… not really sure I understand the question.”

“You put all this effort into tonight and would’ve been perfectly okay with canceling if I’d said no?”

“It wasn’t that much work,” he mumbles shyly. “But yeah. If you weren’t ready, I would’ve just canceled and waited to plan something else when you were.”

It blows you a little sideways, the simplicity of it. He spent days developing a plan for the perfect first date, asking Rossi for advice and begging to use his connections for the museum passes, making restaurant reservations and arranging for the owner to be your waiter and getting his best suit drycleaned, but he would’ve canceled it all in a heartbeat if you told him you needed more time.

You try to play it off. You really do. You nod, lean back in your chair, cross your legs so your boot slides along his calf again. It doesn’t matter. You can feel it in yourself anyway. The slide. The fall.

This is what scares you — this exact feeling. Sitting across from someone who looks at you like you hung the stars and realizing in real time you’re losing ground because you want him, and you trust him, and that trust is starting to come easy. You don’t usually get easy. Easy, historically, has cost you.

Your stomach is in a knot and it still feels… good.

Disgusting.

“Spencer,” you say, just so you can feel his name in your mouth.

His eyes flick to yours, helpless, and you wonder what you look like to him right now. You wonder if he’s thinking about your mouth from the museum hallway. You wonder if he’s imagining you in his bed. You’re imagining you in his bed.

“Yeah?” he says softly.

You’re about to tilt this deeper — say something you can’t unsay, slide your foot higher, lean across the table and tell him you’re going home with him after dinner — in the real way — when both of your phones start buzzing on the table at the exact same time.

You don’t move for a beat. Neither does he. You both just stare at each other like maybe, if you wait long enough, the world will do you a favor and stop existing.

It doesn’t.

You reach for your phone. Spencer reaches for his.

Hotch’s voice hits your ear: “We’ve got a case. Serial in Florida. We’re wheels up in ninety, so I need everyone in Quantico within the hour.”

JJ’s voice is audible from Spencer’s side of the table, low and urgent. “Sorry to interrupt your night, Spence. We’ve got a case. How soon can you get to the BAU?”

You keep your own voice steady. “I’ll be there,” you tell Hotch.

Spencer hasn’t said a word into his phone yet, and you hear JJ through his line after you hang up. “You good?” she asks.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good,” he says softly into the phone, but you can hear the lie in it, see the devastation written all over his face. “I’ll be there soon,” he adds before ending the call.

“Okay,” you say. “Here’s what’s gonna happen. You’ll take me to my place first, then we’ll swing by yours so we can each grab our go bags, and then we’ll drive in together.”

He blinks. “Together?”

“Yeah, together,” you say. “We’ll just stagger a few minutes between our entrances. You’ll go in first, I’ll come in five minutes later. No one will know.”

His mouth twitches. “Rossi knows.”

“Well, he hasn’t ratted us out so far, so we’re fine,” you say. “Point is, you’re not just dropping me at home and then brooding alone like a sad Romance-era poet. We’re riding in together. Got it?”

“Got it,” he says, quiet.

You stand. He’s on his feet instantly, hand already on his wallet. He flags down Giuseppe with an apologetic wave.

He’s moving with his usual efficient purpose, and trying very, very hard not to believe his one shot at this got ruined.

You hate that for him so completely it scares you.

You step close while he tucks his wallet away, close enough that your arm brushes his sleeve.

“Hey,” you say.

He looks at you.

“Don’t look so defeated. We’ll just raincheck the rest of the night, okay?”

He nods tightly. “Okay,” he says, clearly not convinced he’ll ever get a real chance to redeem that raincheck.

In the car, when you slide into the passenger seat and he reaches over to rest his hand on your knee — just enough pressure to say I’m still here, are you still here? — you cover his hand with yours and squeeze.

—

Quantico on a Saturday night always feels hollow.

JJ’s standing with a half-open folder at Emily’s desk, Morgan’s braced over the briefing table, Rossi’s tapping a pen. No one’s smiling. No one looks surprised to be here.

Spencer’s talking to Hotch, and if you didn’t know him the way you do, you’d think everything was fine. But the thing is, you do know him. You know the tell in his mouth when he’s holding something back, the way he goes a hair too still when he’s quietly upset.

He’s wearing that stillness like a pressed shirt.

JJ looks up as you round the corner and hands you a folder. “Victims so far: three men, thirties to forties, bodies dumped near interstates.”

The briefing takes five minutes, then you scatter: Emily grabbing her go-bag, Morgan snapping his file shut, Rossi sliding his notebook away. You sweep your hair back with an elastic from your pocket.

Spencer doesn’t move though — not right away at least. He’s standing at the end of the table with his bag strap across his chest, folder in hand, eyes dropped to the case notes.

“Walk with me,” you murmur, angling your body so it’s private.

He falls in at your side like it’s gravity. You talk through the case, and by the time you hit the main doors and push out into the night again, some of the edge has worn off. Not gone, just softened.

Good. You can work with softened.

—

The hotel is the usual Bureau special: anonymous beige, humming AC, bed that looks fine from the doorway but will feel like you’re lying on plywood in three hours.

You put your bags down, sit on the edge of the mattress, and pull your phone from your pocket to send a text:

my room, 20 minutes. mandatory attendance. don’t ask questions

Spencer types back almost immediately:

Okay.

Well, it’s not the most enthusiastic response, but he’s coming, so that’s enough for you to get to work.

First thing: lights. You kill the overhead and turn on the bedside lamp instead. It throws the room into a hazy amber that can almost pass for mood lighting if you don’t look too hard.

Second: table. The sad little round one in the corner with two even sadder chairs gets dragged to the middle of the room. You pull the chairs in close, almost touching.

Third: centerpiece. There’s a vase with a single plastic lily in the hallway by the elevators. You steal it and set it in the middle of the table.

Fourth: food. You raid the lobby vending machines: two bags of chips (plain for him, spicy for you), a sleeve of Oreos, mini M&Ms, one little pack of shortbread cookies, a Kit-Kat, two cans of Ginger Ale, and one of those vacuum-packed “charcuterie snack packs” with four sad salami coins and six baby cheese rectangles.

You plate your vending machine haul as nicely as you can manage and pour the ginger ale into glasses, then you step back and look at the setup.

It’s tragic, and it’s perfect.

You’re still re-centering the stolen flower vase when you hear a soft knock.

Spencer’s suit jacket’s a little rumpled from travel, tie loosened. He must’ve combed a hand through his hair at some point; one curl has fallen loose in a way that makes your fingers twitch.

He gives you a half-hearted smile, but then his eyes slide past you and land on the table.

For a second, he doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t even breathe.

You feel weirdly naked, which is hilarious, because you are fully dressed and the most indecent thing in this room is a two-dollar meat-and-cheese kit.

“Reservation for two,” you say, because if you don’t talk you might actually start vibrating. You tip your head toward the setup and let yourself smirk. “Dr. Reid, your table’s ready.”

“Did you—” His voice comes out rough. He clears his throat and tries again. “You did this? For me?”

You shrug, casual, but your heart’s doing sprints. “It’s called improvising, Spencer. You should try it sometime.”

Then it really hits him — the stupid flower, the chairs pulled way too close, the ginger ale. You watch it wash through him: surprise, then delight, then something else that just about guts you: shaken, stunned gratitude.

“Hey,” you say lightly. “You coming in, or are you planning to stand out there in the hall so Morgan can walk by and see you making heart eyes at me?”

That jolts him. He steps in fast, closing the door behind him.

Up close he looks a little dazed. You like that more than you should.

“Sit,” you tell him. “The sommelier recommends the ginger ale. Notes of corn syrup and airplane.”

He huffs a laugh and sits. “You’re ridiculous,” he says softly.

“You’re welcome,” you reply.

He looks at you then — really looks.

“You did this for me.”

“Yeah,” you say. You clear your throat and immediately ruin the sincerity with attitude because that’s who you are. “You were being a sad little puppy about our ruined evening. Couldn’t just let you mope.”

He laughs under his breath, eyes dropping. When he looks back up, he’s still pink. “Thank you,” he says.

You reach for the ‘charcuterie.’ “So. We left off right before you got to tell me how long you’ve been pining over me. You were about to say ‘a while,’ and then Hotch cockblocked us.”

He drags a hand down his face, fingers hooking over his mouth in that trying-not-to-smile way you’re addicted to. “That’s not exactly where we left off, but…yeah. I had… talking points.”

You almost choke. “You had talking points?”

Spencer makes a face. “Not a script or anything,” he says, embarrassed. “I just— I thought… if you got nervous, or if you thought you should run, I wanted to make sure that the things I actually needed to tell you got said.”

Your voice comes out softer than you mean it to. “Okay. Tell me, then.”

He blinks. “What?”

“We’re here,” you say, gesturing at the table. “We made it to dinner. So. Talk to me. Say your things.”

You watch his throat move.

“Spencer,” you add. “I’m not gonna bolt.”

He nods once, slow. He takes a breath.

“I was going to tell you,” he says quietly, “that tonight wasn’t about… proving anything. Or locking you into anything. I didn’t want you to feel like you owed me because I made a reservation and put on a tie.” He keeps going, eyes low, words careful like he’s laying them down for you to pick up at your own pace. “I just wanted to give you something that wasn’t reactive. Because… we’re always reacting, you know? To the job, to whatever gets thrown at us, to—” he huffs out a breath, “—near-death experiences, occasionally. So I wanted something you could step into on purpose. Something that was just… ours.”

You feel floaty for a second. Untethered.

He doesn’t notice. He’s looking down at his hands now, thumb rubbing over his knuckle. “And then,” he says, softer, “I was going to ask you some things. I—I read up on a lot of lists of good first date questions, but most of them were terrible so I made my own list and thought I’d try a few.”

You stare at him. “You made a list.”

Color climbs back up his neck. “Yes.”

“Of first date questions,” you say.

“Yes,” he says, shy. “Adjusted for the fact that I obviously already know you, of course. I just…” His mouth pulls. “I really wanted it to feel like a normal date between two normal people. We could ignore all the complicated things for one night and just…talk.”

You swallow. “Alright, Doctor. Hit me with a question.”

He draws a breath. “Okay,” he says, almost to himself. Then: “What was your favorite part of today? Before the call.”

“Wow,” you chuckle. “Starting light, huh.”

He looks worried. “I can do a different one.”

“No,” you say quickly. You reach under the table and put your hand on his knee, palm warm through his slacks. It shuts him up mid-panic. “No. I like that one.”

You could say the hallway at the museum, because obviously. You could say the few minutes at the restaurant you did get, because watching him across that table felt incredibly right.

What comes out instead is, “You at my door.”

His eyes flicker. “When I picked you up?”

You nod. Your thumb rubs once, slow. “You in that suit, looking like you were gonna throw up because you thought I might bail. You were… happy, and nervous, and so stupidly handsome I almost shut the door just to collect myself for a second.”

He just stares at you. You don’t usually hand him things like that.

“Okay,” he says after a second. “Okay. That’s… that’s a good answer.”

You squeeze his knee and take a sip of your ginger ale. “Next question.”

“If you weren’t doing this — the BAU, I mean — and you couldn’t pick law enforcement at all, what would you do? What would you be doing on a Saturday night if you weren’t about to go interview a coroner at seven in the morning?”

You lean back a little in your chair, but you leave your hand on him because it’s as much for you as it is for him at this point. You let your eyes drift to the sad little plastic lily.

“I don’t know,” you say honestly. “That’s a bad answer, but I don’t. I’ve spent so long doing this and bleeding for it and being good at it that it’s kind of… part of me. I don’t know who I am without it.”

He nods. He doesn’t try to fix it. He doesn’t say you could do anything. He just listens. Which is… worse. Or better. You don’t know.

“But,” you add, softer now, “if you mean like tonight — like what I’d want to be doing if I wasn’t on the clock? That’s easier.”

His gaze sharpens. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you say. “That answer is I’d still want to be with you. No guns. No jet. No serial killers. You and me and nowhere to be in the morning.”

For a second he looks so undone you almost look away for him, just to give him cover.

“Spencer,” you say quietly. “Breathe.”

“Okay.” His voice is so soft you barely catch it. “One more?”

You nod.

He wets his lips. “I was going to ask if you wanted to come back to my place afterward. Not—” He rushes that part, flustered. “Not… not like that. I wasn’t— I wasn’t expecting anything, obviously, I just— it’s Saturday, and on Saturday nights we usually hang out at my apartment, and I thought maybe I could ask you to stay on purpose this time. Not like you ‘fell asleep on my couch by accident,’ just… do you want to come home with me and stay until tomorrow.”

That lands so stupidly you actually have to laugh, soft and breathless, just to keep from making a sound you’ll regret. “You romantic menace,” you tease. “Trying to take a girl home on the first date.”

His ears go pink. “It’s not— that’s not—”

“I know,” you say, and your voice cuts under his, low, honest. You lean in, crowd his space a little. “I know what you meant. I get it. And for the record, I would’ve said yes.”

You hold his gaze and just let it sit there, let him feel it.

“Well,” you add after a second, clearing your throat. “You said your things. You asked your date questions. You didn’t combust. See? Totally nailed it.”

He huffs out a soft sound that’s not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh, and you feel yourself smiling.

Silence settles again, but it’s not awkward. Your knees are still touching. Your hand is still on his leg. You’re so close that you could lean forward and kiss him from here.

“Can I ask for one thing back from tonight?” he says, breaking the quiet.

You tilt your head. “Depends what it is.”

His eyes flick briefly to your mouth and then back up. “I know it’s stupid,” he rushes. “It’s just — after dinner, before we went back to my place, I was planning to ask you to walk down by the river with me, and then I was going to ask if I could… uh, dance with you.”

You stare at him.

He winces. “That sounds ridiculous out loud. Never mind, please forget I said that, that’s—”

“Spencer.”

He goes quiet.

“That is, without a doubt, the corniest shit anyone’s ever said to me.”

“I know,” he says miserably, hiding his face in one hand.

You pull it away gently and tilt his chin up to look at you. “I didn’t say no. I just said it was corny.” You smirk a little, then hold your hand out for him. “C’mon, Romeo. Before I change my mind.”

His face does something you’ve never seen it do before. He stands too fast and almost trips on his own feet, because of course he does. “Graceful,” you tease, and he huffs a quiet laugh.

You meet him in the narrow strip of beige carpet between the table and the edge of the bed.

There’s no music, and you don’t bother putting any on. The lamp throws warm light across his jaw, his collarbone, the loose line of his tie.

He hesitates a second, like he’s not sure what the protocol is. You save him from short-circuiting by stepping in first, sliding one hand up under his open jacket and flattening it against his dress shirt.

His breath stutters.

“Here,” you murmur, lifting your other hand.

He takes the cue. One of his hands finds your waist, fingers warm and careful. The other laces your fingers with his.

You start to sway.

It’s not even really dancing. It’s just the two of you moving slow in this ugly room, pressed close enough that your body lines up against his. You lean your head against his chest, right over his racing heartbeat. His chin dips until it grazes your hair.

“This is so cheesy,” you mumble into his shirt.

His laugh rumbles against you. “We can stop if you hate it.”

“Shut up,” you tell him, which is code for I don't hate it and don’t you dare stop.

His grip tightens the tiniest bit, and you feel his thumb stroke once along the curve of your waist. He breathes you in and you let your eyes slip shut because it’s suddenly too much to look up at him looking at you.

This is the part that scares you more than any gun in your face ever has: this stupid slow sway, your cheek against his chest, his heart under your ear, his hand holding yours. It’s terrifying.

You let yourself have it anyway.

“Hey,” he says after a while. His voice is low, muffled in your hair. “One true thing?”

You feel yourself smile against him.

“Yeah,” you say softly. “Hit me.”

He’s quiet for a second. When he speaks, it’s barely above a breath. “I was happy with you tonight,” he whispers. You squeeze his hand. “At the museum. At dinner. In the car. Here. All of it. I was just… happy.” His voice catches, then steadies. “This sort of thing doesn’t happen for me a lot, not like this. I really, really needed you to know that.”

Your fingers curl in his shirt and you breathe him in.

