He murmurs the sweetest things as he reaches for your underwear. As he always does. Quiet whisperings of, "You're so pretty," and, "I know, sweet girl. There's no one else. Just you." Sentences you've always wanted to hear him say to you, and he says it with so much conviction you forget he is not actually yours. With so much verity, you believe him. 

He is just so kind to you when he's sliding lacy fabric down your legs, shushing your mewls with his lips on your own, and comforting your need with fingers threaded through yours. 

"What do you want tonight?" he asks you quietly, as he asks you every week. 

You never have the courage to utter his name aloud in response. 

"Fingers," you mumble, absentmindedly, as the mentioned limbs erupt goosebumps on your thighs as he skims them up. 

He takes your lack of full attention as pleasure, and he smiles. You let him think so, because he's kissing you again, and you fear if you protest, this will all go away. Testament to your self confidence — or lack thereof — how little of him you're willing to take, because at least it is something. 

He complies with your request, fingers lifting to the apex of your thighs, slipping beneath your folds and swallowing the whine that escapes your lips at the feeling with another kiss. Or maybe the same one bleeding into the last. You're barely there you don't know anymore. 

"My beautiful girl," he mumbles, index finger circling around your clit. Teasing you until you nip his bottom lip in irritation, and his breath fanning your skin as he laughs. 

You try not to focus on him putting my at the beginning of his sentence. You basically fail.

Your face contorts when he dips a finger into you, the intrusion as strange as it is familiar, and you hear him hiss from your unconscious biting of his lip. 

"Sorry," you murmur ever so quietly, incredibly half heartedly. He knows you aren't sincere. 

"It's okay," he whispers in response, watching you as he lets his finger push in as far as you'll let him. You imagine he's committing every single twitch of your facial muscles to memory; every breath hitch when he moves his hand. 

He won't be. He'll focus on you all up until you leave, and he won't think about the way you look taking his fingers beneath him the way you think about his fingers inside of you. You'll receive a violent reminder how painful one sided attraction can get when he calls and asks when you can come over next week, and you'll tell him Friday night anyways. 

But for now, he is touching you, and he is telling you all the kind things in the world, so you will choose to ignore the pit in your stomach that's hours away from coming back. 

"Spence," you whine, breathlessly, as he pushes a second finger in, curling them. 

"Hm?" he responds to your call of his name with the most annoying smug expression, probably thinking about how easy you are to tear apart. Probably not aware of just how many ways he is. 

"Too fast."

"Ah," he pulls his fingers out, instead focussing his attention on your clit to soothe you. "Sorry. Got distracted."

"Distracted?" you question him, searching his face for the truth behind his words. 

"By you," his voice is a gentle hum as he kisses the corner of your mouth, and your heart flutters.

"I have that effect."

He laughs, head dropping to the bridge between your shoulder and neck, lips pressing a gentle kiss there. 

"You do," he agrees. "Can't get through a day without thinking about you."

Jesus, give you a gun.

"Yeah?" you opt for asking instead, hoping the one word answer will hide the screaming of your brain. 

"Mhm," he nods. You think you're successful. "How are we doing?"

"Good. Better. You can... um... continue."

He returns a finger into you, and you moan again, and he swallows it with a kiss. Again. As if choreographed, he touches you with so much knowing. Too much awareness of how your body ticks to be a man you see weekly for nothing more. 

He bruises your mouth with his fervent kisses in the way you wish he would bruise your neck. But there is that voice that screams at you to say he is not yours, no matter how many universes you beg, and so your skin will remain unmarked, and you will remain forced to settle. 

After one too many minutes of just a singular finger inside of you, your hips lift to meet his hand in a silent beg for more. 

"I know you have a mouth you can use," he tells you, and an exasperated huff leaves your lips. 

You hate him.

"Want more," you say, hands dropping down to his wrist, pads of your fingertips running along the skin in a plea of their own. 

"You want more?" he asks, gently prying your hands off of him with his free hand. "More of what, sweet girl?"

"Spencer," you grit. 

"I want to help you, I do," he coos, too many words cutting into the time you want him to spend pleasuring you, "but I can't if you don't tell me what you want."

"You're mean," you say, petulantly, hips wriggling for friction against his now completely still hand, until he has enough mind to stop you. "Please."

"I'm hearing a lot of misplaced frustration with me, and not a lot of communicating what it is you want."

You give in, annoyed. "Another finger. God."

He nips your bottom lip. "Try again."

