raye | 🌃

Morgan is leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped tight enough that his knuckles have gone pale. He looks like he’s aged ten years since this morning. 

“He woke up once,” he says quietly. “Couple seconds. Doctor said that’s good.”

You nod without looking away from Spencer. “Good.”

“He’s gonna be okay.”

You try to hum some sort of acknowledgement, some half-hearted agreement you don’t entirely mean because at this point you can’t really know if that’s true, but no sound comes out. Instead, you reach for Spencer’s hand.

His fingers are warm. The plastic hospital bracelet brushes your wrist when you thread your fingers through his, and you feel almost burned by it. Spencer is supposed to have ink smudged on his hands and paper cuts from case files and maybe chalk dust from a man impromptu lecture no one asked him to give. He is not supposed to look fragile under a hospital blanket.

Morgan studies your face for a second, then stands.

“I’m gonna grab some coffee,” he says.

You don’t point out the fact that he already has a half-full coffee cup in his hand. You just nod.

At the door, he pauses. “He was asking about you earlier. Before they brought him here.”

Your grip tightens around Spencer’s hand.

“Just thought you should know,” he says.

Then he leaves, and the room gets even quieter.

You sit there with Spencer’s hand in yours and stare at his face until the anger sharpens again, because anger is a much easier emotion for you to deal with than fear. 

“You absolute idiot,” you whisper.

He doesn’t answer.

—

You had been with Rossi and Emily when you found out.

The day had already felt a bit off-kilter since it started. Anthrax in a park in Annapolis. Dead civilians, sick children, hypermasculine military personnel taking over the BAU and breathing down everyone’s necks. Dr. Kimura from the CDC explained the intensity of this strain in a voice so calm it made the information hard to process. The team had swallowed Cipro in a lame attempt at some sense of control, then scattered across the Washington metropolitan area trying to build a profile before the unsub executed another attack.

You went with Reid and Dr. Kimura to the hospital earlier. You noticed the way his inflection turned clinical as he talked about infection rates and symptom onset, the way his eyes stayed focused on the numbers in the patients’ charts because if he let himself see them as people for too long, he’d feel all of it. You saw the way his focus faltered around Abby, a young woman who just wanted to go on a bike ride around the park and was now experiencing aphasia and severe respiratory distress as she tried to stay alive long enough for a cure to be found. You desperately wanted to touch the back of Spencer’s wrist as you walked beside him in the hallway, but you chose not to, because you were surrounded on all sides by sick people and your relationship did not belong in the middle of it.

You regretted that choice later.

Of all the stupid things to regret, that was the one your brain kept returning to. The touch you hadn’t taken. The two seconds of warmth you’d decided could wait.

By early afternoon, you and Emily were with Rossi following a lead away from the rest of the team, chasing down information on Dr. Lawrence Nichols, a disgraced military scientist who’d been downgraded to working on the flu. Emily was having a tough time with the casual deception a case like this required, so you were talking with her beside the parked SUV when Rossi got a call from Hotch. You watched him out of the corner of your eye as his expression changed and his gaze flicked quickly toward you before it shifted away again.

It was small. Practically nothing. A slight narrowing of his eyes. An almost imperceptible shift.

But still, your stomach went cold.

“What?” you asked.

Rossi lifted one finger, still listening to Hotch on the other end.

Your voice came out sharper. “Rossi.”

He lowered the phone. “Morgan and Reid went to check out Nichols’ house.”

You waited.

Rossi’s jaw tightened. “Nichols is dead. The house is contaminated with anthrax.”

For a second, your hearing went thin, and the whole street seemed to drop underwater. Emily shifted beside you. A car passed behind the SUV, tires hissing against pavement, and all of it reached you half a second late. Emily said something, but you didn’t catch it. Your eyes were fixed on Rossi because you knew there was more coming. You’ve been around the block enough times to know that people always pause before saying the worst part out loud, as if a few seconds of silence can soften the impact of devastation.

“Reid discovered the body and the exposure site inside,” Rossi said. “He sealed himself in before Morgan could enter.”

All at once, heat rushed up the back of your neck. Your hand went tight around the car door handle you hadn’t realized you were holding. Somewhere at the edge of your vision, Emily went still.

“Is he in decontamination protocol now? Or is he already at the hospital?” 

Rossi didn’t answer fast enough, which was an answer in itself.

You turned away from both of them and walked three steps before bending forward, hands braced on your knees as you searched for breath.

Emily approached cautiously.

“I’m fine,” you snapped automatically.

“That’s not what I asked. I said Hotch wants to talk to you.”

You straightened slowly, smoothed your hands down your blazer, and took the phone from her.

“Tell me exactly what’s going on,” you said too fast as soon as you got the phone up to your ear.

Hotch did. He gave you all the facts he had: Nichols had been dead for days. There was anthrax spilled in the lab and the AC was blasting it through the house. Definitely a homicide, and whoever killed Nichols was likely responsible for the recent attacks. Reid had gone inside and accidentally stumbled upon the scene, shutting Morgan out before he could follow him inside. Kimura and the CDC team were on their way with protective equipment and a decon shower, but Reid was refusing to leave, instead insisting on working the profile from inside since he was already exposed. 