“My turn.” You swallow. “I didn’t say yes to this date just to make you happy or because you were nervous when you asked me or anything like that. I said yes because I wanted to.” Your voice drops. “I wanted tonight. With you. I wanted all of it.”

Spencer doesn’t move for a long beat.

Then you feel it — the way the tension bleeds out of him. The way his shoulders drop. The way his grip on your waist tightens, just slightly, like he’s fighting the urge to pull you closer.

“Okay,” he whispers. It comes out wrecked and grateful in a way that makes your throat sting.

You tip your head back because you need to see his face. He looks undone in the lamplight. Soft at the edges. Warm-eyed. His mouth is a little parted, like you keep catching him right before a confession.

You go up on your toes and kiss him.

He makes a soft, helpless sound in the back of his throat that you’re going to replay in your head for the rest of your life. His free hand slides up, fingers spreading between your shoulder blades. And when you finally break, you don’t step back right away. You just rest your forehead against his jaw and breathe him in.

“This counts,” you tell him quietly. “First date. I know it wasn’t entirely what you planned, but it still counts.”

“Yeah,” he says, voice low and rough and honest. “It does.”

You let yourself sit in that for one more long, slow breath.

“Alright, Romeo,” you murmur, stepping back. “We’ve got, like, four hours before Hotch starts banging on doors. You should go back to your room and get some sleep.”

He doesn’t move at first. He just looks at you.

You cross your arms, pretending your pulse isn’t still in your throat. “Spence.”

He smiles. Small. Wrecked. Yours. “I’m going,” he says, and his voice is warm in a way you’re going to feel later, alone, when you’re lying in bed staring at the ceiling. “I’ll— I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Yeah,” you say. “Bright and early, Dr. Reid. Don’t be late.”

He lingers one more second at the door. You almost think he’s going to say something else, but instead, he just reaches out, takes your hand, and brings your knuckles to his lips. It’s barely even a kiss — just a press, a gratitude thing — but it hits you so hard you actually forget to breathe.

“Goodnight,” he murmurs softly.

Then he’s gone.

You stand there in the dim lamplight for a second, barefoot on ugly carpet, his warmth still on your skin. It’s terrifying, how full your chest feels. It’s also steady.

You know, certain in a way that’s getting harder to deny, that you’re in deep with this man.

And you’re kind of okay with that.

ᝰ.ᐟ

this fic is part of the greenaway!reader universe/series! you can read more about this pairing here ♥️

He doesn’t say anything first. He just offers you the drink, lips twisted into a shy, crooked smile.

You take it and your fingers brush. Heat zips up your wrist and you stifle a laugh, brushing some loose hair behind your ear as you take a sip.

“Hi,” Spencer finally manages to breathe out. His eyes haven’t strayed from you for what feels like forever — seriously, you’re actually certain he hasn’t even so much as blinked for an alarming amount of time. That fact lands somewhere low in your chest and starts buzzing. “You look—”

“Greenaway!” Garcia yells excitedly as she prances over with fantastically awful timing. She gives you an exaggerated once-over before saying, “Oh honey, you’re a vision tonight. Like…like a sexy supermodel secret agent who kills her targets with eye contact alone.”

“Only when they deserve it,” you deadpan. “And you look exceedingly sequined this evening, Penelope. You’ve outdone yourself, truly.”

She beams and pulls you in for a hug. Normally you’d object, but tonight you roll your eyes and allow the gesture for a few seconds before pulling back. She flutters away just as quickly as she arrived, following a waiter with a tray of arancini toward the bar.

Spencer’s still standing there staring. He finds his voice again, soft and a little rough at the edges. “Hi. Again.”

“Hi,” you giggle softly. “Thanks for the drink.” You finally give yourself the chance to take him in as you take another slow sip. He’s in a dark suit, his hair pushed back out of his face in a very endearing attempt at formality. “You clean up nicely.”

“So do you,” he breathes out. His eyes do another slow sweep from your face down to your ankles and back, a little more shameless this time. “You look beautiful,” he adds, soft enough for only you to hear. “I mean, you always look beautiful. But I’ve never seen you this dressed up before. It…it suits you.”

Your first instinct is to reject the compliment; your second is to put it in your pocket and keep it forever. You fight back the heat rushing to your cheeks with a swig of prosecco (counterproductive, really) and make the terrible mistake of looking straight at him again. Damn.

“Don’t stare,” you murmur, which is rich, given what you’re doing.

“Can’t help it,” he says. The smile that follows is crooked and boyish and lethal.

You look away first and call it self-preservation.

—

Eventually, you and Spencer join a circle with some of the team — Emily, Garcia, JJ, Morgan — while Rossi holds court across the lawn with the more distinguished guests.

Jazz swells. Emily tips her head, taking in you and Spencer standing side by side, your shoulder almost grazing his arm because the group is packed tight and you’re not trying quite hard enough to avoid it. “You two almost look like a couple,” she says with a snort.

It’s not said with any indication she’s clocked what's going on between you — just teasing, amused, a friend poking innocent fun, but you still swat it away sharply:

“I think you need to get your eyes checked, Prentiss. Maybe when pigs fly.” You force a laugh, hiding from the truth in her words by pretending they’re absurd.

Everyone else chuckles along in agreement and you feel Spencer shrink a little, shoulders curling inwards and another few inches of distance appearing between you. He fiddles with his cuff and tries his best to pretend he’s not affected.

“Nah,” Morgan says with a wide, amused grin. “Greenaway’s way too cool for Reid anyway. No offense, pretty boy.”

For a moment, you consider coming to Spencer’s defense, arguing that it’s you who’s not good enough for him. But instead, you laugh along with the group and let the implication stand. “Exactly.”

It’s not meant to be cruel. It’s just a deflection. Plus, Spencer knows how you really feel about him. Right?

He does what he’s practiced for years whenever he becomes the butt of the joke: laughs it off, smiles as if he’s not hurt at all, and waits for an exit strategy to appear. Once everyone turns towards the bocce ball set up to observe Rossi in his very Italian element, Spencer excuses himself to help ferry more books from the house to the signing table because he needs to be anywhere but here and he’s infuriatingly good at finding ways to be useful.

You watch him go and pretend the lump in your throat is from the prosecco. You pretend you aren’t cold without his gravity next to you. You pretend a lot of things for another minute, and then you go looking for somewhere quiet to stop pretending.

—

Rossi’s study is warm and dim, the party shrinking to a blur of jazz and clinking glass behind the door. You slip in, shut it with your heel, and stay there, back against the wood. Spencer’s at the desk, sleeves pushed to his forearms, lining up hardcovers with careful, needless precision.

“Hey,” you say softly.

“Hey.” He taps the stack of dust jackets. “Just helping.”

You nod. He stays silent.

“Are you avoiding me?” you ask finally.

“No,” he says quickly. Then, after a beat: “Maybe a little.”

“Can you please just tell me what’s wrong?”

“I’m fine,” he says quickly. “It’s nothing.”

You just look at him.

He exhales, pushes away from the desk, paces — two strides to the window and back. “It’s your call when the team knows,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “We agreed on slow. No labels. I meant that and I still do. I’m okay with keeping this between us for as long as you need.” His hands stuff into his pockets. “But when Emily said we looked like a couple—”

You cut him off. “Well, we aren’t a couple. I mean… not technically.” The words feel wrong, but you can’t stop them from tumbling out.

Hurt flashes across his face for a moment before he speaks again. “Can you please just let me finish before arguing semantics?” he asks, looking a little exasperated.

You open your mouth to speak again, but force it shut and nod instead.

“When Emily said that and you shot it down like it was the most absurd thing you’d ever heard, and then when Morgan said I wasn’t cool enough for you…” he trails off. “I…I understand why you reacted that way. I do. But I also felt… unwanted. Like the butt of a joke I didn’t agree to be in on.”

“What did you want me to do, Spencer?” It slips out sharper than you mean. “Take your hand in front of them? Kiss you in the middle of Rossi’s backyard? Nuke my own boundaries so you can feel wanted in public? I was just trying to do what I could to get them off our backs.”

“You know that’s not what I mean,” he says — calm, but firmer than usual. “I’d never ask you to do anything outside of your boundaries. But… you could’ve deflected without making me the punchline. Everyone already thinks I’m an awkward loser who’ll never get a date. You don’t have to add to it. Most days I can ignore it, or laugh along with them. But when it’s from you, I… I can’t.” He paces back to the window, looks out instead of at you. “I’m not asking you to make this public. I just don’t want to feel like a joke to you.”

You flinch. Your mouth reaches for a retort. Instead, it chokes on a reel of him laughing off a hundred little digs as if they didn’t actually hurt him. You hate that you added to the pile. You also hate being cornered. Both things are true at the same time, and it makes your skin itch.

“I hear you, I do. But I’m just… I’m not ready for them,” you reply. “I’m not ready for the noise, and I couldn’t risk giving anything away. We’re not even something they can name yet, and it still feels big, and it’s still new. I just… I want it to be ours for a while. Not theirs.” You swallow. “I reacted that way to keep them from sniffing around, not because I think the idea of us is absurd. Of course I don’t think it’s absurd. I wouldn’t be trying as hard as I am if I thought that.”

He nods, once, but it doesn’t take. He’s silent for a long minute, then his jaw works like he’s debating letting a harder thing out.

“Are you embarrassed to be with me?” he asks finally, voice small. “Ashamed?”

Fuck.

That question breaks something in you. Your breath snags, and the door at your back feels like it’s closing in. You push off it and cross the room towards him.

“No.” It comes out fast, raw. “God, Spencer, no. I’m not embarrassed. Not even a little bit.” You tip your head toward the window bench a few feet away and he nods, sitting down shoulder to shoulder beside you in the amber lamp light.

“I… I’m sorry,” you say, and it doesn’t come out easily — it’s like forcing a stuck door until the frame gives. Apologies never come easy to you, even when they’re warranted. “I reacted that way because I was scared, and because I’m stubborn, and because my default setting is to be an asshole when I feel cornered. It wasn’t about you. And—” You hold his eyes so there’s nowhere for this to hide. “I need you to hear me when I say this: I could shake the entire universe upside down and still not find a single reason to be embarrassed to be with you, Spencer. Not one. You’re careful and kind and stupidly smart, and you’re ridiculously gentle and understanding even when I don’t deserve it. And, unfortunately for my sanity, you’re very, very handsome. It’s, like, extremely inconvenient.”

Color climbs his cheekbones in a slow, helpless tide; even the tips of his ears go pink. Whatever he was bracing for, it wasn’t that. He blinks, a little dazed, but he doesn’t shy away from it. He moves closer on the bench, fingers finding yours and threading through them.

“Nothing about you embarrasses me,” you add once more. “I am not ashamed of you or us or this. I promise. That has nothing to do with why I need us to keep this private for now.”

He lets out a breath that’s half relief, half laugh, and his fingers tighten around yours like he’s afraid you might evaporate. “Okay,” he says softly. “I believe you. I… really do.” He looks down at your joined hands, then back up, pink and earnest. “But I need you to hear me too. If you need quiet, I can be quiet. If you need space, I can give you space. Just… don’t treat the idea of me next to you like it’s ridiculous just because it’s the safest option.”

“I won’t,” you promise. “I know there are other ways to get them off our scent that don’t involve being cruel or putting you down in the process. And if it gets too messy, I’ll just walk away.”

He nods. “And I’ll go with you if you want me to.”

You smile softly, squeezing his hand once. Silence settles between you comfortably for a few moments before you interrupt it. “Can we do the thing?”

“One true thing?” he asks, eyes softening.

You nod and draw a breath. “When Emily said we looked like a couple, before I got defensive, the first thing I felt was… happy. And a little disbelief, too. It felt ridiculously good that someone who knows us both could actually picture us together, you know?”

He listens intently, his thumb moving back and forth across the back of your hand to ground you. Then he gives you his own true thing: “When you walked in tonight, I wanted to kiss you.” He swallows, his eyes dropping to your joined hands then back up to your face. “Well, to be clear, I pretty much always want to kiss you, but you walked in looking like that, and I… I almost forgot where we were and who we were with. If Garcia hadn’t walked up when she did, I might've done something really dumb.”

It knocks the wind out of your practiced calm in the nicest way. Heat drops low; your brain tries a joke and fails, because the truth is louder: you wanted that too. You noticed the way his suit finally fit his shoulders, the way his mouth went soft around the word “hi,” the way he startled when Garcia’s voice cut through the air. You wanted his hand at your waist and his tie in your fist and your lipstick somewhere it didn’t belong.

You let your head tip against his shoulder. He wraps an arm around you like it’s the most careful thing he’s done all night, and after a heartbeat, he turns and presses a quick kiss to your temple. The jazz lifts and fades on the other side of the door.

“I still need it to be ours for a while,” you say into his shirt. “Not theirs. I need quiet while I figure out how to do this without burning it down. But I won’t use you as cover again.”

“Okay,” he says, and you can feel the word in his chest. The hurt doesn’t vanish, but it settles where you can carry it together.

You sit up, smooth his lapel because it gives your hands a job, and because you like having a reason to touch him. He lets you.

“Come with me,” you say, standing and keeping his hand. “I have an idea.”

“Should I be worried?”

“Yes,” you tell him, deadpan, tugging him toward the door. “But you’ll like it.”

—

You keep his hand as you leave the study and cut a quiet line through the party — past the dessert table, past JJ laughing into Will’s shoulder, past Garcia bargaining for a centerpiece like it’s contraband. You let a waiter with a tray become moving cover. No one is looking at you, but you still move like they are, just in case.

The photo booth you spotted earlier hums by the edge of the yard, velvet curtain breathing in and out. It’s empty. Perfect.

You tug him in and drop onto the narrow bench. He follows, careful, then less careful when your knees knock because there’s literally nowhere else for them to go. You lean across him to pull the curtain shut, and then it’s just the two of you behind red-fabric hush and soft machine heat.

He looks a little stunned, like you’ve just invited him to steal the Declaration of Independence with you. “You want… photos. With me,” he says slowly, processing out loud.

“With you,” you confirm with a nod, laughing a little at his shocked expression. “Try not to faint.”

You pull a few quarters from your clutch and push them into the coin slot. The machine whirs and a little red light next starts to blink in time with the countdown beeps.

“Okay. Serious faces,” you try, already losing composure.

You both square up, shoulder to shoulder, attempting a normal-person smile for a normal-person camera. It lasts half a second. His mouth twitches; yours does too, and you both fail spectacularly. The first flash catches you mid-laugh — genuine, crooked, obsessed with each other and pretending not to be.

“Compose yourself for this one,” you tell him, still laughing. “Something dignified.”

“Dignified,” he echoes, dubious.

But dignified is not a word you’d ever use to describe yourself. You hook two fingers in his tie — joking, mostly — and tug him a notch closer. You tip your head like you’re about to whisper a state secret and he goes soft-eyed, breath catching. The second flash finds you both a little too close, his mouth curved in helpless amusement, your smile wrecked into something brighter. It reads as “we tried” and “no, we really didn’t” at the same time.

The laughing hangs between you and thins to breathing. His gaze drops, just once, to your mouth. Yours does the same, and there’s a small, ridiculous hush — just the machine hum, the jazz across the yard, your pulse in your wrists — where you both ask and both say yes without saying anything at all.

You don’t really plan on kissing him. You just stop… not kissing him.

It starts easy — his hand settling sure at your waist, the other hovering near your cheek, careful and then a fraction less. You laugh against his lips because it’s stupid how quickly you go lightheaded when it comes to him. The third flash is the kind that will look gentle forever: eyes half-lidded, mouths smiling into each other, your fingers still caught in his tie like you forgot to let go.

Heat swells. Spencer makes one quiet, astonished sound and — bolder than he’d usually be in public, safe enough to try in this red-curtain safe haven — catches your waist with both hands and shifts you, guiding you up and over until you’re perched sideways on his thigh. Your legs drape across his lap and your arms go around his neck on instinct. The world shrinks to just his mouth and hands and the way he kisses you like he’s cataloging something precious.