You catch his gaze when you choose to shoot him a glare, and he is — annoyingly — all too amused with the position he's gotten you into.

You really hate him. 

"Can you please put another finger in me?"

"Yes, I can," he complies almost instantly, and you relax as he slips a second finger in again. "Thank you for communicating."

You're too focussed on the way he's working you open with his fingers to bite back, and maybe he knows that. 

His thumb reaches up to attack your clit the second you start moaning again, thus stripping you of any normal vocal ability. Your voice turns breathless and your moans become whines, and you're all too overwhelmed with how good he feels to think about being quiet. 

If your noise is a problem, he doesn't say anything. In fact, he's leaving kisses all over your skin as he pushes his fingers in and out of you even faster, as if it is not gently pulling you apart limb by limb. 

"Spencer," your voice cracks as he twists his hand, and the heel of his palm meets your clit, over and over again. "Oh."

You writhe, and this time he makes no effort to keep you still. He doesn't really need to. He has almost full autonomy over how far away from him you can get, with legs on either side of your body. You couldn't escape him even if you tried to. 

His eyebrows pinch together when you clench around his hand, and he's back to kissing you, swallowing your louder than normal moan. 

"Gonna cum," you whimper, brokenly, into his mouth. 

He responds by picking up the pace of his fingers. Again.

He stops kissing you when your hips lift off the mattress to meet his, watching as your face twists and your lips part in a soundless moan, your orgasm wracking through you and making you look so beautiful.

He pumps his fingers in and out of you even when you slump back on the mattress. Waiting for your conscious to return, and you to beg him to stop. 

Which takes longer than normal, for he is watching you roll your hips against his hand, seeking more from him. He happily complies, really, and you can distantly hear him laugh as you crack beneath him, every vein in your body pouring out onto the soft sheets. 

You run warm, and you twist, and finally jerk your body away from him, mumbling an incoherent string of, "No. Mm-mm. Spence... ah, stop it."

"One more?" he asks, but you're shaking your head and still trying to get away from him, whining. "Okay, okay. I'm stopping. Shh, it's okay."

Your eyes flutter open once it's been a few moments of regaining control of your mind, and you catch your favourite part of any of this; the way he looks at you. You are the most perfect thing in the world to him when you've just came, and it's so easy to forget how complicated this all is when he's staring at you like you are a piece of artwork. 

Once you're fully back, he gives you another kiss, and you melt once more, chasing his lips when he pulls away. 

"Spencer," you grumble, and you can hear him huff a short laugh from his bathroom he's disappeared into. 

"I'm not disappearing forever. Relax," he says, cloth between his hands. 

The bed dips beneath his weight again as he hovers back over you, the damp fabric sliding up your legs as he wipes down every surface of your skin.

Sometimes this is your least favourite part. Forced to watch him erase any proof that he ever put his hands on you; that he ever loved you. Even physically. 

And it means it's over. And once he finishes cleaning you up, you will have to put your clothes back onto your body, and walk out of his apartment like it means nothing to you the same it does for him. 

"I'll call you when I'm free next week," he says. 

"Okay," you say, quietly, biting the bullet and sitting up once he stands again. "I'll see you then, I guess."

"Get home safe. Text when you do?"

You feel ridiculous when your heart stutters in your chest. He does not care the way you want him to, and his words are always common courtesy. Never interest. 

You force a smile. "I will."

Sometimes Frank thinks he should put you on a leash.

Get one of those toddler backpack rigs with the little animal character on it and clip you in. Maybe that would preserve what remains of his peace.

Morifying for you, humiliating for him, definitely probably a terrible look in public, but at least you’d stay within a five-foot radius and he could stop living in this permanent state of low-grade vigilance you seem to provoke as casually as breathing. 

And he loves you. Deeply. Completely.

That’s the problem. Love, with you, is surveillance. It is anticipatory. It is watching for the exact point at which your glittering, social, I’m-fine performance starts to come apart at the seams while you insist it isn’t happening.

You just never seem to know when to stop. 

And tonight you are all over the pool patio with a mojito slicking one hand cold and damp, dribbling little sacrificial offerings of rum and mint over the stone, while the other hand keeps straying to the bikini strap at your hip. 

Restless. Fidgety. Smiling at everyone. Talking too loudly. 

A little drunk, a little sleepy, and, as ever, too stubborn to concede either.

The moment you glance his way, Frank tilts his chin and crooks two fingers in a come here.