Already exposed.

Those words had a sharp, horrible finality to them. 

“What do you mean, he’s refusing to leave? You’re his boss, Hotch. Make him leave.”

Hotch’s voice stayed even, but there was strain under it. “He believes there may be an antidote or identifying information on the partner inside the house. He’s continuing to work the scene until one or both of those things are located.”

You pinched the skin between your brows. “Get him on this call for me.”

Emily turned fully toward you then. Rossi was watching with the careful stillness of someone standing near a live wire. Hotch said nothing.

You swallowed hard. “Hotch, transfer me to Reid’s phone, now. I think we all know he won’t answer if I call him myself, and I need to talk some sense into him.”

“He’s working.”

“Hotch. Please.”

The silence that followed was very, very loaded.

Then Hotch said, “Give me a minute.”

You lowered the phone a little and stared at nothing for a second. Your chest felt too tight, your blood too loud, every part of your body braced for impact. Emily came to stand beside you, but she didn’t try to touch you, and you appreciated that more than you could say.

“He’s going to do everything he can to find the cure and track down the unsub and get out of there,” she said.

“I know.”

“He’s Reid. If there’s something in that house to find, he’ll find it.”

“I know.”

And you did know. That was the problem. You knew him so well there was no room to be surprised. Spencer would knowingly stay in a room full of anthrax because people were dying and he had a chance to stop it. He would put his lungs and brain and life on the line to prevent the person responsible for the prior attacks and Nichols’ death from taking any more lives. You’d expect nothing less from Spencer Reid, and right now, you hated him for it.

A muffled voice came through the phone before you could fully catch your breath.

When you lifted it back to your ear, you heard movement first. Then Spencer.

“Hi.”

He sounded too normal.

You gripped the phone so hard your fingers hurt. “Do not hi me right now, Spencer Reid.”

A tiny pause. Then, softer, “Okay.”

“Are you symptomatic?”

“Not really.”

“Spencer,” you said.

“I’m okay right now,” he said, before you could ask again. “Kimura’s team is coming in soon. We’re currently in a limited window where I’m still useful and the scene is still viable.”

“Oh, goodie. Well, as long as you’re useful, everything’s just fine then,” you bit out.

“Sweetheart,” he said softly, “you know what I mean.”

Emily looked away. Rossi did too, like they were granting you privacy by pretending not to hear the sharpness in your voice.

Spencer was quiet for a second. You pictured him inside Nichols’ house, phone held close, hair falling in his face. You pictured powder on the floor, sealed doors. You pictured him alone in there.

“I found a second workspace,” he said. “There’s a bunch of notebooks filled with different handwriting, so it definitely doesn’t belong to Nichols. Whoever this desk belongs to is probably our unsub.”

You wanted to scream.

Instead, you leaned your forehead against the SUV door and forced yourself to breathe through your nose. “You need to go to the hospital.”

“I will.”

“Now, Spence.”

He paused. “I’ll go as soon as I can.”

Your throat tightened. 

“You do realize you’re a person too, right?” you asked. “Not just a brain with a badge and a duty to uphold.”

Despite everything, you heard the faintest breath of a laugh. “I’m aware.”

“Great. Then act like it.”

“I am acting like it,” he said, and there it was, his signature stubbornness. “Leaving now wouldn’t make me safer in any meaningful way if we still can’t identify the unsub and still don’t have an antidote for the strain. If I can figure it out from in here, there’s a chance we can save the patients at the hospital, and me.”

You pressed your free hand over your eyes.

“Don’t do that,” you said.

“Do what?”

“Make sense.”

His quiet inhale caught slightly. Maybe from the anthrax, or maybe from you. It was hard to tell.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“But you’re still staying.”

“For now,” he said.

You sighed softly and rubbed your temple with your free hand. “You’re so frustrating.”

“I know.”

“And arrogant.”

“I can be, on occasion.”

“And so ungodly, unbelievably stupid.”

“Well, technically, I’m quantifiably a genius, although I don’t believe—”

“Spencer.”

“I know you’re angry with me,” he said quietly.

“You have no idea how much.”

“Well, I think I have some idea. I know you.”

“No, you really don’t.” You looked down at your boots. “Because if you did, you’d be walking out of that house right now.”

His voice went softer. “If I thought walking out was the thing most likely to get me back to you, I would. I promise you, I would.”

That took every bit of air out of you.

Spencer didn’t rush to fill the silence. He just let the words sit there, awful and sincere and completely unfair.

Then he said, “I’m not trying to scare you.”

“Well, you’re doing a damn good job for someone who isn’t trying,” you replied. You blinked hard, furious at your body for even considering tears when rage was so much more useful.

“Listen to me,” you said. “Find what you need to find, and then you get the hell out. No extra detours or noble self-sacrificing bullshit. Got it?”

“I’ll be careful,” he said.

There was more noise on his end now. Another voice. Hotch, maybe, through the sealed door closing him inside. 

“I have to go,” Spencer said, pausing before he added: “I love you.”