You kiss him properly then, thorough and greedy, tasting the remnants of peppermint and sparkling cider in his mouth. Something in you unclenches, and it’s ridiculous how easy this is once you stop fighting it. You want him closer; you want him everywhere; you want to keep kissing him until he forgets every terrible joke anyone’s ever made at his expense. You want his shirt buttons under your fingers, your lipstick stamped under his ear, his skin against yours. You want more than just a kiss — of course you do — but you promised yourself slow because you’ve bulldozed enough good things by sprinting through them. So you keep the promise and don’t let go of him, which is the best kind of compromise.

A final flash goes off as the booth documents you losing your composure: his tie tugged askew, your hand cupping his jaw, his mouth parted under yours like a promise. Your lipstick smears onto his lips; the corner of his jaw; his neck near the edge of his shirt collar. Future You, who will need to get rid of evidence, will be furious with Current You. Current You could not care less.

You only pull back when your body remembers it needs oxygen. Even then, you stay close — breathing each other’s air because there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.

He tries for composure and fails. “That was…”

“Yeah,” you whisper back, equally useless. You both laugh, soft and wrecked. Your thumb grazes the corner of his mouth. Red. Right. Evidence.

“Hold still,” you murmur, swiping his mouth clean with the soft side of your thumb, then the corner of a tissue from your clutch. He lets you fuss, docile and pink-cheeked, one hand still taking up residence on your thigh.

You tuck the tissue away and reapply your lipstick — quick, practiced, criminal. The color snaps back into place like armor. He watches like it’s a magic trick.

After another minute of developing, the booth finally spits out two warm, glossy photo strips. You lean in together, shoulders bumping as Spencer grabs them out of the tray and angles the paper so you both can see.

“We’re a disaster,” you whisper, smiling.

“A well-documented one,” he says, equally wrecked. His finger hovers over the second frame. “You look… really happy.”

“I am,” you murmur, which makes him blush all over again.

“I like having proof of it,” he says quietly before dropping his eyes towards the last shot, a little dazed. “This one is, uh, quite compromising.”

“You’re not wrong,” you say, mouth tilting. “Bold move, Doctor — pulling me into your lap and then letting a camera capture you trying to swallow me whole.”

He goes scarlet. “I— That’s not— I was just… enthusiastic,” he says sheepishly.

“It looks like you were trying to inhale my soul through your mouth.”

He groans under his breath and scrubs a hand over his face. “God, don’t say that.”

“You really committed, Reid. Tongue and everything.”

“Please stop.” He chokes on a laugh and glances up to the ceiling of the booth, defeated.

“I’m fucking with you, Spence,” you chuckle. “I liked it.”

All of a sudden, he goes quiet.

You glance up to find him blinking at you, mouth parted slightly in surprise. “What?” you ask.

“You called me Spence,” he says.

You wrinkle your nose. “I did not.”

“You did,” he insists, the corners of his mouth tugging upward. “That’s the first time you’ve ever—”

“I didn’t even notice,” you murmur.

“I noticed,” he says. And then, quieter: “I liked it. Say it again sometime?”

“We’ll see,” you tease, but the look you give him says I will.

You take one of the photo strips, sliding it carefully into your clutch, and he tucks his into the inner pocket of his jacket like contraband.

“Ready?” you ask.

“Not even a little,” he admits with a crooked grin, but he helps ease you off his lap anyway. You smooth your dress; he rebuttons his jacket. You glance at his mouth one last time, straighten the knot of his tie into submission, and push the velvet curtain aside together.

—

The booth exhales you into the night: string lights, prosecco, cheers somewhere by the bocce court. You take exactly three steps before fate arrives on cue, sending you into a near-collision with the man of the hour: David Rossi himself.

He takes you both in with one smooth sweep: your too-careful distance, Spencer’s jacket a hair askew, the faint burgundy ghost of lipstick at the hinge of his jaw that you somehow missed during cleanup.

“Red’s not really your color, kid,” he says to Spencer with a wink, motioning towards the mark. He claps Spencer’s shoulder once like a proud father, clearly amused, and keeps walking without breaking stride.

A wave of panic washes over you, but then you exhale in relief because, of all people to catch you and Reid red-handed (or red-lipped, more accurately), at least it’s Rossi. He’ll die with seven thousand secrets and yours most certainly won’t be the spiciest. He stores confessions like he stores his wine collection: carefully labeled, sealed, and never uncorked until the right moment.

You reach up and swipe the smudge on Spencer’s jaw away with your thumb until it’s gone for real this time.

“You okay?” he asks, voice low. “I can talk to him if you—”

You shake your head. “It’s Rossi. He’s the reason half of the Bureau’s fraternization rules exist in the first place, and I think he might’ve invented the concept of plausible deniability himself. We’re fine,” you assure him. “I’m okay. Promise.”

“He probably figured us out before we even did anyway,” Spencer murmurs, half-grin returning. The thought of that warms your cheeks a bit — the idea that Rossi clocked your connection months ago and just waited for you to catch up.

“He definitely did,” you muse in agreement. You tap his lapel once. “Ok. All clean. For now.”

You split apart strategically, cutting from the hedges back into the main area of the yard. You hang back a beat, letting a planter of rosemary and a knot of publishing people be your cover.

Spencer gets there first. He slides into the BAU orbit with a courteous half-smile, hands empty, posture neat.

“There he is,” Morgan crows. “Where’ve you been, pretty boy? Greenaway got you on a leash tonight or what?”

Garcia’s eyes sparkle. “Be honest, did she make you carry her purse? Blink twice if you’re being held stylishly hostage.”

Emily chimes in, dry as ever: “Seems likely.”

Spencer opens his mouth to respond, but you arrive just in time and interrupt cleanly. “Relax. I borrowed his brain for ten minutes.” You angle a look at Garcia, then at the group. “Rossi’s wine cellar is a utopia and a labyrinth maze and a European history lesson all at once. I needed a responsible genius to come with me to hold me back from stealing all of the Chianti and keep my brain from spontaneously combusting in there.”

JJ laughs. “That tracks.”

“Ah, I see. Errand boy!” Morgan says tauntingly.

“More like… a consultant. And a partner in crime,” you correct, easy, and tip your chin toward Spencer without quite looking at him.

Emily’s mouth tucks. “Who knew Reid moonlights as a sommelier?”

You nod amusedly. “He’s good company,” you say, light, and let it sit there. Then you add, “Now, what’d we miss?” to redirect the conversation away from you. Garcia happily takes the opportunity to do a dramatic reenactment of Morgan’s success on the bocce court.

You’re barely listening, though. Instead, you’re too busy focusing on the way Spencer’s ears have gone faintly pink.

Within minutes, the conversation breaks off as Emily makes a beeline for the bar, Morgan follows the promise of dessert, and JJ and Garcia track down Rossi for yet another toast. You and Spencer end up alone at the table, the party’s noise blurring into the jazz around you.

“Nice save,” he murmurs softly, but you hear what he actually means — thank you for not minimizing me this time. Thank you for finding a way out of their interrogation without putting me down in the process.

You nod and adjust the cuff of his jacket like you found a thread. “I meant the partner-in-crime thing, you know.”

A beat passes. The string lights hum. He shifts half an inch closer — nothing anyone would clock — and you feel the warmth of it.

“Walk me out later?” you ask.

“Obviously,” he says with a shy smile.

You nod, and let your knuckles brush his — small and exact, hidden by the shadow of your leather jacket. He turns his hand just enough to catch your fingers for a single, private second, then lets go.

Across the yard, the photo booth coughs out someone else’s laughter. In his inner pocket, a glossy strip warms against his ribs. In your clutch, its twin does the same. You press your palm to the silk lining, feel the proof, and breathe.

Not labeled. Not public. Limited exposure. Still real.

And for tonight, that’s more than enough.

ᝰ.ᐟ

PSA: likes do very little for promoting posts on tumblr! if you'd like to support a fic, please reblog!

this fic is part of the greenaway!reader universe/series! you can find more fics like it & read more about this pairing here ♥️

to get a sense for how their photobooth pictures turned out, check out this fanart by gummy-cat-writes!

Internally, your mind spins into a supercut of the moments you and Spencer shared the last few days: a not-date Saturday morning coffee that made your ribs ache for more; a documentary night complete with buttered popcorn and a too-soft goodbye forehead kiss at the door that rearranged your entire nervous system.

Obviously, you’ll be confessing to none of that. So instead, you lie:

“Laundry. Rearranged my spice rack. Picked up some vinyl at the used music shop in Adams Morgan,” you say with a casual shrug. “Just the usual stuff.”

JJ nods, and Emily turns her chair to face her desk. Garcia gives your shoulder a squeeze on her way back to her lair, and you let yourself breathe again. No one knows anything. No one suspects. Breathe.

It’s been ten days since the stairwell. Ten days since a coffee sleeve on a kitchen counter and silly rules about mouths after midnight. Ten days of you trying very hard to be a version of yourself who doesn’t run.

Since then, things have been…suspiciously good. Normal, almost. In addition to the coffee shop trip and movie night, you and Spencer shared a post-work grocery run where he insisted on carrying all the heavy stuff up your stairs, late-night french fries in your hotel room during last week’s case, and a secret hand hold on the jet when everyone else was asleep.

The “one true thing” pact has stuck, too. Not every day, because sometimes humans fail, but consistently enough that you can feel the groove forming. You even did the brave thing and apologized to him after going radio silent for thirty-six hours following a tough case — no theatrics, just owning it and promising to do better. Spencer was, predictably, sweet and understanding, which kind of made you want to both smack him and kiss him at the same time.

Hotch’s voice suddenly cuts cleanly through the bullpen and pulls you out of your daydream. Rude. “Conference room, everyone.”

—

“Three college students have been killed in the last two months in Ann Arbor, Michigan,” Hotch says as JJ cues up crime scene photos on the screen and hands out the case files. “A fourth went missing last night.”

You slide into a chair, scan the file, and comment on the potential profile as the briefing goes on.

Across the table, Spencer flips a page with those irritatingly long fingers and your traitorous brain starts thinking about his mouth again.

You haven’t kissed him since your concussion in Ohio. Not because you don’t want to — god, you want to, even for the stupidest reasons at the most inopportune moments. You feel the want when he rolls his sleeves up at the case board, when he subtracts half the chaos from any room just by standing next to you in it, when he looks at you across the bullpen with those frustratingly perfect brown eyes. But you’re worried that if you start, you don’t know where you’ll stop, and you promised yourselves slow. Adagio, idiot.

“Wheels up in thirty,” Hotch finishes.

In the hallway to the elevator, you and Spencer converge like two lanes merging naturally. He doesn’t say anything — just hands you the geographical profile he started working on. Your fingers meet for half a heartbeat, both deliberate and deniable, and then you’re moving again, the two of you orbiting back into normalcy before anyone on the team can bat an eye.

—

You take your usual seat across from Spencer on the jet, same as always. JJ is skimming case notes while Prentiss hunches over in the galley threatening the coffee machine. Morgan’s chatting with Rossi about a potential MO, and Hotch is on the phone with Garcia to get more details on the latest missing. Business as usual.

You keep your eyes on a timeline you’ve already memorized and say, quiet enough for only Spencer to hear, “One true thing.”

Spencer draws the cap off his pen like he’s about to annotate a page and says, “It’s hard to focus on work when I’m near you. I’m… choosing to get better at that, not to want you less.”

You feel your cheeks warm and nod. “I slept better last night than I have in a while because you called me to say goodnight, and I hate how needy that makes me feel. But I still want you to do it again.”

His lips twist into a smile he’s trying desperately to suppress, but he keeps his eyes on the file. “I will,” he promises softly.

—

Ann Arbor PD is bustling with people when you and the team arrive. One of the local detectives — some stereotypical, egotistical alpha male in a golf shirt — flips his notebook open and gives you a too-smooth smile. “No offense,” he says, “but we’ve been at this since the first missing two weeks ago. We need more boots and eyes on the streets, not the FBI’s bureaucratic red tape and hypothetical theories.”

You cap your highlighter. “Actionable theories,” you correct sharply. “Which, clearly, you need, since you’ve been on this case for two entire weeks and have gotten absolutely nowhere. Our profile on this guy’s behavior is what’s going to help you finally catch him before another kid turns up dead.”

You feel Spencer’s attention land beside you like a steadying hand you won’t take, and Hotch slides into the conversation before your eruption can become a scene. “Detective, if you grant our FBI technical analyst full access to the campus security logs and camera feeds, her software program will analyze any abnormalities in record time,” he says with a reassuring nod that seems to be enough to push the officer out of the conference room and back to his desk. Hotch follows, which leaves the room empty besides you and Spencer.

You know your voice came out too sharp, but you also don’t entirely care. You step to the board and mark a star where the campus gym’s back exit drops into a camera dead zone.

Spencer edges close enough that his sleeve grazes your elbow. “You’re right, you know,” he says, low, eyes on the map. “But… try not to burn bridges with the locals. We need to work with them, and it’s easier to do that when they don’t hate us.”

“Fine,” you exhale, because — infuriatingly — Spencer’s right, as usual. “I’ll use my inside voice next time.”

“If it’s any consolation, I like your inside voice,” he murmurs, which is absolutely not a statement conducive to you being able to focus on the case.

You turn to hand him a dry erase marker, and his fingers catch yours before you can drop them — barely a hook, but it still sends an electrical zing up your spine. You look down at your hand, then up at him, eyes soft and hopeful.

“Hey,” Morgan says from the doorway. You and Spencer separate quickly, spinning out to opposite sides of the board and dropping your marker cap in the process. Morgan raises his brow, but mercifully decides to ignore whatever the hell he just saw. “We got the security footage yet or what?”

“On its way,” you answer, picking up the cap from the floor and clicking it onto the marker like that’s what you were doing all along. “Locals are sending everything to Garcia to analyze as we speak.”

“That’s what I like to hear.” He drops a file onto the table with a wink and leaves the room to harass the detectives instead.

Spencer finally exhales — he must’ve been holding his breath for the length of that entire interaction, you realize.

You stay at least two feet apart for the remainder of the day.

—

By the time Hotch calls it a night, you’ve exhausted every lead the day gave you and have completely hit an investigative wall.

“Alright. Everyone, go get some sleep,” he says. “We’ll get started back here at 6am sharp.”

Once you arrive at the hotel, the team sorts into goodnights in the lobby. Hotch heads to the stairs with a nod. Morgan and Rossi start a low-grade argument about what you can hear through the average hotel wall, and JJ and Emily roll their eyes.

You hit the button for your floor and lean against the back wall of the elevator with a quiet sigh as everyone else piles in. Spencer, imperceptibly, nudges your arm with his elbow and tilts his room key in your direction so you can see the number. You tilt yours. One floor apart.

“Let’s go over our notes before the day is over,” you murmur under your breath, mercifully drowned out by the sound of Rossi’s emphatic denial that he, in no universe, snores. “Come to mine in 20 minutes.”

“Copy,” he says without looking at you. For a second it looks as if he’s just tucking the key back in his pocket, but instead, his knuckles skim the back of your hand where it hangs at your side. You let your pinky catch his for one brief, deliberate beat, then uncurl it as the doors open on your floor.

“Night everyone,” you say to no one particular.

“Night,” he echoes along with the rest of the team, nearly sounding like a man with nothing to hide.

—

Exactly 19 minutes after you got off the elevator, there’s a soft, quick knock at your door. Spencer greets you with his signature awkward, closed-lip smile before he steps over the threshold and into the room. You’ve cleared the bed — duvet folded back, notes and maps fanned across the white sheets like they’re a bulletin board.

“You didn’t happen to bring any highlighters, did you?” you ask, nodding towards the setup.

He sets his messenger bag down. “Yellow and blue,” he says, offering both.

You sit first — back against the headboard, bare feet tucked under you. He settles on the side nearest the door, thigh a respectful few inches from yours.

You run through what you actually need to run through: a list of names from campus security, the three camera blind spots you’d identified earlier, a maintenance log that looks off. Spencer listens the way he always does: with his whole body. He leans in slightly, eyes flicking to your mouth when you talk and pen tapping against his knee until he catches himself and stills it.