A gesture that should not, by any reasonable standard, contain so much possession in it, and yet your expression changes all at once, brightening with buzzed delight as you cross toward him.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite person to be bossed around by,” you say when you reach him, voice dipped in honey. You stop beside his lounger, smiling down at him. It’s such a pretty smile. “Did you miss me terribly?”

“I usually do.” 

There’s no point in pretending otherwise.

That gets you. 

“Yeah?” You tip forward a little, closing the distance with shameless interest. “Can I get a kiss, then?”

Frank’s mouth twitches. “You can get whatever you want, sweetheart.”

He lifts a hand to your jaw and draws you down, sealing his mouth over yours in a kiss that has to be brief by sheer circumstance, though not so brief he misses the cool, fizzy ghost of lime on your lips. 

Sugary and faintly effervescent, the taste of it lingering for one extra second after he pulls back, temptation rendered in citrus. 

Frank has never been especially talented at self-control where you are concerned.

It’s why he’s not a fan of PDA. Public affection is never only that. It is a beginning. A permission slip.

One kiss and suddenly he is keenly aware of all the ones he is not having, all the ways he would rather be kissing you if the two of you were alone.

So he stops there, because he has to, and leaves your hand at your jaw instead, thumb brushing once over your cheek.

“What do you say we go find you something to eat?”

You make a face immediately, lower lip pushing out in a sulky little pout. “‘M not hungry.”

“That’s fascinating, because you look like you’re about two minutes from falling asleep standing up.”

“You make everything sound so dire.”

Frank snorts. “Pot, meet kettle.”

Then, in a flawless little proof-of-concept, you sway backward with all the structural integrity of a wilting palm tree. 

Frank moves before the thought fully forms, hands shooting out to catch the back of your thigh, fingers splaying over the soft curve just beneath your ass as he drags your forward. One quick tug and there you are, neatly slotted between his legs. 

Your hands land on his shoulders and you giggle, as if nearly toppling over into a concussion is somehow charming rather than precisely the kind of thing that keeps shaving years off his life.

He squeezes once, firm and corrective. 

“Okay, well, what do you say you keep me company for a while?”

He could tell you to sit down. You might even listen, eventually, but not without first delivering a brief theatrical monologue on authoritarianism and oppression and how cruel it is to stifle your sparkle.

So. Better not make it about obedience. Frank has learned this the hard way, or at least the repetitive way.

There are only so many reliable methods of keeping you where he can see you, and most of them depend on reframing the situation until it no longer sounds like containment.

You resent being managed. You respond beautifully to being needed. Especially by him. 

“Mm, okay,” you murmur at once, whatever resistance you had dissolving on contact. 

Before Frank can offer any further guidance, you’re already hauling yourself into his lap with spectacularly poor mechanics, all grabby hands and misfiring limbs, nudging him backward against the lounger.

And after a moment of awkward shifting and a fair amount of readjusting, you finally settle into him in a drowsy little heap, half draped across his lap and half tucked into his side. 

Frank extracts the mojito from your hand just before the remainder can go down the front of his shirt, though not before a bright cold splash hits his chest anyway.

He puts the glass aside and looks back at you.

Brushes your hair off your face. Once, twice, again, until there you are properly visible beneath it.

You blink up at him, visibly straining to keep your eyes open, lashes heavy with the effort. “You know what Parker told me earlier?”

“Hmm?”

“That you’re not supposed to compliment the moon here.”

Frank’s fingers drift through your hair again. “And why’s that?”

“Apparently,” you say, lowering your voice, “it’s bad luck. Like if you say it’s pretty, then something in your life gets ruined out of jealousy.”

Your finger wanders over his shirt, drawing something looping into the cotton, your nail a shiny petal-pink that matches the sparkle dusted over your eyes. 

He asks, “Should I be concerned you’ve already told it how pretty it is?” 

A tiny crease appears between your brows. 

“Maybe a little.” Your nail catches on his shift before drifting on again. “But it kind of makes sense, doesn’t it? Because Selene is the moon, and Helios is the sun, and they’re siblings, I think, so maybe he gets weird about it… because if everyone keeps talking about how beautiful the moon is, and nobody’s complimenting the sun, that could create resentment. Familial resentment. Which is, like, one of the oldest forces in mythology.”

Frank opens his mouth, halfway to saying that while the ancient Greeks certainly contained enough familial instability to support the theory, he strongly suspects Parker is still just screwing with you, and then he looks down. 