You dug your fingernails into your palm.

“Don’t say it like that,” you whispered.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re only saying it in case it’s the last thing I hear from you.”

He took a shaky breath. “I’m saying it because it’s true,” he said firmly. “And because I want to say it. That’s all, okay? I love you.”

You swallowed, and when you spoke again, your voice was steadier than you felt. “I love you too. Stop being a hero and get back to me.”

“I will.”

The line clicked dead a second later.

You kept the phone against your ear long after there was nothing left to hear.

—

The next time Spencer let himself think about you, really think about you, he was sitting on the floor with poison in the air and sweat cooling at the back of his neck.

By then, his body had started showing signs of distress. The cough had come first, small enough that he tried to classify it as irritation from the environment, from dust, from the pollen in the garden outside. Then came the ache behind his eyes, the heat under his skin, the faint tremor in his hand that he could ignore if he kept it busy, if he kept turning pages, pulling drawers open, reading notes, forcing pieces of Dr. Nichols’ life into order.

He was aware of each symptom with miserable precision. He knew exactly what they meant. He also knew the unsub was still out there with a larger attack planned, so his personal awareness changed nothing. His body could be evidence later. Right now, he had work to do.

Still, there came a point when he had to step back and admit how serious things had gotten.

Garcia’s voice shook through the phone when he asked her to record a message for his mother. She tried to be brave about it. He could hear the effort it took, could picture her sitting at her desk with all that color and joy around her while despair leaked through anyway. 

He recorded his message to Diana as steadily as he could.

He said all the things a son should say when he’s trying very hard to say goodbye without sounding like he’s saying goodbye. He kept his voice gentle. He tried not to cough in the middle of it. He nearly failed once, clearing his throat to get the urge to pass. When he finished, Garcia was silent for a few seconds.

“Okay,” she said finally, and he could hear the tears in her voice. “Okay, I got it.”

Spencer swallowed. He was covered in a sheen of sweat. His throat hurt. Everything hurt, actually, in a diffuse, widespread way he disliked for its lack of specificity. “Garcia?”

“Yeah, boy wonder?”

He closed his eyes.

He had been trying not to ask. He had been trying to tell himself that the message to his mother was already indulgent enough, that he did not have the right to take more time away from the case for something that served no immediate operational purpose. But the thought of you never getting to hear his voice again if this went badly kept pressing against the inside of his ribs until it became impossible to ignore.

“Can you, uh, record one more message for me?”

Garcia inhaled sharply.

“Oh,” she whispered, understanding immediately. “Of course. Yeah, of course I can.”

Spencer opened his eyes and looked around the room. Papers were spread across the floor in front of him, Dr. Nichols’ handwriting scrawled across margins and folders and binders. Somewhere outside, people were moving around in protective suits, building a perimeter, preparing to come in as soon as they could. Out in the field somewhere, you were trying to work despite your fury and fear. He knew that with the same certainty he knew his own name, the same certainty with which he could recite the periodic table in order by atomic number. You were angry because you were scared. You were scared because you loved him. That thought — that you loved him — probably should have brought some comfort; instead, it made his chest ache worse than the cough did.

“Ready whenever you are,” Garcia said, softly enough that it almost didn’t sound like her.

Spencer tried to take a breath deep enough to steady himself. It caught halfway down. He turned aside, coughed hard into his elbow, and waited for the room to stop tilting.

Then he looked down at his hands, at the pale dust along his cuffs, at the pulse ticking too fast beneath his skin, and began.

“Hi,” he said simply, because every other possible opening sounded wrong — either too formal, or too casual, or too final. He let out a breath that was almost a laugh and tried again. “You’re going to hate this. I know that. You’re probably already furious with me, and you’ve got every right to be, so if this message makes you even more furious, I’m sorry.

“I just need you to know that I wasn’t trying to be a martyr. I know you’ll think that’s what it was, some ‘noble self-sacrificing bullshit’ like you called it earlier, but that’s not what this is for me.” He paused, eyes stinging. “I keep thinking if I find the right thing fast enough, if I can connect the dots, then maybe we can stop the next attack and everyone at the hospital would have a chance. Maybe I would, too.

“And I keep thinking about you. I don’t know if that helps or makes it worse, but I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I thought about you being mad at me, and about the way you must’ve been rolling your eyes when we were on the phone earlier, and about your apartment, and the coffee you pretend to like when I make it too sweet, and the way you look at me when you think I’m not paying attention.”

A cough broke through him. He bent forward, eyes squeezed shut, one hand braced against the floor. It took too long to stop. When he lifted the phone again, his voice had gone hoarse around the edges.

“I wanted more time with you,” he said. “I wanted more ordinary days. That’s— that’s what I keep coming back to, which is strange, because technically, ordinary days are the least remarkable kind, but I think those are the ones I’ll miss the most. You at my desk stealing pens, and you pretending not to smile when I say something you think is ridiculous, and you falling asleep before the end of a movie and denying it in the morning. 