The space between you shrinks without either of you naming it. Your shoulders find the same angle against the headboard and you both shuffle a hair closer, his knee finally, finally bumping yours. He doesn’t move it, and you don’t move either. He flips to the next page. You look at his hands instead of the words.

The ridiculous urge to kiss him shows up the way thunderstorms roll in — felt first in your bones, then with a charge in the air, then in every other part of you.

You haven’t kissed since Ohio. You haven’t because if you start, you’re not sure you’ll stop. That’s been your reasoning. But the evidence has… shifted. Ten days of doing this on purpose. Of careful moments at doorways and elevators and conference room edges. Of him asking for words and choosing to believe them. Of you giving him all the small truths of how you feel about him that you can muster. Of him calling you at 11:03pm just to say goodnight and hanging up first so you don’t have to. Of that coffee and accompanying doodle on your desk this morning — adagio, slow tempo — and him looking at you like you hung every single star in the sky.

Maybe the point isn’t to not start. Maybe it’s that you can start and still choose the ending. Maybe the point is you trust him enough to stop with you. And maybe, just maybe, you’re finally starting to trust yourself to want something and not light it on fire.

You realize you’ve been staring at his mouth for a full minute and swiftly drop your eyes to the sheets. Spencer notices, because of course he does. Pink blooms high on his cheeks like he’s a teenager with his first crush.

“Hey,” you say casually. “What time is it?”

His brows furrow. “Uh.” He checks his watch. “Eleven fifty—”

Not midnight yet. That’s all you really needed to know before you cut him off with your lips on his.

It’s soft for one heartbeat because you mean it to be. Then it isn’t, because you mean that, too.

He freezes for a microsecond — surprise, mostly — then answers, mouth careful at first, like he’s afraid of spooking you. Then his hand comes up to your jaw and you hook your fingers in his tie just enough to keep him close. He tastes like mint and cinnamon and something so uniquely him you can’t quite name.

You shift, your knee sliding along the bedspread until your thigh presses to his. He makes a small, helpless sound into your mouth you will never, ever be normal about. His thumb strokes once across your cheekbone as his other hand anchors at your waist, warm through the cotton of your top. You take a slow pull at his bottom lip because you can, and he exhales into your mouth like you just unlocked something entirely new in him.

You both slow down at the same moment without needing to coordinate it, and once he pulls back, he doesn't go far. His forehead rests against yours and for a couple of heartbeats you just stay there, mouths close, eyes boring into his, noses bumping clumsily when you both laugh over how absolutely wrecked you are.

“Hi,” he whispers, stupid and shy. You rake a gentle hand through his hair, smoothing out the mess you made and tucking it behind his ear.

“Hi,” you whisper back, equally stupid.

He laughs once under his breath. “I… I think I might like you too much,” he admits, murmured out loud like a confession to the universe.

Somehow that doesn’t immediately spook you, and your heart does a dumb little somersault in your chest. “There’s no such thing as too much when it comes to that,” you promise him.

He searches your face like he’s cataloging every freckle, then nudges your nose with his. This time, he kisses you — smiling into it like he knows exactly what he’s doing. It warms, opens once more, then you both let it ease, because you now know you can stop when you need to. When you finally lean back a few inches, his hand is still at your waist. You put your palm over it to keep it there.

“Okay,” he whispers finally.

“Okay,” you echo, and steal one more quick kiss to the corner of his mouth.

He checks his watch again, and his mouth tilts like he’s pleased with both of you for your impeccable timeliness and admirable self-restraint. “I should go,” he says softly. “Before I decide I don’t want to.”

“You’re allowed to not want to,” you say with a smile. “But you’re right. Go. Get some sleep.”

He stands reluctantly as you slide off the bed beside him. At the door, he hesitates, the shadow of a reckless idea crossing his face for a moment. He leans down and presses his mouth to your temple instead, long and careful, and you let your hand find his wrist like a secret handshake.

“Goodnight,” he whispers.

You squeeze his wrist twice before letting go. “Night, Spencer.”

He opens the door and steps into the hall, looks back like he’s memorizing this exact image of you in the doorway, and then goes.

You stand there suspended in that moment for several minutes before finally sitting back on the bed and touching your lips like you’re feeling for any evidence he’d actually been there.

It should feel terrifying, but it doesn’t. For the first time in a long time, you actually feel at peace.

Then, your phone buzzes.

[text, 12:04am]

Dr. Reid: One true thing: I'm never going to stop replaying that moment.

You stare at it until your smile hurts and tap back:

[text, 12:07am]

you: me too, but only until the next moment comes

[text, 12:08am]

Dr. Reid: I like when you use the word “next” in this context. A lot. Just putting that out there.

You giggle — god, you actually giggle — and type back:

[text, 12:09am]

you: well noted, doc. nextnextnext. LOTS of nexts

[text, 12:10am]

Dr. Reid: Sweet dreams. I’ll see you in the morning.

[text, 12:12am]

you: night, spencer

You put the phone face down and sit back on the bed, stare at your notes, and feel your pulse finally steady to adagio once more.

ᝰ.ᐟ

PSA: likes do very little for promoting posts on tumblr! if you'd like to support a fic, please reblog!

Once you walk into your apartment, you do the ritual things that make you feel like you’re in control of your life: lights on, chain lock slid, boots off, jacket tossed around the back of a chair you never sit in. You scrub your hands too long and wipe down an already clean counter before briefly considering pouring a glass of whiskey. You ultimately choose water, which feels like a smart decision but tastes like a punishment.

By ten o’clock the adrenaline is gone and the ache sets in, low and mean. You imagine him locked away behind his own set of rules, filing you into a folder marked case closed. You tell yourself that’s good. You tell yourself that’s what you wanted.

Liar.

You don’t see the moment he finds your secret stash of his doodles and messages, but you can feel it retroactively, like a bruise surfacing: the bullpen gone quiet, the top-right drawer stuck an inch open, him doing the polite thing of nudging it shut, the catch, the tug. Brown cardboard. Rubber band. His handwriting. One still, stunned breath. Rushed movement. Elevator. Metro. Cab. The one sleeve he stole burning a hole in his jacket pocket all the way to your neighborhood.

The knock at your door comes measured — three beats that sound like he practiced them in his head and then forgot how to breathe.

Who the fuck could that be, you groan internally. You leave the chain lock as it is and open the door the few inches it allows, prepared to tell whoever’s there to fuck off because you do not, under any circumstances, want to talk about Jesus or your internet bundle at 11pm.

But it’s not a salesman or a Jehovah’s Witness. Not even close — it’s Spencer. One hand leaning against the door frame, breathing ragged, tie loosened, hair pushed wrong by wind or worry.

“Reid,” you start, sounding flustered. “Why are you so out of breath? Did you run all the way here from fucking Quantico? What are you doing here?”

He lifts what’s in his right hand a few inches, and now it’s you who’s forgotten how to breathe.

A coffee sleeve. One of your coffee sleeves. Or, more appropriately, one of his.

Your stomach drops through the floor, takes the express route to hell, and sends back a postcard that says: shit.

“I tried to leave it where it was,” he says, voice rough at the edges. “I couldn’t.”

“You went through my desk?!”

“The drawer was open a couple inches,” he counters. “I tried to fix it, but it was stuck. I—” He stops. “Can we not do this while I’m still in the hall?”

Your mouth opens to say no, and then you hear yourself sighing fine. You close the door to unlatch the chain and take a long, measured breath before opening it again and stepping back to let him in.

“Do you know what snooping is, Reid?” you ask, heading for the kitchen because tea kettles are a socially acceptable delay tactic. “I’m pretty sure the definition includes rifling through coworkers’ drawers without their permission for, what? Recyclables?”

“I didn’t rifle,” he protests. “I was trying to be polite and close the drawer for you. I wasn’t looking for anything. I didn’t even know you’d been saving them.” He sets the sleeve on your counter. “If it’s just a recyclable to you, why’d you keep it?”

You fix your eyes on the kettle, which you realize you haven’t even turned on yet. You light the burner and offer him a shrug. “I keep things. Ticket stubs. CVS receipts. Postcards. Those little wire cork cages from champagne bottles.” You reach for mugs you don’t really intend to drink from. “Congratulations, you’ve outed your coworker as a closeted hoarder.”

His breath finally evens out. “This isn’t hoarding. You sorted them,” he says, not unkind. “Oldest to newest. And rubber-banded them together. That’s purposeful.”

“It’s called organization,” you snap, then wince at your own volume. “Guess what? I color-code my field notes, too. Big reveal.”

Steam whistles out of the spout — too fast, too loud. You kill the flame and busy your hands with teabags — yeah, the stupidly perfect ones he gave you when you were sick — because if you don’t hold something you’ll shake.

“You told me in the stairwell it was only physical for you,” he says, and the quiet in his voice hurts more than anger would. “If that’s true, tell me to throw this away.”

“Please don’t,” you say, before your brain can draft something smarter.

He watches you. “I can't pretend this is nothing while you're saving proof of it."

You turn then. He's standing there, trying very hard to look calm.

"Proof of what, exactly?" you ask.

He doesn't blink. "Of me," he says. "Of this. Of us, even if you won't call it that out loud."

A beat stretches. The apartment hums with the kind of silence that feels like pressure.

“I’m not here to catch you in a lie,” he adds. “I’m here because I can’t pretend any longer that the past few weeks didn’t hurt. And because this,” —his glance drops to the sleeve— “tells me I wasn’t the only one pretending.”

You lean your hip against the counter to pin yourself to earth. The smart play is more denial. You can hear the lines queuing up: they’re just souvenirs; I simply forgot to bring them down to the recycling room; you’re overreacting. The words taste bitter before you’ve even said them.

“Bold move, barging into my apartment this late,” you say, skirting the subject of the sleeves altogether.

He shakes his head once. “I didn’t barge. I asked to come in,” he says, eyes steady. “‘Bold’ would’ve been kissing you at the gun range or in the stairwell. I didn’t, even though I wanted to.” A breath. “I’m not here to take anything. I’m just here to ask for the truth.”

You try not to exhibit a physical reaction to his words, but your body betrays you with shaking hands as you pour the hot water into two mugs. The teabags bloom like something alive and then go limp.

“They’re just—” you start, and your mouth fails you. You stare at the sleeve he brought, eyes trained on the crooked little Möbius strip. You remember the morning your thumb traced it while you waited for Hotch to assign tasks and thought: keep this one, keep this one, keep this one.

When you look up, he’s watching your face with soft, hopeful eyes. That alone undoes you more efficiently than begging ever could.

“Don’t,” you say, softer than you mean to. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“How am I supposed to look at you?” he asks, and it isn’t a challenge — it’s a real question. He’s infuriating that way.

He waits, sees the retort forming on your mouth, and something in him snaps.

“No,” he says, sharper than you’ve ever heard from him. His voice comes out loud, frayed with frustration and exasperation. “Dammit, don’t pivot! Don’t make a joke or change the subject. You told me it was nothing, and then I found out you’ve been cataloging evidence of us for months, hiding it in your desk where no one else can see. You push me away while keeping proof of me caring for you. You tell me not to read into things, and then you—”

His voice cracks. “I’m not a mind reader. I don’t know what you’re thinking or what you want. But I’m good at recognizing patterns, and the pattern I see here is that you have feelings and keep punishing yourself for it. I…I can live with you deciding you don’t want me, but I can’t live with you lying to me about it.” He takes a tight breath, eyes bright with hurt. “So stop. Just stop. For once, tell me the truth.”

It shocks you — the volume, the edge. Spencer doesn’t usually have any edges with you. The mug clinks against the counter because your hand isn’t steady.

“I’m just trying to protect you!” you fire back, louder than you meant to. “From me. From the part of me that ruins things. I don’t want to break you just because I—”

The words jam in your throat, but you force them out anyway:

“Just because I want you. And it fucking terrifies me, Spencer, because I’m not used to wanting anything the way I want you. I don’t let anyone get close to me, but somehow you managed to find a way in, and now it’s turned into a complete mess, and I have no fucking clue what to do about it.”

The room goes very, very still. He swallows, recalibrating, and when he speaks again, his voice is soft but unwavering. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. I…I’m sorry for pushing so hard. But we need to have a real conversation about this.”

You exhale all the air you forgot you were holding. You could lie again. It would be cleaner. It would also hurt him even more, and you hate yourself a little for even considering it.

“Spencer,” you whisper in surrender. “I can’t… fight fair when I’m scared.”

“I know,” he says softly. “You don’t have to be scared. And this doesn’t have to be a fight.”

“I don’t—” The words skid and spark and catch in your throat. You take a breath and start over. “I don’t actually hoard things. I’m not usually… sentimental.”

It’s an ugly and enormous truth. Something in his shoulders loosens a millimeter — but he doesn’t smile, doesn’t gloat. He just nods.

You close your eyes for a second because they’re trying to commit treason. When you open them, the sleeve is still on your counter, quiet and damning. You pick it up because it’s safer than reaching for him, and because you’re not ready to give it back.

“We should probably sit down for this,” you suggest quietly.

For a moment, he just stares at you, processing the fact that you’re actually offering him a conversation — the truth — for the first time since meeting you. He collects himself with a small nod before he wills his vocal cords to work again. “Tell me where to sit, and I’ll sit. Whatever you need.”

Your mouth twists. “Couch,” you decide. “And if you touch anything other than the sleeve or the mug, I won’t hesitate to tase you.”

He huffs something that almost resembles a laugh. You set the sleeve on the coffee table and gesture at the sofa like you’re assigning seating in a classroom, but he doesn’t sit yet. He waits for you to pick your spot first so he can give you the physical distance he knows you need — the kind of courtesy that makes you want to cry and kick him in equal measure.

You lower yourself onto the couch and stare at the exposed bricks over his shoulder until the lines blur. “Ask me a real question, and I’ll be honest,” you say. “And don't feel like you have to sugarcoat it.”

Spencer looks at the sleeve on the table as he sits, then back at you. “Why did you start keeping them?”

Your heart does that small, embarrassing rabbit-thump it does whenever he’s this gentle with you. You tip the truth onto your tongue and dare it to stay.

“I don’t really know why I started, to be honest. I guess I just liked the way that first one — the one that just said ‘Bullseye’ — felt like an inside joke between us.” You pause to clear your throat, then continue. “I didn’t really feel like a real part of the team yet, but when you spent that whole night at O’Keefe’s hanging out with me and then showed up with a personalized coffee cup to cure my hangover the next day, I felt… I dunno, I felt like you actually wanted me there. And I guess I decided that if I kept it, the way I felt in that moment would stay real.”

He takes that in without blinking. “And the rest of them?”

“They became… receipts,” you say, hating how soft the word sounds in your mouth. “For feeling good. For the way you see all of me. Proof that there was someone genuinely kind in my life that I somehow hadn’t scared away by being me. Holding onto them felt like the only way I could let myself have you.”

He swallows, eyes tipping down to the sleeve and back. “This is going to sound juvenile, but… does that mean you… like me?”

You blink, surprised by how young the question makes you feel. It knocks something loose in your chest — ridiculous, schoolgirl-crush nerves bubbling up in a grown woman. “Yeah, Spencer,” you say. “I like you. Who you are, and who I am when I’m with you.”

He looks relieved and a little wrecked, throat bobbing as he swallows down more nerves. “Why’d you tell me earlier that it was only physical, then?”

You look down at your tea and sigh softly. “Because if I admitted it was more, you’d expect me to act like it was more.” Your voice thins like a wire under tension. “And I don’t trust who I become when I want things. I break them. I break me. I’m not good at this. I was… trying to shield you from that. I know it was a cruel thing to say, and I’m sorry, but it was the safest option I could think of.”

He nods, slow. “So you preemptively broke it yourself.”

You sigh. “I guess so. At least that way, I’m still in control of the ending.”

“What are you so afraid of? Truly?”

You could hand him the safe answers — policy, optics, Hotch, the thousand ways your job eats softness — and he’d nod because they’d all be technically true. They’re also decoys. The real thing is smaller and meaner: you don’t usually survive wanting anything this much. Want turns you into a girl who waits by doors and believes in love. You hate her. You also miss her.