You are asleep. 

He huffs a laugh through his nose, quiet enough not to disturb you, and shifts his hand higher along your back, settling you more securely against him. 

This, too, is part of loving you, he thinks. The rare and fragile privilege of being where you land when the night catches up to you.

Around you, the patio goes on glowing. Voices blur. Glass clinks somewhere in the distance. Water shifts blue-black under the moonlight. 

He leans his head back against the lounger and lets himself look out at it for a second. It is a pretty moon.

If Selene is listening, she can be flattered. He’ll take the risk.

this fic was part of my 2 year celebration: maria's summer in santorini 𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ to learn more, click here!

Perhaps a tad dramatic for what was happening, but you were always one for theatrics when it came to your emotions. Usually, he welcomed it. He was (abashedly) similar, after all.

Not that he was even here to welcome it. 

You'd looked pretty. You'd felt pretty. Past tense, for your shoes were strewn somewhere across the floor after throwing them in frustration, and your makeup was ruined after unwelcome tears had streamed down your face an hour ago. You had been ready for a dinner date you and Spencer had scheduled in only three days ago — penciled in, for you never knew what his work schedule was going to end up being.

You're not sure how long you sat in that one spot on the couch, mind going through every single possible scenario that could've happened between the text he sent you that morning saying he was excited to go out tonight, and the lack of his appearance this evening. 

The logical conclusion is that he got too busy, and he forgot. But Spencer Reid's whole thing is that he doesn't forget. Oftentimes he considers it a curse. You never really agreed with him. Until now, it seemed. 

The less than logical, emotionally driven conclusion, is that he actively chose to stay at work to avoid coming home because he didn't want to see you. Or he didn't actually want to go to dinner, and he didn't know how to tell you. Or his team offered to go out and he'd rather hang out with them instead of you. 

Really, the reasons are endless, and any rational conclusion was lost on you. Mind swallowing you whole as you continued to stare off into space, visibly shaking and head beginning to pound from the crying.

A glance at the clock told you it was near midnight by the time you heard the door handle rattle and twist open, tired, puffy eyes blinking to adjust to the light filtering in from the apartment hallway. 

"Hey. Why're you out here? It's late. I thought you'd already be in bed," Spencer rambles absentmindedly, voice so disconnected from you it only made the ache in your chest worse. As he flicks the light on and assesses the state of the apartment, he asks, "What're your shoes doing on the floor?"

You blink a few times. Was he pretending to be dumb on purpose? 

You stand on cramped legs, stretching them for the first time since you'd sat unknowingly on the couch nearly six hours ago, dress bunching around your waist. You didn't bother to fix it. 

Like a switch, he clicks, his bag sliding off his shoulder and falling to the floor with a thud, realisation settling into his features. 

"Our date. Oh, God, I'm so sorry, angel."

"Yeah. I'm sure," you croak, voice hoarse as you pick up your shoes pathetically in front of him, the heels clacking together as you walk towards your bedroom door. 

He calls your name, and after you make no effort to return to him, you hear his feet against the wooden flooring, carrying himself to you.

You're in the ensuite, beginning to take makeup off you probably should've removed four hours ago. It was stupid hope you held on to, anyways. 

"You're upset. I know. It was awful of me to forget our date," he stands in the doorway, staring at you through the mirror. Even indirectly, you can't make eye contact with him. 

"You forgot," you repeat back to him, almost dumbfounded. "You forgot?"

"Forgot isn't... the best word," his fingers dig into his eyes for a split second, and you watch him think. "I got caught up at work. We had a case, then we didn't have a case, then we did, so we started looking into it, and time just... escaped. From all of us."

"Time just escaped."

Your parroting wasn't doing much to further the conversation, and you watch as Spencer averts his gaze to the floor to take a deep breath, before his eyes land back on you again.

"It isn't the best reason, I know. But it's the truth," he says. 

"Uh-huh," you mumble, discarding your cotton pads stained with your makeup into the trash. 

"Can you stop being evasive?" he catches your wrist before you can return to the sink. "Talk to me."

"What do you want me to say?" you ask, almost earnestly. "It's okay that you forgot, Spencer. I won't take it personally at all, and things between us are just dandy!"

"I want to know what you're actually feeling," he replies, voice flat with his irritation, before he forces himself to soften it. "I can't reassure you if all I know is that you're angry."

"Hurt. Forgotten. Disregarded. Disliked. Irritated we're doing this in our fucking bathroom."