“And if you’re hearing this, I know you’re going to want to do the thing where you decide this proves some terrible theory you’ve always had about what happens when you let people matter too much, but…”

His eyes burned. Because of the fever, maybe. Heartbreak, definitely.

“Don’t do that. Please, please don’t do that. Don’t let this be the reason you shut everyone out. I know it took a lot for you to let me in, and I know asking this is unfair, and I hate that I can’t say it to you in person, but I need you to keep letting people love you. You have to let them stay.”

He coughed again, violent enough this time to make his whole chest seize. 

“The team loves you,” he said. “You know that. Garcia will smother you with affection and care packages. Morgan will check on you constantly and won’t even pretend to act cool about it. JJ will know when you’re lying about being fine before you can finish a sentence, so don’t try. Emily will sit beside you casually and pretend she isn’t worried, because she knows you hate being handled.” A faint, broken smile pulled at his mouth. “Rossi will feed you, so get ready to eat a lot of pasta. Hotch will give you space and somehow still make sure you’re never truly alone.”

He swallowed hard.

“And Elle… Call her. Please. She was there once when you needed her. Let her be there for you again.”

The words felt intrusive, maybe, as if he was reaching into parts of your life he had no right to touch. But if this was all he got, if this recording became the last shape his love ever took, he needed it to be honest.

“I don’t want you to be alone,” he said, voice breaking. “I don’t want you to decide that losing me means you were right to keep the door locked. I can’t bear it, so please, do this for me.”

He pressed his thumb into the crease of his palm until the tremor in it settled.

“I love you. I know you know that. I know I say it all the time now, probably too much, and if I get out of here you can complain about that for the rest of our lives and I won’t argue with you. But if I don’t,” he said, forcing himself through it, “then I need you to know that loving you was never something I regretted. Not for one second. And being loved by you was… it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

A sound came suddenly from outside the room. Movement. Voices. The heavy plastic rustle of protective equipment. He looked up and saw shapes gathering beyond the doorway, bright orange suits and face shields and Dr. Kimura’s focused eyes as her team entered the house.

He looked back down at the phone. There was so much more he wanted to say. There would always be so much more. That was the terrible thing about loving you — no matter what he said, it could never be enough to cover it.

“I have to go,” he said. “I’m going to try very hard to make sure you never have to hear this.”

Then, quieter:

“I love you. I really, really love you. Keep letting people in, okay?”

Garcia made a tiny broken sound through the phone, then cut the recording and the call before he could hear her cry.

—

The day stitched together in pieces after that.

Rossi and Emily kept you updated as information moved through the team, and Morgan called whenever there was a concrete update on what was going on in the house. Garcia called once too, telling you they had a name now — Chad Brown — and that Reid had been right about Nichols not working alone. There was a protégé. A student. A man with knowledge and access and ideology and rage.

You remember standing with your arms folded so tightly across your chest that your shoulders started to ache. You remember Emily offering you water and you pretending not to hear her. You remember Rossi telling you to sit down, not as an order, but in that low, paternal way of his that made you want to be even more difficult on principle. You remember staring at your phone until your eyes burned, as if your fear could force Spencer’s name to appear on the screen.

Mostly, you remember waiting.

When Hotch finally called, his voice was steady. They had Brown. The attack on the Metro had been stopped. Reid and Kimura’s team found what they needed. Reid was out of the house and had been decontaminated. Paramedics had transported him to the hospital where the treatment was being prepared, and Kimura was hopeful, and they would know more soon. 

“Is he conscious?” you asked.

“Last we heard, yes,” Hotch said, and the words scraped through you. “Morgan is on the way to Walter Reed now to see what’s going on.”

You wanted to ask if Spencer had asked for you, but you didn’t. It felt too naked, somehow. Too pathetic. So you just said, “I’m on my way,” and Hotch didn’t waste anyone’s time pretending he could stop you.

Garcia found you before you made it out of the building.

She looked wrecked. Her mascara had smudged at the corners, and she had one hand wrapped around a cup of coffee she clearly hadn’t touched. She stopped in front of you like she wanted to hug you, then thought better of it, although it looked like that decision pained her immensely.

“He really, really loves you,” she said quietly.

The words were so abrupt, so earnest, that for a second you could only stare at her.

“I know,” you said.

Garcia nodded too fast. “I know you know. I just—” Her mouth trembled, and she pressed it together. “I just needed to make sure. I wanted you to hear it.”

Something about her face made your chest tighten. There was more to it — something she wasn’t saying, something she was holding back. You could see it in the way she looked at you, nervous and guilty and gentle all at once.

But Penelope Garcia, for all her usual glitter and gossip and inability to mind her own business, could keep a secret when it really mattered.

So you let her.

You just reached for her hand, squeezed once, and pushed through the doors to the parking lot.

—

Now, as you sit in an ungodly stiff chair next to his hospital bed, Spencer’s fingers move against yours.

It’s small. Barely anything. An involuntary twitch, maybe. But it’s enough of a movement to assume it could mean something bigger if you’re desperate enough, and apparently you are, because you go still so suddenly Morgan looks up from the cup of red Jell-O he’s been eating with a plastic spoon.

“Reid?” Morgan says.