You stare at the sleeve instead of his face. “Needing you,” you say, too honestly. “You knowing how much I actually do. Hurting you. Ruining you. And then all the normal things — being soft and getting punished for it, the team finding out before I’m ready, you seeing the real me without all my armor and deciding you don’t want that version, the way losing you would feel.” You finish quietly: “The way it would kill me.”

He lets the silence stretch for a long moment before responding, as if he’s taking note of all your fears and already searching for ways to heal each one.

“What do you want right now?” he asks eventually.

“Things I shouldn’t,” you say. It comes out fast. “And also time. A little bit of space to figure this out. As little pressure as possible.”

“I can do that.” He shifts, not closer — just squaring to you, facing you head on. “We’ll go slow, as long as we’re honest about it.” He pauses for a moment, and you can almost see the wheels in his brain turning before he decides what to say next. “How about this: No more secret kisses after midnight. No drunk confessions. No lies about how we feel and what we can handle. When you need space, ask for it with words, not a disappearing act. And the whole time, we try. In small ways.”

You raise an eyebrow. “What do the small ways look like?”

“We… spend time together, at least once a week, one on one. Not…not like actual dates, because I know you aren’t ready for that, but… we hang out in some capacity and get a feel for what this could look like. We’re honest with one another about where our heads are at. And… we tell each other one true thing a day,” he says, almost apologetic for how earnest it all sounds out loud. “Doesn’t have to be big. ‘I wanted to text you and didn’t.’ ‘I hated being brave today.’ ‘I thought about your laugh before I went to sleep.’”

You sit with that. “And if I fail at it? The truth part?”

“Then you tell me you failed, and we try again the next day,” he says. “I don’t need you to be perfect. I know you, you know.”

He does. He knows you.

You exhale, long and relieved. “Okay,” you say, to the ceiling first and then to him. “One true thing now?”

He nods.

“Remember the book you lent me last month?”

He nods again.

“I lied when I told you I hadn’t finished it yet. I have — three times. It’s sitting on my nightstand right now. I re-read your annotations at night when I can’t sleep because your voice in the margins is the only thing that shuts all the noise up.”

He closes his eyes for a half second. When he opens them, they’re wet at the edges and steadier than yours. “One true thing back?” he asks.

You wait.

“I was terrified in Dayton. And not just about you hitting your head.” He swallows. “I was terrified because kissing you felt like stepping into a version of my life I didn’t think was possible for me to have, and it made every other version feel wrong. I didn’t know how to live with that.”

Something like a tidal wave thrashes in your chest. You let it crest and recede before you can breathe.

“If you decide this can’t be anything, I’ll step back,” he promises. “I meant what I said earlier — I’ll be kind and distant and stick to being just your coworker. But if it can be something, no matter how small or slow, I’d…like the chance to try.”

You look down at your hands. “It can be something,” you say quietly, and the words surprise you both by not killing you the second you speak them aloud. “I’m not promising a timeline, or any real level of commitment. I have no idea what this looks like. I can’t promise I won’t panic and make it weird. But I can promise I’ll stop pretending it means nothing to me, and I can do my best to try.”

He breathes out, shaky enough that you hear it. “Okay,” he says. “Then we start with small true things. And boundaries we actually say out loud.”

“God,” you mumble, shaking your head. “You’re hot when you talk protocol and logistics.”

His breath stutters and his mouth tilts. “Is that, um, another true thing? That you think I’m… hot?”

“Don’t get cocky,” you tease, but there’s no teeth in it. You reach for the sleeve on the coffee table just to give your hands something safe to do, but your fingers bump his in the process, because apparently he had the same idea. Neither of you pull away.

You don’t lace fingers, but you do leave your hand there for one breath, then two.

He’s the one who shifts first, sliding the sleeve gently back toward you. “Chain of custody,” he says, voice gone a little husky. “It belongs with you.”

You set it upright against your mug. “I’m not hiding it tonight,” you say. “I don’t want to.”

He bites back a smile, and for a second you let yourself look at him the way you’ve been refusing to for the past two weeks: directly, warmly, like a person who knows what she wants and hasn’t run from it.

The room goes quiet again, but it’s a different quiet. Not pressure — potential. You tuck your legs under you and lean your side into the cushions, body angled toward him.

“Can I ask you something?” you murmur.

He nods.

“What happens if I say I need space and then regret asking for it fifteen minutes later?”

“Then you call me and tell me you regret it,” he replies without hesitation. “And I’ll come find you and… give you the opposite of space.”

You feel your cheeks heat up.

“Okay,” you say, mostly to yourself. “Okay. That’s… that's good.” The words come out embarrassingly flustered.

The familiar throb of adrenaline kicks once, twice. You reach for your mug and end up knocking it clumsily. The ceramic wobbles; tea slops toward the lip.

He’s already moving. A hand catches the mug, the other finds your wrist. Warm fingers, a sure grip, one small anchor in a room melting around you.

“Hey,” he says. “Breathe.”

You do, because apparently you listen to him now. In for four. Hold. Slow exhale. You didn’t realize you were shivering until you feel how steady his hands are.

“I’m fine,” you lie, out of habit and muscle memory.

“I know,” he says gently, which somehow translates to but you don’t have to be.

He doesn’t let go right away. Neither do you.

You watch his fingers around your wrist like they belong to a previous life where you weren’t constantly choosing to bolt. You could tell him to back up. You could make a joke and break the moment clean.

Instead you say, too low, “Opposite of space?”

His eyes flick to yours. “Is that a request?”

You nod because words feel clumsy and because you hate how much you want what you’re asking for.

He moves slowly, like he’s approaching a skittish animal he hopes will eat from his hand. One arm goes around your shoulders; the other hovers and then commits at your waist. You fit against him like the couch had this configuration in mind all along. The first second is a little awkward, but then your bodies solve the geometry between you and it’s… easy. Ridiculously, catastrophically easy.

You can feel his pulse where his wrist rests near your ribs. It’s too fast, but so is yours.

“Breathe,” he murmurs again. You do it. He does too. Your shoulders drop at roughly the same time.

“This okay?” he asks into your hair.

“Dangerously so,” you whisper, which is your version of god, yes, stolen from a text he sent you once when describing your drunken charm.

You don’t talk for a while. Your face finds the hollow below his collarbone, and the knot behind your sternum loosens a notch you didn’t know it could loosen. Your fingers, traitorously, hook lightly in the collar of his shirt. His hand answers by sliding up your spine to the nape of your neck, resting there.

You tilt your head up to look at him and realize he’s already looking down at you, his mouth only a breath away. His pupils are enormous. The room tilts toward the inevitable like it’s been waiting weeks to do it. He shifts a fraction closer, and your lips brush up against the idea of kissing without quite touching it — heat, breath, gravity, the smallest misalignment in the world.

“Spencer,” you whisper, which is both his name and a request.

He stills. For one suspended second, you swear the air itself is holding you apart. Then, very quietly, he says, “It’s after midnight.”

You blink. “Are you planning on turning into a pumpkin, Doctor Reid?”

“No,” he says, smiling. “Just trying not to become a hypocrite in record time.”

The rule he’d set earlier sits between you — no kissing after midnight. It’s absurd how much you love that he could see past the heat between you and remember it, that he’s choosing to wait for whatever version of you he might get tomorrow, respecting the boundaries he put in place to help you feel safe.

“Right,” you say, exhaling into a laugh. “Our rules.”

He doesn’t kiss you, but he also doesn’t retreat. His forehead finds yours, a soft press that feels even more intimate than a kiss would’ve been. Eyes closed, same square of air.

“This,” he says, barely a sound, “we can have.”

You nod against him. “I like this,” you admit, which is somehow harder to get out than any confession you’ve made so far.

“Me too,” he whispers. His hand traces your forearm once, feather-light, and the moment stretches.

After a few minutes suspended like that, he breaks the silence that’s fallen between you. “I am, for the record, profoundly unsure about where to put my hands in situations like this,” he confesses, which is the funniest possible thing he could’ve said while holding you exactly right.

“You’re doing profoundly fine,” you murmur, and it feels unreasonably good to soothe him. You shift closer on principle, chest to chest, his heartbeat reorganizing yours. A quiet, involuntary sound leaves him — smaller than a sigh, but enough to feel in a place you shouldn’t.

Time turns elastic. You could stay here like this until morning, pretending you’re a person who gives affection away this easily. At some point you realize your thumb is stroking the tendon at his wrist like a worry stone. He doesn’t mention it. He just breathes with you, patient and kind.

“We should…” you start, then don’t finish, because finishing would require choosing between desire and practicality.

He saves you from the choice. “I should probably go,” he says. He pulls back a half inch, just enough to open his eyes and look down at you. “Leave while I still can.”

You could ask him to stay, and you’re positive he’d say yes. Fuck the rules, you think to yourself. You want to ask him to stay. That want is loud and written all over your face and burning between your thighs.

“Text me one more true thing when you get home,” you force yourself to say instead.

“I will,” he vows. “You send one back.”

Reluctantly, you separate. He stands and offers you a hand up, because of course he does.

At the door, he hesitates like he might do something reckless.

“No secret kisses after midnight,” you remind him.

“Tragic,” he agrees, opening your door. “But probably smart.”

You roll your eyes. “Goodnight, Spencer.”

He dips and breathes a smile against your skin as he presses a soft, barely-there kiss to your hairline. He looks at your mouth like he’s practicing how not to be an idiot, then meets your eyes like a man keeping a promise.

“Sweet dreams,” he says, and steps into the hall.

The door clicks. The apartment exhales. You stand there with your palm still warm from his and the sleeve still upright against your mug like a ridiculous little flag. Your phone hums a minute later. Silly, eager man, you think to yourself. He’s barely out of your building yet, let alone home.

[text, 12:34am]

Dr. Reid: One true thing: I didn’t run all the way to your place from Quantico. But I would’ve if I had to.

You stare at it until your own thumbs remember how to work.

[text, 12:38am]

you: one true thing: i almost asked you to stay.

You put the phone face down, take the coffee sleeve in your hand, and finally let yourself laugh over a rule you’ll hate until morning. You sit there with the ghost of his breath at your temple and another brand-new rule you did not expect to like: one true thing a day.

ᝰ.ᐟ

PSA: likes do very little for promoting posts on tumblr! if you'd like to support a fic, please reblog!

“You’re welcome,” he says with a small nod.

At nine, Hotch calls for a briefing. The room choreographs itself: JJ standing by the screen, Morgan sprawling at the far end of the table, Rossi hunched over a case file. You choose a seat two chairs away from your usual spot next to Spencer and try to ignore the look Prentiss gives you as you sit down.

Victimology, timelines, pens clicking. When you speak, your voice is steady enough to fool most people: “The timing of the crimes suggests the unsub might be a night-shift employee. He sticks to the early daylight hours, which correlates to the time he might be getting off work.” You keep your eyes on the board.

Spencer threads in a beat later. “The murders all cluster between 6:15 and 7:45am, and the scenes all sit within two miles of three 24-hour sites with graveyard shifts: a hospital, a distribution hub, and a bus depot. If he isn’t employed there, he’s at least hovering during those hours.”

He doesn’t look over at you directly, but his addition reinforces your point to something more solid. He does that often — makes you sound smarter by agreeing with you in a way that feels like a true partnership.

“Good catch, you two,” Hotch says. “We’re just consulting on this one from Quantico for now, so no go bags needed. Yet.”

—

Midafternoon, you and Spencer converge on the basement records room at the same time. He keeps to the left aisle; you take the right. His sleeve rides up when he reaches for an evidence box, and you notice the way his muscles flex as he moves before swiftly training your gaze on a peeling label until the letters stop meaning anything.

Back in the corridor, he matches your pace, remembers not to, then overcorrects.

At six, the bullpen thins. Morgan leans on your desk and floats the idea of one drink at O’Keefe’s; you cite a headache and laundry. He grins like he’s collecting excuses for sport and leaves you with a “rain check” you both know you’ll never let anyone cash.

When it gets quiet enough to hear yourself think, you glance up and find Spencer alone at his desk. He leans back, tilting his head. You’re halfway to forming a sentence that says something reckless when he turns to look at you like he felt you thinking it. Your eyes hit your monitor a fraction too late to look innocent.

At 7:30, he pauses at the edge of your desk on his way out, both hands wrapped firmly around the strap of his messenger bag. “See you tomorrow," he says quietly.

“Night,” you answer without looking up.

The Möbius strip on your long-empty coffee cup looks back at you, a loop that doubles over on itself and pretends it’s a path forward. You slide the sleeve off and, without looking, tuck it into your drawer like muscle memory.

—

Tuesday comes and goes without a coffee from Spencer at your desk. So does Wednesday, and every day after that. You try — and fail — to convince yourself that’s a good thing.

—

On Thursday, the “we’ll consult from Quantico” plan mutates into a quick out-and-back on the jet. JJ’s asleep under a blanket; Morgan has an arm over his eyes; Prentiss is pretending to read. You take the open seat across from Spencer (diagonally across, not directly) and angle yourself towards the window like clouds are compelling television.

“How’s the head?” he asks, low enough not to wake anyone.

“Sometimes fine,” you say. “It comes in waves.”

He slides a bottle of water across the table. Your fingers brush the plastic at the same time, and both of you pretend they didn’t.

“Post-concussive spikes in symptoms during the first 7 to 10 days after injury are common,” he says after quickly clearing his throat. “Light sensitivity, headaches, irritability. It’ll settle.”

“Irritability’s kind of my baseline, Reid. Don’t think that’s the concussion.”

He almost smiles — there and gone — then looks past you at absolutely nothing. You can feel the conversation wanting to tilt toward the thing you’re not talking about, so you tilt toward the window again instead.

He opens a paperback and doesn’t turn a page for seven minutes. You unlock your phone and stare at a draft text you started writing two nights ago: I’m sorry about—. You delete it and turn your phone over.

“Try to sleep,” he says softly.

“I’m terrible at that.”

“I know.”

You close your eyes because it’s easier than avoiding looking at him, but you don’t sleep. You inventory the ways you’re pretending not to want what you already know you want, and the engines keep their steady, merciless hum all the way to your destination.

—

By the following Friday — 2 weeks post-Dayton — the choreography has settled into something you could teach a class on: don’t be where he is, don’t make it weird when he is, don’t look directly at his golden brown eyes whenever possible. You almost believe you’re pulling it off smoothly. Almost.

Hotch’s email lands at 9:12am: Mandatory Firearms Re-Qualification Hours Today — 1400–1600. JJ groans. Morgan says, “Bang bang Friday.” Rossi replies with “exemption for being an FBI legend?” Hotch responds with a simple “No.”

You and Spencer both end up at the case board after lunch with as much distance as possible between you. He draws a small arrow from one name to another and waits. You nod because he’s right and because speaking feels too intimate.

“Range at two,” he says, mostly to the board. “Try not to be late.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” you answer.

He turns to leave. For a second you think he’s going to say your name, but he doesn’t. The space where it would have been hangs between you, bright and mean.

You check the time. You check your pulse. Two weeks exactly. You tell yourself that’s all it is — a number, a calendar date. Then you open your desk drawer and touch the rubber band around the stack of coffee sleeves, and close it again before anyone can catch you looking.

—

The range is relatively full when you arrive. Morgan and Prentiss slot into stalls 2 & 3, JJ takes 5, and Hotch is off somewhere trying to track down Rossi, who is, of course, fashionably late. You walk up to the furthest open spot — stall 8, and try to pretend not to notice when Reid slots in at 7.

You shake your head, load a mag, and let the world narrow to the target in front of you. On your first round you post a tight, neat cluster because you are very good at this particular kind of control.

There’s a rhythm to the place: Morgan’s cadence two lanes down — bang, bang, breath, bang — JJ humming between rounds, the distant bark of an instructor correcting a new agent trainee’s elbows. When targets run back on the wires, you catch a flash of the one next to yours: a scattered, chaotic set of wide shots that veer too far right.

You tell yourself to mind your own lane. It works for two more shots. On the third, you feel another tug of concern before you can manage to swallow it. You angle your body just enough to glimpse when his next target slides in: four wide, one high. Spencer’s never been known as the best shot on the team, but you know he’s usually far better than this. You know his hands. You, for more than one reason, know what they’re capable of when they’re steady.