At that, he leads you into the bedroom, turning the ensuite light off. "Forgotten and disregarded are synonyms, so I'm assuming that's what you feel the most."

"You're the psyche expert," you mumble, bitterly.

"I'm not trying to be your psyche expert," he quips, and your heart sinks. "Why're you feeling forgotten?"

You stare at him, dumbfounded, for a beat. "Because my boyfriend quite literally forgot about me?"

"I didn't forget about you—"

"—No, you're right. You just forgot about the date that you literally fucking texted me about this morning!" you snap, voice rising in a way that makes you cringe. Yet, you can't stop it. "You! Spencer Reid! Forgot!"

"Don't yell at me, please," he takes a step towards you; you take a step back. 

"Why did you forget? Did you choose to? Are you pretending that you forgot about it all to save your ass?"

"No," he pinches the bridge of his nose. "I didn't. I told you what happened. You're choosing not to believe me."

"How am I meant to believe that? It's a shit excuse—"

"—It's the truth—"

"—God, you can lie, Spencer! Men lie!" 

He goes silent, as do you. You become trapped in an uncomfortably intense staring contest with him, as you watch his brain slowly tick over and decipher what you were saying, and come up with a response. Yours, however, splits open with your own self hatred. Disdain for what you had just said to him.

"Okay," he exhales, very slowly. "I'm going to tell you what I think, and you can tell me how right I am."

"You're going to profile me?"

He pauses. "I'm sure it'll come off that way. I'm not trying to," when you don't protest again, he continues. "I think you're less upset about the fact that I didn't come home for a date, and more about the fact that I didn't message you about it. I've not shown up for dates before. I've always contacted you prior to let you know. And I've promised I would always contact you if something came up that interfered with our plans. Ultimately, I said I would do something, and I didn't follow through. That is on me, and I'm sorry. What isn't on me, is how you're reacting. Which is childish, honey. You're acting like a petulant child, and I don't mean that as an insult, because I'm almost certain I know why."

Your silence is his cue to continue, but he pauses to collect his thoughts. Your lower lip is beginning to wobble, and he feels awful.

"You know how our childhoods affect us," he says, and the second what he's about to say to you clicks in your brain, your teeth clamp over your lip, and your eyes drop to the ground. "Reactions from parents to things we do, things others do, things they do, all builds up in our subconscious. Having a parent who didn't show up for you time and time again, built up in your subconscious. So yes, you're reacting to me not following through with something childishly. I will not take that back. But that reaction is not your fault. It's in response to a trigger, and the person in control of that emotional response is not adult you. It's the little girl who got let down by her father. I won't ever hold that against you."

Your sniffle breaks the deafening silence that follows his tangent. You allow him to envelop you into a hug, at which you break down into a fit of sobs akin to the ones from earlier. 

"I hate you," you stutter out in between sobs, voice muffled by his chest. 

"You can't say that while hugging me," he counters. It was true, as your hands had wrapped around his waist just seconds ago.

"I hate you," you repeat, punctuating your words with a poke to his back. 

"I love you," he replies, instead. His fingers thread through your hair as he cradles your head with his other hand. "I'm sorry I didn't contact you about being busy."

You swallow the lodged sob in your throat with a hiccup. "I'm sorry I acted like a petulant child. And I'm sorry that my dad sucks."

"I'm sorry your dad sucks too," you feel him kiss the top of your head. "Have you eaten?"

"Mm-mm," you shake your head, and he pulls back, hands slipping down to your cheeks, catching the tears. 

"Do you want to eat?"

"The restaurant we were going to is closed," you mumble.

"Maybe. But the Thai place isn't."

"I'm pretty sure it is," you counter, and his eyebrows furrow. "It's past midnight now."

His face falls, he waits a beat, before his hand drops to your own, and he's tugging you towards the door of the bedroom. "Okay. Fine. Well, the Spencer Reid Kitchen is never closed."

"I asked for pasta last night and you said the kitchen was closed."

"You asked at three in the morning," he deadpans, as you make yourself comfortable on one of the stools. 

"The Spencer Reid Kitchen is never closed," you mock his voice from earlier.

"The Spencer Reid Kitchen rules are made by Spencer Reid."

"The rules should be lenient of Spencer Reid's girlfriend."

"Do you want pasta or not?"

"Yes," you quickly say with a firm nod. "Sorry."

He spends the first hour of that Saturday making you pasta; and making up the missed date.