Spencer’s brow furrows.

For a second, nothing happens. Then his eyes open slowly, heavy and unfocused at first. He blinks up at the ceiling like he’s trying very hard to decipher what type of room the ceiling belongs to.

Morgan moves, relief breaking over his face. “Hey, kid.”

Spencer’s gaze shifts toward him. It takes effort. Everything about his movements right now looks like it takes effort.

His voice comes out rough. “Are you eating Jell-O?”

Morgan cracks a wide grin. “Man, you almost die from a bioweapon and this is what you wake up concerned about?”

Spencer blinks slowly. “Is there any more Jell-O?”

Your laugh escapes before you can stop it. It’s small and wet and humiliating, and Spencer’s eyes move immediately toward the sound.

The drowsy confusion in his face shifts, turning into something so relieved and so sorry that all the air you just got back leaves you again.

“Hi,” he says.

You swallow. “Hi.”

Morgan looks between the two of you for half a second, then pushes himself out of his chair. “I’m gonna go tell Dr. Kimura that Sleeping Beauty here is awake,” he says. “And apparently find more Jell-O.”

Spencer’s mouth twitches faintly. “Green, if they have it.”

“You’re lucky I’m pretty much obligated to be nice to you right now,” Morgan tells him sarcastically, but his hand lands on Spencer’s shoulder for a second before he leaves, firm and warm and full of things he’ll probably never say out loud.

Then the door closes behind him and the room is quiet again, but it isn’t the same quiet as before, because Spencer’s awake now. His eyes are open. His fingers are caught between yours, weak but there, his thumb making the smallest attempt to move against your skin.

There’s too many feelings to parse through. Relief, first. Relief so enormous it can barely fit inside your body, but somehow it does, pressing against the anger and terror and frustration you also feel, against all the miserable little aftershocks of the day. 

For a moment, you just look at him.

He looks terrible. Pale, sweaty, hair mussed, lips dry, throat probably raw from coughing and whatever else his body has been through. He also looks alive.

You want to kiss him.

You want to hit him.

You settle for tightening your hold on his hand and saying, very evenly, “I’m so mad at you.”

Spencer closes his eyes for a second.

“I know.”

“No, you don’t,” you say, because the calmness is already slipping. “You really, truly do not. I possess levels of anger right now that are previously unrecorded in modern psychiatry.”

His mouth curves faintly, but it fades almost immediately. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be.”

Spencer looks at you for a long second, too tired to dress the truth up into anything gentle. “I’m sorry for what it did to you,” he says. His voice is rough and low, dragged out of a throat that still isn’t ready to cooperate. “I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, and I’m sorry that when I did, I couldn’t tell you what you wanted to hear.” He pauses, breathing carefully. “But if I had left before we found what we needed, people could have died.”

You stare at the bed rail.

You know the exact reason behind the choice he made, because you’ve made choices with the same bones. Spencer’s been on the other side of this with you before. Not with anthrax in your lungs, obviously, but in basements and alleys and warehouses and too many places where you put the job before your own safety without a second thought. 

You hate that. You hate him a little for making it impossible to be purely angry.

“I know,” you say, voice quieter now. “I know you’re right. Or close enough to right that I can’t even enjoy being mad at you properly.”

Spencer gives you a weak, exhausted almost-smile. “I’m sorry for that too.”

You look back at him, and the sight of him ruins you all over again.

“You could have died, Spencer,” you manage to say in a hoarse whisper.

His expression changes. The humor disappears, what little there was of it. His fingers tighten around yours with visible effort.

Your voice shakes, and that irritates you enough to make your eyes burn. “I know you. I know you weren’t actually trying to be some self-sacrificing hero, even though you have a very irritating talent for landing there by accident. I know I probably would’ve done the same thing, which is frustrating because it makes my moral high ground very unstable.” You inhale, careful and shaky. “But I was so scared, Spencer. I was so scared I couldn’t pretend to be normal about it.”

He looks at you like that sentence hurts him worse than anything else.

“I thought about that too much,” he says.

You frown. “About what?”

“You. Being scared.” His eyes drift down to your joined hands. “I thought about you being angry, and about you pretending you weren’t afraid because Rossi and Emily were there. I kept thinking…” His brow creases faintly, concentration pulling through the haze. “I kept thinking if I could just find the answer, then maybe I’d get back to you before anyone else could see your fear. I knew you’d hate it if they could.”

You let out a breath that breaks in the middle. Your free hand lifts before you really decide to move, fingers hovering near his face. He watches you do it, quiet and trusting, and that almost makes it worse.

You brush his hair back from his forehead, and his eyes close.

The simple trust of it dismantles you a little. You had spent the whole day imagining him behind sealed doors, breathing poisoned air, making logical arguments while his body betrayed him by degrees. Now he’s here, under your hand, alive and exhausted and still somehow trying to be gentle with you when he’s the one in the hospital bed.

“I love you,” you say. “And I genuinely hate you right now.”

Spencer’s eyes open again, slow and soft. “That seems pretty fair.”

Your laugh comes out wet. You look away, but he squeezes your hand before you can get far.