You holster your gun, step back, and lift your muffs before leaning around the partition. “Reid.”

No answer — he’s busy missing again. You wait until he stops to reload. “Reid.”

A beat, then his head turns back to face yours — muffs, goggles, the faint pink dent where the plastic meets his cheekbone. You’d laugh at how adorably boyish and disheveled he looks if your chest wasn’t already doing that unpleasant, opposite-of-laughing thing.

“Oh,” he says, like being directly addressed by you is a small surprise he wants to handle correctly. “Hey.”

You point at the target. “You’re a bit wide.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed. It’s fine.”

“It’s not. C’mon, scoot over,” you say, already moving. You don’t wait for agreement — you just step into his stall.

Up close, the tension in his body is visible — shoulders too high, grip too tight, jaw set on a stubborn angle. You have the sudden, miserable thought that this is what you did to him: You tightened something that was already too careful.

You keep it clinical. “You’re choking your grip. Loosen up a bit.” You tap the tendons along the back of his hand until his fingers ease. “Good. Shoulders down.” You draw two knuckles along the slope of his trapezius, and heat blooms under your touch.

“Breathe for me,” you say. “Hold. Slow exhale, then shoot.”

He does it. You watch the air leave him and try not to think about the way it sounded in a hotel room two weeks ago.

His shot flirts with center, then shies away. He resets, and you hear it in his breathing — the stutter when you’re this close. You force your own lungs to behave.

“Here,” you say with a sigh, and close the remaining distance between you so you can show him how to position. Your chest finds his back. Your palm covers his hand, your thumb fitting into the web between his thumb and index finger. You align his elbows with your own arms, your cheek almost at his jaw so you can look down the same line.

The world collapses to the warmth of him, the shape of his hands, the way his pulse jumps against you like a skipped rock.

“This better?” he asks, barely audible under the muffs, under everything else.

You nod slowly. “Let it happen. Don’t fight the recoil.”

You feel him lean back into you the tiniest bit, for only a moment. It’s unconscious. It’s catastrophic. If he turned his head a little, your mouth would be right there. The idea of closing that distance flashes brightly through your brain.

“Now,” you whisper.

He fires.

The target jerks, the hit dead center. For half a second everything is silent except the echo in your bones.

The recoil nudges him back into you, and your lips part to release a shaky breath when he shifts just enough to look at you. His mouth stops a whisper from yours, close enough that you can feel the warmth of his exhale skim your jaw.

You don’t move. Neither does he. It would take almost nothing — just half a tilt, a few inches you haven’t earned. His eyes flick down to your mouth and back up and for one suspended, impossible second, you both hover there, the distance between you held in place by a rapidly fraying thread.

The moment snaps, and you step away so fast you clip the partition with your elbow. “Good,” you say, too brisk. “That’s—that’s good.”

He lowers the gun. His eyes are wide, and there’s pink in his cheeks that wasn’t there a minute ago. You are suddenly acutely aware of your own mouth.

“Did I do okay?” he asks, too soft. You hate how genuine of a question it is.

You manage a nod as you step back even further. “Keep practicing.”

Back in your own lane, you lift your gun because your hands need something to do that isn’t reaching for him again.

You pass behind his stall on your way out and catch a sliver of his profile: goggles pushed up, earmuffs askew, lips parted like the word he was about to say decided to stay in his throat. The shape of it is so clear you almost answer.

You swiftly turn your gaze forward and head for the locker room with your heart doing the exact thing you told him not to: fighting the recoil.

—

You make it as far as the corridor outside the range locker room before you hear it:

“Can we talk?”

Spencer stands a few feet away, hands visible, posture careful. Not blocking your exit. Not crowding. The opposite of an ambush, but it somehow still feels like one.

“I have to file my qual sheet,” you say, which is not a lie and also not an answer.

“Please,” he says. “I don’t want to do this in a hallway.

You sigh and push the door to the stairwell open with your shoulder, taking the first landing as he follows. He lets the door close softly behind him and leaves a few feet of space between you, but your body still thinks it has something to brace for.

“What do you want, Reid?” You hear the edge in it and nearly flinch, but it’s easier for you to be sharp than soft.

“I want to stop guessing,” he says. His voice is low, even. “I’ve been trying to give you space. I told myself not to read into anything. That what happened in Ohio was… a statistical anomaly.”

You huff, a non-laugh that hurts on the way out. “That sounds like something you’d say.”

“I guess so. Outliers exist. People do things under stress they wouldn’t do otherwise. I thought: concussion, adrenaline, proximity, tough week. Someone like you would never choose someone like me anyway, so it had to be a fluke.”

You want to tell him how stupid that is — that he’s a catch, that he’s handsome and smart and kind and wonderful, that he’s the only person who makes you clumsy just by breathing near you, that you’d always pick him on purpose. The protest claws up your throat and dies there, because saying it out loud would mean admitting so much more. You fold your arms tightly because if you don’t, you’ll shake.

“I tried,” he says quietly. “For two weeks I tried. Except I couldn’t help but… review the data.” He grimaces at himself. “I kept going over the last six months in my head. I didn’t really even want to be doing that, but once I started, I couldn’t stop.”

You stare at the exit sign.

“O’Keefe’s,” he says as his voice goes a little softer, like he’s turning pictures over in his head. “The lights came on and you were still talking to me. You laughed without meaning to and then pretended you hadn’t. In the hotel after I ran into that stupid dumpster, you patched me up with a funny bandage and your hands were steady on me when they weren’t steady anywhere else. When Hotch assigned us to that overnight stakeout, we spent most of the night talking about everything and nothing and you nearly found an excuse to hold my hand. You let me take care of you when you were sick and didn’t punish me for showing up unannounced, even though I know you probably wanted to. When you got drunk at Garcia’s, you called me for a ride instead of a cab and said I was the only person you wanted to call. Then you said I was,” —he clears his throat awkwardly— “hot, and tried to invite me inside at 2am. You constantly choose to sit with me on the jet even when every other seat is wide open. You text me in the middle of the night when you can’t sleep. You borrow the books I annotate for you and bring them back dog-eared and pretend you didn’t spend all your time reading the margins. And in Dayton…”

He lifts his eyes to you. They land heavy.

“In Dayton, you kissed me,” he says. “You started it. Not me. And then you stopped it and asked me to forget it ever happened.”

Something in your chest pulls tight, but you manage to keep your face still because you’ve spent years practicing that trick.

“I’ve been trying not to be an idiot. Especially since three days after that kiss, you showed up in the bullpen and built a wall around yourself like we’d barely even met. I told myself to respect it. I told myself, ‘She set a boundary; be decent.’ I stopped reaching out, stopped bringing you coffee and hanging by your desk and finding excuses to be near you. I tried not to take any of it personally. But then you came into my lane today and put your hand over mine and I realized I can’t keep pretending that I made all of this up.”

You could tell him the truth — that you’re sorry. That you’re scared. You could tell him you don’t know how to want something without breaking it. You could tell him how the way he kissed you knocked something loose inside your chest and made you crave a future you don’t think you deserve.

You could do all those things. But instead, you choose to lie. It’s cowardly and cruel, but it’s the only thing — other than him — that has the power to make you feel safe.

“It was physical attraction, Reid,” you say cleanly. “That’s all. A heat-of-the-moment thing. Proximity. I was concussed, I’d had a week from hell in that town, and you were…there.”

His shoulders drop, like someone lifted a weight and left a bruise. The breath he lets out is quiet and catastrophically tired. For a heartbeat his face is unguarded, hurt flashing across his features, and then he straightens: thumb finding the seam of his bag strap, a small, practiced nod as he reassembles into neutral.

“Okay,” he says after a long second. “If that’s all it was, we should be able to go back to normal. Professional.” He nods once, as if he’s setting a parameter for himself.

“That’s all it was,” you confirm. You don’t recognize your own voice. “Look, Reid…you’re an objectively attractive guy, and you were being nice to me, and I was really out of it. I got caught up in a moment.”

The lie tastes metallic, like old pennies on your tongue. You know exactly how much it’ll hurt him, but you say it anyway. It’s the only way you know how to keep him safe from you. If you say what you really want to say — I like you, I want you, I’m sorry — then you have to do something about it, and you aren’t built for loving things you’ll inevitably lose. You’ve proven that. Repeatedly.

He drags his hands down his face once, like maybe he can sand the expression off. When he drops them, he looks so defeated. “I’d wanted to kiss you for ages, but I was never going to act on it because I thought you might never want me to, and I’d made peace with just being the person you felt safe with if that’s all I ever got. I could live with that. And I still can, if that’s what you want.” He takes a breath. “What I can’t live with is you pretending you never wanted me at all. You kissed me like it meant something and now you’re punishing me for kissing you back.”

You lean against the cinderblock wall because your legs feel like they might give out. For half a second, you debate closing the distance between you, shaking your head, admitting the truth, and kissing him all over again.

But you don’t. Instead, you lie. Again.

“I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, Reid. It was just one kiss. One meaningless kiss.”

Spencer’s throat works once. His eyes close for a second and he leans his hip against the rail like he needs something to keep him steady as he absorbs the blow. “Is that really how you feel?”

You nod, your posture betrays you — the smallest reveal, a micro-tell you would have easily caught in someone else. His gaze flicks to it and away like he’s doing you the courtesy of not holding you to it.

“Okay,” he says, voice no longer holding the softness he usually reserves for you. “Then we’re done being…whatever this has been.” He doesn’t say friends, because you both know that word’s not exactly the right way to describe what the two of you were up until the kiss. “We’ll be professional.” A beat. “And…distant. I can’t go back to how it was before.”

You nod because anything else would be a confession. Your mouth is dry enough to crack. “That’s probably for the best.”

“Maybe,” he says, and there’s so much in it you almost look up.

He pushes off the rail. Doesn’t come closer. Doesn’t reach for you.

Of course he doesn’t. He’s done reaching.

The door sighs open, and he’s gone. You sit down on the step because your knees feel unstable and tell yourself you did the noble thing. You’re protecting him. You kept your perimeter intact.

You stay there until your face stops giving you away. Then you stand, find your bearings, and walk the long way back to your desk. The top drawer sticks a little when you open it — bad karma, probably — and you put your hand on the stack of coffee sleeves again like you’re logging evidence, counting contraband in plain sight. You could throw them away. You should throw them away. But… you don’t.

You shut down your monitor, shoulder your bag, and head for the elevator without looking back.

—

Hours later, Spencer cuts past your desk to drop off a file. The top-right drawer still sits a thumb-width open — one of those details he can't help but fix on instinct. He nudges it to get it to close, but it catches on something, so he tugs.

The drawer springs open, and that’s when he sees what it was stuck on:

A neat stack of cardboard coffee sleeves, held together by a rubber band stretched painfully thin. He removes the band carefully and spots the crooked Möbius strip doodle from two weeks ago on top, then leafs through them one by one: A skull and crossbones, a dead fish king, two hands not quite touching. Some with just your name or his initials or little messages that always mean more than meets the eye.

There are dozens of them, organized from oldest to newest. Months-worth of sleeves, starting with the first one he ever customized for you: the one that says Bullseye.

For a second he doesn’t breathe. The realization hits with the dumb, stunning weight of certainty: this isn’t hoarding, or recycling, or some other weird reason you might try to fall back on. No. It’s record-keeping. It’s you, memorizing him and pretending you aren’t. Saving reminders of all the moments when he made you feel seen. Pieces of him you’ve kept just for yourself. A secret way to keep him close.

He slides one sleeve free and closes the drawer, the soft click too loud in the empty room.

Coat. Keys. He’s already moving, the sleeve burning a hole in his pocket, headed straight for your front door.

to be continued…

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You turn. One of the local uniforms is slouched in a rolling chair, badge clipped crookedly to his chest.

“Any relation to Elle Greenaway?”

You don’t blink. “Yes. She’s my sister.”

His smirk widens. “Huh. Thought the Bureau would’ve blacklisted that whole family after what she pulled here in Dayton.”

Morgan shifts beside you. Spencer glances up at the voice, then at you, quick and assessing, before he drops his gaze back to the casefile — but you can see his grip on it tighten.

“What she pulled?” you echo, voice flat.

The man shrugs, like he’s being generous. “Hey, I get it. Heat of the moment. But I’m just saying — shooting a guy we didn’t even have enough evidence to charge isn’t usually in the job description.”

The air goes still, waiting for your next move.

You cross your arms and tap your nails against your skin, slow and steady. “You know what’s funny?” you say. “I’ve been working in and around law enforcement for years, yet up until now I’d never met a cop insecure enough to gossip about a woman he couldn’t outshoot even if he had two guns.”

His smile dies on impact.

You turn for the conference room. “But hey,” you toss over your shoulder, “what do I know? I’m just a Greenaway.”

—

You’re still chewing on yesterday’s precinct exchange when the SUV Derek’s driving noses up to the curb, gravel rattling under the tires. You put on gloves, the familiar sound of nitrite snapping against skin bringing you back to the present.

CSU techs dot the lawn, the click of camera flashes filling the air like a ridiculously depressing metronome. Morgan posts himself at the open front door to talk to a responding officer. Hotch has a phone to his ear, gaze turned inward. The place smells like cut grass and stale rain.

You crouch by the mailbox and try to trace the story the ground is telling: scuffed tire tracks veering across the driveway, the back patio door’s glass shattered inward, drops of blood across the lawn. Someone who knew the layout of the house. Someone the victims probably knew.

A laugh cracks across the yard — too amused for how one should act at a crime scene. Then, you hear it:

“If you ask me, the sister’s probably not much more sane than the first one.”

Your spine straightens immediately.

Spencer, a few feet up the driveway, goes still in that specific way that only he does — body quiet, mind still sprinting. A small muscle in his jaw ticks.

“All I’m saying is, you deal with two Greenaways in one lifetime,” the officer adds, as if he’s workshopping a bit for his buddies later, “and you start to wonder what Quantico’s standards even are.”

Your boots crunch across leaves as you step forward, a response loading sharp behind your teeth.

But Spencer gets there first.

“You should stop talking,” he says. It’s quiet and controlled, but clearly not just a suggestion.

The officer blinks. “Excuse me?”

“If you’re gossiping at a crime scene about something that happened almost two years ago — something that was ruled self-defense — then you’re too distracted to be useful on this investigation,” Spencer says. It’s sharper than you’ve ever heard him.

“Look,” the officer scoffs, “I was just saying—”

“You weren’t ‘just saying’ anything,” you cut in. “You were implying I’m unfit for my job because of my last name, and you were trashing a former federal agent who isn’t here to defend herself. All while standing on a victim’s lawn as if it’s your buddy’s basement on game day.”

You take one more step — close enough to see your reflection in his badge clip. Anger bubbles hot and bright, asking for somewhere to go. Spencer’s hand settles on your forearm.

“She shot a guy in cold blood,” the officer mutters.

“No,” you say, fist curling. “She shot a rapist who bragged about slipping through the system.” The muscles in your wrist tense up as you debate your next move.

Spencer’s fingers tighten around you, just a fraction, anchoring you to him. “He’s not worth it,” he says softly, quiet enough for only you to hear.

You hate how right he is.

You hold the officer’s stare for one more measured breath and then turn on your heel, shaking Spencer’s hand away. The pulse in your temples fades with each stride.

Morgan catches your eye as you pass, and the message in his look is quick and clear: I’ll handle this jackass.

You don’t speak on the way back to the curb. Spencer stays close, silent, but there’s a glance he throws you just before you reach the car — and even without words, you hear it: I’m here.

—

The shack reeks of decay and rodent piss.

The latest victim’s car was found abandoned just up the hill, so when the local search party pointed out the half-buried building in the treeline, you and Morgan volunteered to go check it out, and Spencer insisted on coming too.

“This place is a damn horror movie,” Morgan mutters, sweeping his flashlight along the warped planks. “You see that?”

You nod. Bloodstains.

They’re faint — rainwater thinned, maybe a week old — but still visible on the splintered floorboards near the far wall. You step toward them, your boots creaking in the silence. The smell sharpens the closer you get, metallic under the woodrot.