“I love you too,” he says. “And I know it doesn’t make it better, but I was trying to make sure I could get back to you. That was the point. I know it looked like I was choosing the work over everything else, but I wasn’t. The work was my way out.”

You turn back toward him.

He looks exhausted by the length of his own words, breaths a little uneven, but his eyes stay on yours. 

“I know,” you whisper, because you do. “I know, Spence.”

You lean forward carefully, giving him time to shift away if he needs to, but he doesn’t. He tilts his face up the smallest amount, and you press your mouth to his.

The kiss is soft by necessity. There’s no heat in it, not really — not the kind the two of you are used to. His lips are chapped and warm and careful beneath yours, and for one long, holy second, all you can focus on is that you get to do this again. You get to kiss him in a hospital bed and hate the reason for it, but you still have him here to kiss. You get the fragile press of his mouth, the weak squeeze of his fingers around yours, the proof that his body is still a living thing and not a memory you’ll spend the rest of your life surviving. It isn’t enough to undo the day, but it gives your fear and love somewhere to go. It’s a promise made with whatever energy he has left.

When you pull back, your forehead rests near his temple.

“You scared the hell out of me,” you murmur.

“I know.

“If you ever do that again, I will murder you myself.”

“I know.”

“You’re impossible.”

“I know.”

You pull back enough to glare at him. “Normally you’d argue with at least one of those.”

His tired smile is tiny and perfect. “I’m conserving my energy.”

The door opens after a soft knock, and Dr. Kimura steps in with Morgan hovering behind her, a green Jell-O cup in one hand and a fresh coffee in the other.

“Look who I found,” Morgan says.

Spencer nods at Dr. Kimura before his gaze flicks to the Jell-O. “Is that for me?”

Morgan chuckles. “Yeah, kid, it’s for you.”

You wipe quickly under one eye with your thumb and try to regain whatever dignity you can scrape off the floor.

Kimura checks Spencer over. Vitals, pupils, lungs, cognitive questions he answers with enough impressive precision to make Kimura’s eyebrows lift. Morgan stays near the doorway, and you don’t let go of Spencer’s hand the entire time.

Eventually, the room settles again.

Morgan leaves the Jell-O on the tray and tells Spencer not to be a pain in the ass to you or any of the nurses. Dr. Kimura tells him he’s on the mend but needs a lot of rest, and Spencer nods, probably because he knows you wouldn’t give him a choice anyway.

Once it’s just the two of you alone in the room again, your anger has gone a bit quieter. It’s still there, and knowing you, it’ll probably stay there for a while, tucked stubbornly behind your ribs, ever-present but currently overshadowed by disgusting amounts of relief and love.

Spencer’s eyes are already slipping closed.

“Sleep,” you say.

“Will you stay?”

You sit back and wrap both hands around his. “Yeah, genius, I’ll stay. Obviously.”

The corner of his mouth turns up into a crooked, sleepy smile. “Good.”

It takes less than a minute for him to fall asleep again.

This time, watching him sleep doesn’t feel like waiting for the floor to disappear beneath you. His breathing is still rougher than you’d like, and his face is still too pale, but the monitor keeps a steady rhythm. Alive. Alive. Alive. His fingers are warm under yours, and there’s a green Jell-O cup sitting unopened on the tray because, apparently, even near-death experiences cannot kill Spencer Reid’s bizarre snack preferences. You know he’ll ask for a spoon as soon as he’s awake again and his appetite comes back.

You do not know about the recording.

You do not know that somewhere, locked carefully behind Garcia’s cyberdefenses, there is a version of his voice trying to love you through the worst possible outcome. You do not know that he spent the better part of what might’ve been his last hour on earth trying to make sure you would be okay. 

But maybe it’s better you don’t know.

You don’t need the version of him that said goodbye. You need this one: alive, stubborn, fever-warm, breathing steadily with Jell-O waiting untouched beside him.

His fingers twitch against yours again in sleep.

You keep holding on. You hold on, and you stay.

ᝰ.ᐟ

this fic is part of the greenaway!reader universe/series! you can read more about this pairing here ♥️

"Like, it makes sense to get it out of the way, you know."

"Yes. Figure out what works for us, note it down so we'll remember." he replies, nodding along.

"Right. Establish boundaries. Well, make adjustments to the current ones and stuff." you glance down at the journal lying innocently beside you, opened to a new page with the word "Addendum re: Kissing" written on top.

Spencer's sat facing you, cross-legged and casual like this is no big deal, him on your bed. And maybe it's not. This isn't the first time he's sat across you after all, a spill of spindly limbs and shining amber eyes. Some traitorous part of you thinks, hopes, it won't be the last.

That might be acceptable, but the context is new.

"Okay, so how do we… you know," your hands flail uselessly.

"Kiss?" Spencer says. He tilts his head with a small, teasing smile, bares the line of his jaw and neck and oh maybe you shouldn't have suggested this in the first place. Maybe you should relocate somewhere less… personal. "Two people normally just get close enough to press their lips together."

"Don't make fun of me." You grumble.

"Sorry." He doesn't sound it. You watch him scoot closer, his knee touching your thigh. "You're sure?"

"Yeah."

"Because you can, you know, back out." he gets serious quickly. His fidgeting stops and he rests a warm hand over your knee, "We don't actually have to do this, if you're not comfortable."

"I am!" you squeak, flushing at the pathetic sound. "I-I mean, I'm comfortable and I want to get it over with." you wince at how crass you make it sound, and curse the version of yourself from yesterday who came up with this idea. The one that panicked over an offhand comment from your best friend after you told her that yes I will be bringing a plus one, I'm actually dating someone right now.

Melissa had gushed on and on about how hot and steamy the honeymoon phase of a new relationship is.

You wouldn't know. This whole thing with Spencer is a farce, there's no phases to speak of. Just friendship—and lightly begrudging, on your part.

But of course, your brain had latched on to the words, spiraled at the idea that people expect a newly dating couple to act a certain way. And not that you want to bend to these arbitrary norms, but still. You don't want to be caught off guard.

So you'd suggested this. Practice, a trial, preparation.

On kissing.

And where else would be the most logical spot to practice than in your apartment? At the time, it seemed like a good idea. It's close, he's been here before, and it's private.

Now, you're starting to lose your nerve.

Spencer is still, like he's waiting for you to make the first move.

"You don't think I'm just trying to make out with you for the hell of it, do you?" you ask Spencer, teeth worrying your lower lip.

He laughs, soft and painfully endeared. "No. Although, I wouldn't be mad about that either."

You smack his hand off your knee. "Shut up."

"Okay." he's grinning. Hasn't stopped since you've started this conversation, actually. You're here, feeling raw and tender like skin on the verge of breaking, barely able to breathe, and he's grinning. Has the gall to tease you. "I get it though. It's less of a practice and more… doing it on our own terms. In a controlled environment."

You nod, deflating with relief. "Yes. And no one to witness us flounder around awkwardly."

"You really think I'm that bad at kissing?"

"I didn't say that!" You huff, then add, "Should I take my glasses off?"

"Are you planning to wear contacts to the wedding?"

"No."

"Then keep them on. You know, for realism."

You can't stop the soft giggle from escaping. "Right, yeah. Realism."

"Are you done stalling?" Spencer asks.

"I'm not stalling!" To prove your point, you shuffle even closer, the bed dipping beneath your combined weight. Immediately, it's dizzying. His scent is even more potent up close. Nutmeg and cedar and who knows what else, all you know is it's borderline intoxicating. Spencer's eyes are fixed upon you. On your lips, the pen in his hand carelessly tossed aside.

Your eyes follow the pen as it drops to the bed, but his hand curls warm and firm over your cheek and tilts your head up. He's much closer now, lashes shading his pretty brown eyes. Pupils blown wide as he holds you there and lets the moment linger.

Your nerves feel serrated, the brief spark of courage stretched torturously thin. You take the plunge before it snaps, close your eyes and bridge the gap.

It's awkward. Skin smushed against skin, clumsy and juvenile.

His lips are chapped. Even with your stiff, tight lipped peck, you can feel that, small bits of skin that tug and shift as he moves and kisses you back. Nothing more than a brush at first, a slow, warm thing that you can't help but melt into. Can't help but return, just as tender, your lips finally moving like shaping out a question. Testing waters and boundaries.

It's been years, embarrassingly, since you've kissed anyone, but muscle memory kicks in like a dying ember catching kindling. Your mouth parts and welcomes his tongue. Deepens it. Pushes into him where he's treading lightly.

A faint taste of mint clings to his lips, cool unbidden sharpness.

You hear him groan, feel slim fingers tangling into your hair as he matches your passion, and he's kissing you now, properly, deeply, the type of toe curling, movie-esque kiss you'd convinced yourself you don't want, don't need.

All those years of repressed emotions claws back to the surface, curling hot and raw low in your belly and between your legs. Some deep instinctual part of you knows he's done irreparable damage, cracked open something you thought you had ensconced under layers of ambition and self preservation.

Each slide of his lips weakens whatever fortress you'd previously thought impenetrable.

He kisses you again, and again, and again.

It's slow. Careful, like he's mapping your mouth, testing out the perfect angle of his palm to cradle the curve of your jaw. Different from any kiss you've had before. Deeper, more sure, despite the strange ambiguity of this relationship.

Faint sounds form and ascend from the back of your throat, sounds that he swallows before they take shape beyond your lips. Your own hands reach up, clutch a handful of his sweater. Beneath fabric and skin and bone, his heart pulses like it's determined to rupture straight out his ribs.

You find yourself wanting to feel more of that. Chest to chest, just to figure out if your hearts are as in sync as your mouths are.

You've moved without realizing. Closer, and closer still, until he's toppling back from your insistence, the physical weight of you burdened tenfold by the frightening gravity of your desire.

His hands leave your face in favor of steadying your hips. Fingers dig in, clinging too tight, too honest, not enough.

You feel teeth catch on your bottom lip, and you're not sure if it's a mistake or something deliberate, something heavy with meaning. You wonder if he means to repeat it.