Spencer angles his light toward the ceiling, eyes tracking the beams overhead. “Maybe we shouldn’t be in here, you guys. The roof’s—”

CRACK.

The sound is violent and close. Your head snaps up just as a beam breaks loose above you. Morgan swears. Spencer shouts your name.

The impact is swift: wood slamming your shoulder, the floor smacking the back of your skull. Your vision bursts into white, then gray, then black.

—

You surface to voices. One loud and steady — Morgan on the phone — and one soft, near your ear.

“Hey. Hey—come on, open your eyes.”

The world is entirely too bright when you pry your eyelids apart. Spencer’s kneeling beside you, one hand cupping your neck, thumb brushing just under your jaw like he’s afraid to lose contact. His hair’s fallen in his face as he hovers directly above you.

“Too close, Reid,” you rasp out. “Geez, buy a girl dinner first at least.”

The relief on his face is almost comical, and he releases a shaky breath. “You’re conscious.”

“Don’t sound so surprised.” You try to sit up and immediately regret it — the back of your head pulses like a war drum.

Morgan glances over his shoulder. “I’ve got paramedics on the way. Don’t move.”

You exhale, keeping your head still. “Is it bad?”

“There’s some blood,” Spencer says softly. “Not a lot. You didn’t lose consciousness for long — it was just a minute.”

“Ugh,” you whisper, eyes slipping shut again.

“Hey, no. Don’t pass out again,” he says quickly. “Talk to me. Just—uh, tell me a story. Anything.”

The panic in his voice is palpable. It awakens your senses as much as possible in a situation such as this, and suddenly, you’d do anything for him to not have to worry.

Your brain spins through the Rolodex of possible answers and lands on the most absurd one imaginable. “When I was a kid,” you mumble, “Elle and I had this black cat. We found him in an alley in Brooklyn as a kitten and named him Lucifer.”

He blinks. “…Of course you did.”

“My mom hated it. So we called him Lucy most of the time instead.”

Spencer’s mouth twitches. “Lucy? For a male cat?”

“Gender is a social construct, Reid,” you say matter-of-factly. “And he was basically a small human in a fur coat anyway. We carried him around like a baby for years until eventually he decided he was done with our shit, ran away for three days, then came back like—” You make a limp little paw gesture with your hand. “Here, damn. Gonna leave me be now?”

A laugh slips out of him — quiet, but real — and the sound makes the air feel less heavy. “I think I would’ve liked Lucy.”

“You would’ve psychoanalyzed him until he left again.”

“Probably,” he admits, still smiling as he keeps his hand steady at the back of your neck. “Keep talking.”

—

The hospital is small, fluorescent, and smells like antiseptic. You’re in and out in under three hours with a diagnosis of a concussion and a badly bruised shoulder, but no fracture. No stitches. Lucky, they said. The Dayton ER doesn't have the beds to keep you overnight, but the doctor insists you shouldn’t be alone for the next few hours, just in case.

“Someone needs to keep an eye on her,” he says to Hotch while finalizing your discharge. “No sleep for at least six hours. If she’s fine after that, she can rest under supervision.”

Hotch nods and turns to Spencer without hesitation. “Reid, you’ll stay with her,” he says firmly before heading back into the waiting room to find Morgan.

Spencer glances at you like he’s expecting to hear bratty insistence that you don’t need a babysitter, but you’re a bit too out of it to protest — not that you really want to anyway.

A nurse enters with discharge forms, takes one look at Spencer helping you into your coat, and says, “Oh, you must be the boyfriend. Perfect. I just have a few things for you guys to sign.”

You and Spencer both sputter.

“Actually—”

“We’re not—”

“No, he’s just—”

“I’m not her—”

It’s an uncoordinated tangle of denial. The nurse blinks once, then smiles, clearly humored.

“Suuure you’re not, honey,” she says, sliding Spencer the paperwork. “Sign at the bottom.”

—

The ride to the hotel is quiet. Spencer drives as you lean against the cool window, letting the passing streetlights flicker over your eyes while the pain in your skull syncs with your heartbeat.

Spencer finally breaks the silence, voice soft. “Do you want Hotch to assign someone else? JJ or Emily, maybe?”

You turn your head, just enough to see him. “No.”

His hands tighten on the wheel.

“I trust you,” you add, quieter.

He glances at you once, brief but warm, before looking back at the road.

—

You’re not quite sure how you got talked into playing poker with a concussion, but somewhere between the Advil kicking in and the delivery pizza showing up, Spencer found a deck of cards in his bag and you found enough stubborn pride to accept the challenge. Now you’re cross-legged on the bed, a half-eaten tray of fries between you, and a small, absurd collection of makeshift betting chips on the duvet: a bottle of hotel shampoo, Spencer’s tie, a lone AAA battery, one of your earrings, six Tums, a spare ID badge clip, and a few tiny packets of salt.

And so far, he’s winning.

“You’re counting cards,” you accuse, pushing the earring into the pile.

Spencer doesn’t look up from his hand. “It’s not against the rules unless we’re in a casino.”

“Still unfair.”

“You’re the one blatantly cheating. You could try sneaking less obvious glances at my cards every hand, you know.”

You scoff. “Where’s the fun in that?”

His mouth quirks like he’s fighting a full smile, and that alone makes you sit a little straighter. The tie he’s been using as a betting chip dangles loosely in his fingers. His hair’s messy in a way that says he’s run a hand through it too many times, and you try desperately not to think about how badly you want to touch it yourself.

“I’m just saying,” you add, shuffling your cards poorly, “feels like a low blow to exploit my head injury like this.”

Finally, he meets your eyes. “If it makes you feel better, I would beat you at full brain function too.”

You throw a salt packet at him. It bounces off his chest, and he chuckles — an unguarded, full laugh that fizzes through your veins like freshly popped champagne. You swallow down the internal realization that you’d do almost anything to hear him laugh like that again.

The bedside lamp floods the room with that cheap hotel yellow glow, flattening all the shadows, making the air feel warmer than it is. Your spicy floral perfume and his rain-scented shampoo layer together with the smell of cooling delivery pizza in a way you’ll remember later. The clock ticks past one in the morning, and you’re starting to feel loopy from the hour, the concussion, and the sheer effort it takes to sit this close to him without losing it.

You try to deal another hand, but your coordination is still a bit too fuzzy not to mess it up. He wordlessly takes the cards from you and reshuffles like a pro — precise, fluid, deft. You watch his hands a beat too long, then drop your gaze.

“You’re quieter than usual,” he says.

“Yeah, well, I have a head injury.”

“Even before that. You’ve been quiet since we got to Ohio.”

He’s not wrong. You were quiet after the cop confrontation, and after Spencer’s fingers wrapped around your arm. You’re still not sure if he was holding you back or just holding you close.

“I’ve spent all week just trying not to punch anyone,” you admit, picking at the hem of your tank top.

He studies you for a beat, then leans back against the headboard, his mismatched socks — one plain navy, one purple with tiny white polka dots — peeking out from under his pants. The small, stupid charm of it nearly undoes you.

“It makes sense,” he says softly. “Dayton isn’t neutral ground for you. It’s not neutral for me either.”

You keep your eyes on the cards. “I hate hearing my last name on their tongues.”

“Your name isn’t evidence. And you’re not responsible for Elle’s choices. No one on this team expects you to answer for them.”

Something in your chest loosens, and something else tightens right behind it.

“People remember dramatic details. They stand out more than the rest of someone’s history. It’s an availability heuristic problem, not a you problem.” He smiles crookedly. “I can cite some papers on that if it’d help.”

“It wouldn’t,” you say, but your mouth betrays you with the hint of a smile anyway.

Silence settles, softer now. You don’t rush to fill it.

Then, he says quietly: “You scared me today.”

It lands soft but heavy. You glance at him, but he’s looking at the pile of not-chips like maybe they have something useful to say.

“You hit the ground, and I couldn’t see you at first. Just dust and Morgan yelling, and I thought—” He stops, swallows. “I thought it was way worse.”

You’ve heard fear in people’s voices before, but not like this. Not about you.

“I’ve had closer brushes with death, Reid.”

“That… doesn’t really help.”

Something about the way he says it tilts the room.

You lean your chin on your knee. “Why’d you agree to stay up with me? You’re not usually one for babysitting duty.”

He shrugs, half-smiling. “Maybe I like spending time with emotionally distant coworkers who insult me during card games.”

You give him a look.

He shrugs again. “Plus, I didn’t trust Morgan to keep you awake. He’d put on ESPN and fall asleep in the chair.”

You laugh under your breath. “You’re not wrong.”

There’s a short pause. Then, he adds softly, “But that’s not the only reason.”

The air shifts. Warmer, thinner.

You toss him a card. He catches it and doesn’t look at it.

“I think I’m glad it’s you here with me,” you murmur.

Spencer’s eyes flick to yours as he gulps, and the nod he gives is slow and deliberate.

There’s a moment — longer than it should be — where neither of you move. You can feel the tension in your spine, in your jaw, in your hands.

And then he reaches forward, brows drawn slightly, and brushes a thumb across your cheek, stopping right at the corner of your lips.

You freeze.

“Crumb,” he says softly.

But his hand doesn’t drop right away.

It lingers.

The pad of his thumb moves slowly along the curve of your bottom lip, featherlight. Like he’s memorizing the shape of it. Like he doesn’t realize what he’s doing.

Or maybe he does.

You lean into his hand like it’s instinct, like you’ve been aching to be touched this gently your whole life. Your breath is shallow and your lips are parted and something is blooming — no, detonating — behind your ribs.

When your fingers twitch on the comforter, you’re suddenly aware of how close he’s sitting. That his knees are brushing yours now. That you could close the space by making one small, reckless choice.

So you make it.

You lean in, flicking your gaze between his eyes and his lips, and you kiss him.

He stills for a second like he’s calibrating whether or not this is real. And then his hand slides to your jaw like gravity finally won out, and he kisses you back.

It starts slow and tentative — lips brushing, tasting, learning — but it doesn’t stay slow. Not with the way your fingers find his collar and pull, or the way he shifts closer and you let him. Not with the way you feel him breathe your name against your lips.

Spencer’s mouth is softer than you were expecting, even with the way his lips are always at least a little bit chapped, and your brain short-circuits at the contradiction of it all. Soft and rough. Gentle and hungry. He tastes like mint and ginger ale and the kind of patience you don’t think you deserve.

His tongue grazes yours, hesitant at first, then deeper. You hum, surprised at how easy it is to let him in. How natural it feels to tilt your chin and open up and lose yourself in it. His hand slides from your jaw to the back of your neck, fingers threading into your hair, holding you there like he’s afraid you’ll vanish.

You climb into his lap without thinking twice.

Just swing one leg over and settle. You hear his breath hitch, and then he’s got both hands on your waist and you’re chest to chest and nothing about this kiss is tentative anymore.

It’s slow-burning and greedy and desperate, all at once.

You kiss him like you’re trying to memorize this. He kisses you like he already has.

His hands flex at your waist, like he wants to grip you tighter but isn’t sure if he’s allowed. So you give him permission the only way you know how: by rolling your hips down, by kissing him harder, by dragging your nails over the back of his neck until he groans.

And fuck, that sound. You’d do almost anything to hear it again.

You kiss him deeper, and he matches it. There’s nothing careful left now, just the give and take of heat and breath and the occasional graze of teeth. His thumb presses gently at your ribs over your shirt, just below the underwire of your bra, and your whole body tightens at the suggestion of more. His hands feel even larger when they’re on you like this — broad, warm, paradoxically gentle, mapping your every inch.

He breaks away just long enough to breathe, resting his forehead against yours. His hands skim under the hem of your tank, fingertips brushing your bare skin gently.

“God,” he whispers before breathing out your name.

You kiss him again before he can say anything else, and this time, it’s filthier. Wetter. His lips move with a new, surprising confidence, as if something’s been unlocked in him. The bewildering realization creeps in that you could stay like this — could stay right here with him — and the world would keep on turning around you.

And then your brain does something traitorous: it starts sketching out flashes of a future. His tie draped over the back of your armchair. His books stacked on your nightstand and one laying open across his chest because he fell asleep mid-chapter. Coffee sleeves with dumb doodles growing into an even larger pile in your desk drawer. His jacket, your closet. Him making coffee in your kitchen at 7am, hair messy from sleep, saying your name like it’s his favorite word.

His lips leave yours to trail across the slope of your jaw, then over to the extra sensitive spot under your ear. God, how’d he find that so quickly? Your head tips back on instinct, a whimper escaping before you can strangle it. He answers with a helpless sound, and it strikes you, ridiculous and true, that you like every part of him, everywhere — his voice, his brain, his stupid facts — but right now, you might like him most where it’s all hands and lips and heat.

It’s dizzying, the way the world narrows to just this, to just him. The way you can feel the rhythm of want in the both of you, pulling tighter, closer, hotter.

And then—

Your chest tightens for a different reason. Because you realize you don’t want this to end.

And that’s a problem.

Because if you don’t stop, those flash-frames of a future won’t stay hypothetical, and he’ll inevitably become collateral damage in the war you’re constantly waging against yourself and the world. You’ve run this experiment before, and the result never changes. You refuse to use him as even more proof that everything you touch eventually breaks.

It’s all too much. Too real.

You tear yourself away, breath ragged. The room slams back into focus — the too-warm lamplight, the faint smell of shitty pizza, the cards on the bed.

Spencer just breathes, hands still at your waist but looser now, as if he’s giving you a choice. His lips are pink and parted. His hair is a disaster, and you’re certain you’re responsible for that.

You slide off his lap like he’s made of glass.

“I’m sorry,” you say too quickly, backing up to the edge of the bed. “That was—I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s okay,” he starts, trying his best to soothe. “I—”

“No, it’s not.” You shake your head, eyes skittering anywhere but his face. “I’m not thinking straight. I have a concussion.” You swallow to force the real truth down — that you care for him, way too much. “That was… stupid. This was a mistake.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

For a second, neither of you moves. The room hums around you. You rub your hands over your face, trying to catch your breath.

“Can we just—can we forget it ever happened?”

He hesitates. Then, softly, defeated: “If that’s what you want.”

No, it’s not what you want.

What you want is to crawl back into his lap. You want his hands and his mouth and his quiet steadiness. You want to kiss him again, and this time you don’t want to stop.

The problem is, you can’t want that. Not when you’re still bleeding from every scar you’ve ever gotten. Not when you’ve built your entire identity around being the girl who doesn’t catch feelings. Not when you already know how this ends and care about him entirely too much to let yourself ruin him.

You pull your knees into your chest and press your forehead to them as you let out a dry laugh, bitter and breathless.

“God,” you mutter. “What the hell is wrong with me?”

Spencer doesn’t answer.

He just sits there, hands folded in his lap, watching you like you’re a puzzle he can’t solve.

—

After that, you stay mostly on opposite sides of the room.

Not deliberately, exactly — but the space feels different now, bisected by an invisible line.

He doesn’t bring the kiss up. You’re grateful for that, even if the quiet is slowly killing you.

When the Advil wears off, you take another. Spencer hovers like he might ask if you need anything else, then moves toward the chair by the window instead. His bag lands softly at his feet before he rifles through it until he finds a book you’ve seen before. You wonder how many times he’s used it as armor.

You talk a little, but only about surface level stuff. Procedural things. Tomorrow’s schedule. The idiot cop from earlier. You crack a joke about suing the state of Ohio for pain and suffering, and he lets out a quiet laugh — fast and brittle, gone as quick as it came.

At some point, he glances at his watch. “Two more hours,” he says, voice low.

You nod.

The TV hums in the background. He flips pages without reading them. You stare through the flicker of the screen, trying not to look his way. But the desk lamp catches the angles of his face just so — all sharp cheekbones, drawn tension, and lips you can still feel when you close your eyes.

When the clock ticks to 4am, he closes the book without a word and reaches for the light.

“You’re good to sleep now,” he says gently.

Another too-fast nod from you. You curl onto your side, blanket pulled tight. You hear the soft shuffle of him packing his things away.

But he doesn’t leave. He stays, curled up in the chair like a lanky contortionist, watching you for signs of distress. Protecting you.

You don’t know if that makes things better or worse.

Your adrenaline is still pumping, but the ache behind your eyes and the throbbing in your skull is impossible to ignore. Eventually, despite yourself, you start to drift — the room falling away in layers until the only thing left is the low, steady sound of Spencer’s breathing across the dark.

—

The jet is quiet.

Not silent — the low hum of the engines fills the cabin, and someone’s typing a report a few rows back — but it’s the typical hush that follows a case. The kind that feels like both relief and aftermath.

You’re curled into the couch with a blanket around you, body aching faintly from too little sleep and too much adrenaline. The dull throb in your skull feels like a hangover without the fun part. Spencer offered you more Advil the moment you boarded, and you took it without meeting his eyes.

He also handed you a coffee, of course.

There’s no doodle on the sleeve this time. No messy little spiral or crooked smiley face or even your name in his handwriting. Just plain, unmarked cardboard.

It lands heavier than you’d expect — like a small thing that secretly means a much, much bigger thing.

Across the aisle, Morgan is dead asleep, head tipped back. Hotch is working on his laptop, and Rossi’s reviewing a case file for a consult. JJ’s got an earbud in.

The unsub is safely in custody — caught by the rest of the team overnight while Spencer sat in your hotel room, keeping watch.

And now, staring at the empty coffee sleeve, you can’t help but remember it.

All of it.

You remember the way his mouth opened to yours, the way his fingers tightened at your waist, the way he looked at you like he’d been waiting months for permission. You remember the part where you pulled away. And the part where you lied to his face about why.

“Hey.”

You blink. Emily’s crouched beside the couch, voice low. She nods toward your head. “How’s the dome?”

“Still functioning. Mostly.”

She smiles. “Good.” She pauses for a moment, then adds: “You scared the hell out of Reid, you know. Before the doctor let him back to see you, he was pacing the waiting room like an anxious mess.”

Your eyes flick to Spencer without meaning to. He’s a few rows away, eyes fixed on his book, but he hasn’t turned the page in over six minutes. Not that you’re counting, obviously.

“Yeah,” you murmur. “I know.”

Emily studies you for a beat longer, then squeezes your good shoulder before heading back to her seat.

You close your eyes and let the engine noise blur into static.

A few minutes later, you hear footsteps, then feel the soft weight of someone sitting beside you.

Spencer leans back, palms flat on his thighs. He doesn’t speak right away — just watches the floor like the right words might be written there.

You shift the blanket so it reaches his side of the couch, too. A peace offering.

His eyes lift, faint surprise passing over his face. Then, a small, unguarded smile as he pulls the blanket across his lap.

“How are you feeling?” he asks, voice quiet enough to keep to yourselves.

“Head’s still attached.” You take a sip of your cooling coffee. “Thanks to my overnight security detail, of course.”

He huffs out something like a laugh. “Wasn’t exactly heroic. I just… wanted to be there in case you needed anything.”

You glance at him, and for a moment it feels dangerously close to talking about what really happened last night. “You were,” you say simply.

He holds your gaze for a second longer than necessary. “I’m glad I was.”

Outside, sunlight peaks through the clouds. Neither of you brings up the kiss. But you sit there, shoulder to shoulder, and for now, it’s enough.

ᝰ.ᐟ

next part here

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This was the nth time. The nth damn time since you’d moved in six months ago. With a sharp exhale, you shoved your chair back and stormed out of your apartment, not even bothering to change out of your oversized hoodie and sweatpants. The hallway reeked of spilled beer and expensive cologne.

You could already hear the chaos before you even reached his door. Laughter, glasses clinking, some girl’s high pitched giggle cutting through the music.

You banged on the door harder than necessary. It took a few seconds before someone inside yelled over the noise, “Yoo Heeseung! Someone’s banging at your front door!”The door finally swung open.

Heeseung stood there in all his infuriating glory tall, broad shouldered, black hair slightly tousled like he’d been running his hands through it. His button up was half undone, revealing a silver chain that rested on his collarbones and a glimpse of toned chest. Behind him, the party pulsed with red solo cups, dim lights, and at least half the basketball team.

A pretty girl with long hair and a tight dress was pressed close to his side, her hand resting possessively on his arm. He’d clearly been in the middle of charming her into his bed by the end of the night.

The second his dark eyes landed on you, that signature cocky smirk curved his lips.“Hi, miss morals,” he drawled, voice low and teasing, like he’d been waiting for this exact interruption.

You rolled your eyes so hard it was a miracle they didn’t get stuck. “Can you turn it down? The music is too loud.”

Heeseung didn’t move. Instead, he leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, crossing his arms in a way that made his biceps strain against the fabric of his shirt. The girl behind him shifted, clearly annoyed at the sudden attention shift, but Heeseung didn’t spare her a glance now.

“Miss morals strikes again,” he laughed, the sound rich and mocking. It sent an unwelcome spark of irritation down your spine. “What’s the problem this time, neighbor? Come to bless us with your righteous presence?”

“I’m serious, Heeseung,” you said, voice sharp as you folded your arms tightly across your chest. “Not everyone has the pleasure of partying all night. Others have to actually study to pass their exams whereas others can just have daddy pay for everything when they fuck up.”The words hung in the air between you.

Heeseung’s smirk faltered instantly. His jaw tightened, and he sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. For a split second, something raw annoyance, maybe even hurt flashed across his face before he quickly shoved it back into that indifferent mask. His eyes darkened, the playful glint gone.

“Whatever,” he muttered, voice suddenly flat and cold. “I’ll lower the volume.”He said, “Thank you,” you replied curtly, refusing to let the small victory show on your face even though your heart was hammering.

Heeseung didn’t say anything else. He simply stepped back and shut the door right in your face with a firm click that echoed down the empty hallway.

You stood there for a moment, staring at the closed wooden door, fists clenched at your sides. The music inside dropped almost immediately, not completely off, but low enough that you could finally breathe. Muffled laughter and voices still filtered through, but at least your walls wouldn’t shake anymore.

“Asshole,” you whispered under your breath, turning on your heel and heading back to your apartment.As you closed your own door behind you, you leaned against it for a second, eyes closed. Why did he always have to make everything so difficult? Why did one look from him always manage to crawl under your skin like this?

You shook your head, forcing the thoughts away. Back to studying. Back to pretending Lee Heeseung didn’t exist. But deep down, you already knew tonight’s silence between you two had just gotten a little louder.

You were halfway through rewriting your notes when your phone buzzed on the desk, the screen lighting up with a new message.

yunjin : you know sunghoon righttt? he’s throwing a massive party after midterms and he personally invited me. pleeease come with me?? i don’t wanna go alone 🥺

You stared at the text, already feeling the familiar dread settle in your stomach. Another party of course. You typed back quickly

you : No thanks im good have fun tho

The two dots appeared immediately.

yunjin : babe come onnnn

yunjin : it’s after midterms!! you deserve to relax

yunjin : sunghoon’s parties are actually fun i swear

yunjin : there’ll be good music, free drinks, and i heard the basketball team is coming too 👀

You groaned, rubbing your temples. The last thing you wanted was to be anywhere near the basketball team especially not after tonight’s lovely encounter with their captain.

you : exactly why I’m not going pass

yunjin : please please please i really like sunghoon and this could be my chance

yunjin : i’ll owe you big time i’ll even help you study for the next round of exams i’ll buy you that expensive matcha you like for a month!!

You leaned back in your chair, biting your lip. Yunjin was relentless when she wanted something. And honestly she had been there for you through every late night breakdown this semester. Saying no felt a little cruel the pleading texts kept coming

yunjin : i won’t leave your side the whole night ( she is lying )

yunjin : we can leave early if you hate it , pretty please with cherries on top?? 🥺🍒

You sighed deeply, already knowing you were about to lose this battle.

you : fine, ONE HOUR that’s it if it sucks, we’re out.

yunjin : YESSSSS!!! you’re the best i love you so much

yunjin : we can dress up together at my place okay , see you tomorrow <33

You tossed your phone onto the desk and dropped your head into your hands. Great, just what you needed. Another night surrounded by loud music, drunk athletes, and the very real possibility of running into the Lee Heeseung again.

You glanced at the wall that separated your apartment from his. The music was still playing faintly, but at least it was bearable now. Just one party, you could survive one party right?

The next morning, the art history lecture hall was already filling up with the usual mix of sleepy students and last minute crammers when you slipped into your regular seat in the middle row.

The faint scent of fresh coffee and old books lingered in the air. Yunjin dropped dramatically into the chair on your right, her long hair still slightly damp from her morning shower, eyes bright with far too much excitement for a 9 am class.

On your left, Soobin settled in quietly, tall frame folding gracefully into the seat. He placed his neatly organized notebook on the desk and pulled out a perfectly sharpened pencil, offering you a soft, reassuring smile.

Soobin was always like this calm, steady, the kind of friend who showed up without making a fuss. He was the complete opposite of the loud, chaotic energy that seemed to follow Heeseung everywhere.

Yunjin, however, was already completely distracted. She was leaning forward, chin resting on her hand, openly staring toward the front rows where Sunghoon sat chatting with a couple of friends. Her gaze was soft and dreamy, a tiny smile tugging at her lips every time he laughed at something.

You nudged her arm with your elbow, voice low and teasing. “You’re oogling him again it’s getting embarrassing at this point.”Yunjin didn’t even pretend to deny it. “I’m not oogling, im appreciating art,” she whispered back, still not tearing her eyes away. “Look at him he’s literally perfect.”

Soobin let out a quiet chuckle beside you, shaking his head as he flipped open his notebook. “Sure ‘appreciating’ that’s why half your notes from last week were just little hearts around his name.” He teased her, to which she replied,

“Traitor,” Yunjin hissed playfully, finally glancing at both of you as her cheeks flushed pink. “You two are supposed to be on my side.”The light banter continued until Soobin turned to you, lowering his voice a little. “Hey, I heard there was a party at Heeseung’s last night, did you survive the noise?”

You let out a long, dramatic groan and slumped back in your seat, the memory of last night’s confrontation still fresh and irritating. “Barely. That idiot had the music blasting so loud my textbooks were literally vibrating on the desk. I had to march over there in my hoodie and sweatpants like some angry neighbor from a sitcom again.”

Soobin listened attentively, his expression patient and sympathetic. He never interrupted your rants or told you to just ignore it. He just nodded along, dark eyes focused on you, making you feel genuinely heard.

It was one of the many reasons you treasured his friendship he was thoughtful, kind, and never loud or arrogant for the sake of it. The polar opposite of Heeseung.

“And of course he answered the door half dressed with some girl hanging off his arm like a trophy,” you continued, voice dripping with annoyance. “Called me ‘miss morals’ like it’s the funniest joke in the world.

Then when I pointed out that not everyone has a rich daddy to bail them out when they party instead of studying, he got all pissy, sucked in this dramatic breath, and slammed the door right in my face. He’s such an entitled asshole.”

Soobin hummed softly, a small frown creasing his brow. “That sounds exhausting, you should’ve texted me you know, i could’ve come over with snacks and we could’ve studied together instead of dealing with his nonsense alone.”

You smiled faintly at the offer, warmth cutting through the irritation. “Next time, maybe at least someone in this building has basic human decency.”

Yunjin finally tore her gaze away from Sunghoon long enough to grin at you. “Heeseung’s just bored and likes getting a rise out of you if you stopped reacting, he’d probably get bored and stop.”

“Easy for you to say,” you muttered, crossing your arms. “You don’t have to live next door to the human equivalent of a walking migraine.”The professor walked in moments later, cutting off any further complaints.

The next hour passed in a blur of projected slides on Renaissance techniques, quiet note taking, and the occasional whispered comment from Yunjin whenever Sunghoon shifted in his seat.

When class finally ended, the three of you packed up your things and joined the stream of students flowing out into the crowded hallway. The air was filled with chatter about upcoming midterms, weekend plans, and the usual campus gossip.

As you walked side by side, Yunjin suddenly looped her arm through yours, her excitement bubbling over again. “So, about Sunghoon’s party after midterms you’re definitely coming, right? And Soobin you should come too! It’ll be so much more fun with all three of us there.”

Soobin blinked, surprised, his eyebrows raising slightly. “Wait you’re actually going?” He looked at you, genuinely shocked. “I thought you hated parties, especially ones thrown by the popular crowd.”

You shrugged, already regretting your decision a little. “Yunjin begged a lot and guilt tripped me with matcha promises. One hour max, if it sucks, I’m dragging her out.”

Yunjin squealed happily and squeezed your arm. “See? She’s coming! So you have to come too, Soobinn please?”Before Soobin could respond, a familiar voice cut through the hallway noise from behind you.

“Can’t imagine miss morals at a party but I’m looking forward to seeing you there.” Your stomach dropped, you didn’t even have to turn around to know who it was.

Heeseung was leaning casually against a set of lockers a few feet away, arms crossed over his varsity jacket, that signature cocky smirk playing on his lips. He must have overheard the entire conversation.

His dark eyes locked onto yours with clear amusement, like he lived for these moments of catching you off guard.

You rolled your eyes so hard it almost hurt, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a verbal response. Heat crept up your neck partly from annoyance, partly from the embarrassment of him hearing your plans.

Yunjin stifled a laugh beside you while Soobin just shook his head quietly, a small, amused smile tugging at his mouth.

Heeseung’s low chuckle followed you as the three of you kept walking, but you kept your gaze fixed straight ahead, jaw tight. God, you really, really hated that guy.Midterms week stretched into a brutal two week marathon, and as an art curator major, you felt every single hour of it in your bones.

Your apartment had become a war zone of curated chaos towering stacks of books on museum exhibition design, printed slides from Art Conservation and Curatorial Practices, mood boards pinned to the wall for your upcoming gallery proposal project, and color coded flashcards scattered across every surface.

Late nights blurred into early mornings as you hunched over your laptop, drafting proposals for hypothetical exhibits while trying to memorize the intricate history of 19th century European collections. Sleep was a distant dream. Caffeine was your only reliable companion.

And then there was Heeseung.

He didn’t blast music or bring girls over every single night that would have been almost predictable. No, he was crueler than that. He chose random days, like he knew exactly how to keep you off balance, turning your already exhausting study schedule into a minefield of unwanted interruptions.

The first time hit on the second night of midterms. You were deep into analyzing a case study on museum ethics when the wall behind your desk started to vibrate faintly. At first it was just low music.

Then came the giggles two distinct female voices, breathy and flirtatious. Heeseung’s deep laugh cut through it all, followed by the unmistakable sound of bodies moving against furniture.

“Fuck, Heeseung you’re so good at this,” one of the girls moaned loudly, the words carrying crystal clear through the thin shared wall. The headboard started thumping a slow, steady rhythm against your wall rhythmic, insistent, growing faster.

You could hear the wet slap of skin, her exaggerated gasps turning into full throated cries every time he thrust.You yanked your noise canceling headphones on so hard the band dug into your temples, cranking the volume until classical music drowned most of it out.

But you could still feel it, the steady bang bang bang vibrating through your desk, through your chair, through your skull. Your cheeks burned with secondhand embarrassment and pure rage.

'Of course he’s fucking some random girl while I’m trying to memorize the difference between Baroque and Rococo curation techniques.' You thought bitterly, stabbing your highlighter across the page. Must be nice to have zero responsibilities except basketball and dick appointments.

It stopped around 2 a.m., but the damage was done. You only managed three hours of sleep before your 8 a.m. lecture.

The next morning, you were running on pure spite and too much coffee when you caught Heeseung in the hallway just as he was stepping out of his apartment. He looked annoyingly fresh — hair still damp from a shower, varsity jacket slung over one shoulder, that perpetual cocky smirk already in place.

You stopped right in front of him, arms crossed tightly. “Keep it down next time,” you said flatly, voice low but sharp. “Some of us are actually trying to pass our midterms instead of auditioning for porn.”

Heeseung raised an eyebrow, clearly amused. “Aw, miss morals heard everything? Didn’t know you were such a light sleeper.” You glared at him, heat rising to your cheeks. “Just tone it down, the headboard banging is ridiculous.”