It isn't meant to get this far.

The break is abrupt, strident, punctuated with a heady, wet sound, and the bitter disappointment of things parting too soon. Spencer's fully supine, blinking up at you on top of him.

You're nestled snug between his legs, staring down at the blurred edges of him. Your glasses have fogged, and yet there's so much of him everywhere. Lips saturated with each other, the firm, unmistakable press of his arousal against your stomach.

Fuck.

Neither of you speak. The silence curdles into something heavy and uncomfortable.

"Sorry," you blurt out, scrambling back for space, desperate to replace the silence with anything. "Sorry, that—um, sorry."

His hands fall from your body. Prop him back up to sitting, slow and methodological. He clears his throat. You notice, for the first time, how pink he's gotten.

He shifts his hips. Adjusts his pants. You keep your gaze on the now crumpled page of your journal, and pretend not to see.

Addendum re: Kissing.

What the actual fuck are you even supposed to write there now?

"So, that probably wouldn't be appropriate to do in public." Spencer says.

Your laugh comes out shrill. When you glance at him, he's smiling back, bashful, a little tense. But smiling.

"Absolutely not," you take your glasses off, wipe the foggy residue away and welcome a sharper world, "I'm sorry, seriously. I feel like I attacked you."

"I've been attacked many times, but attack by kiss is very new to me, so thank you."

"Spencer."

The pink creeps up his ears, down his neck.He clears his throat again. "It's all right. I'm sorry too, for, you know… enjoying it too much."

"It's fine, at least I know I haven't gotten bad at it," you say, reaching for the pen which had miraculously survived the impromptu make out session and hadn't rolled off the bed, but find that you're still blanking on what to write. You look at him again, "I'm very much out of practice."

"I couldn't tell," he pats a hand over his sweater, smoothing down where you've clung as if that would somehow erase the fact that you had just been on top of him, tongue deep in his mouth. But he tries to redirect focus, perhaps for your sake, by taking the journal. "So what have we learned?"

"That we're really good at it?" That you want to do it again. That you've missed it. That your body isn't as immune to this as you had thought.

You expect a laugh, but Spencer gives you a look that suggests perhaps his thoughts aren't so far from your own.

You squirm, burning under his gaze. You roll the pen over to him, willing your heart to stop racing and your lips to stop tingling. You want to crawl under the covers and hide. You want to lean over and kiss him again.

He scribbles something on the page, and it takes you a moment to decipher as it's upside down from your perspective.

No making out in public or private.

"We already had that in the original." You point out.

"And then promptly broke it." He underlines the sentence twice. Under it, he adds, No kissing with tongue, and your gut twists sharply in disappointment. You want to throw up.

Lastly, he writes keep kisses brief.

"There," he turns the journal, "I don't think there's anything else, but tell me if you have any suggestions."

You pore over it like you haven't already decided the entire page is an insult. Your glasses slip down your nose and Spencer pushes it up like it's reflex, and it's all very distressing. The kiss, this strange robotic focus you've both decided to hide behind, and now these rules.

You shrug. "Um, maybe we should make it… nice? Enjoyable? There's no reason we should be like, weird and stiff about it."

Spencer nods and add that. His voice is low, hoarse when he says, "But not too enjoyable. Wouldn't want a repeat of earlier."

"Exactly. Of course not." You lie.

Teaching higher education does have a tendency to be slightly more lenient on these things. You know professors who do it. Higher than you in the hierarchy. Figures of authority, respected people, not just the slacker newbies or the lazy hotshots.

But you love being in class. You love physically standing in a room and coaxing ideas and participation from your students. You wouldn't be in this field, barely making money doing this if you didn't.

And most days, that love and passion is enough to push you forward, even when you're swamped. Even when it's socially acceptable to take the time off to catch up on research or grading, the same way some students will skip one class to prepare for another.

Today is not one of those days.

Last night, you'd received two emails back to back, both of which contain bad news. You'd lost several minutes just staring before gathering enough courage to read, and even then, you're convinced the universe is conspiring against your academic career.

Rejected for a scholarship grant from a few months ago—the one you had been hoping would allow you to teach a lower course load for the next semester.

As if that isn't enough, your PhD. advisor returned your initial data findings with a very succinct note on top of the document: Insufficient. Stop skipping over steps and go back to close reading the material before applying theory. And then, beneath it, a long list of suggested books to add for your related literature.

You thought you'd gotten over it last night—already spent an embarrassing two hours just sobbing over the amount of work you'd have to do. Woken up to disgusting, puffy eyelids in the morning, the color of an angry rash.

But no, this morning, somewhere between your coffee and brushing your hair, the tears inevitably started to fall again. Creasing the impeccably applied makeup that was meant to hide the evidence of your tears last night.

Despite your notes being in perfect order, and your discussion outlines ready to go, you do not feel like you're in any state to be seen in public, much less teach, so you do something you've never done before in your four years of teaching: you cancel your classes. For attendance, you place a discussion board up and ask them to submit a 200 word discussion about the poetry reading assignment you had previously assigned.

It's early enough in the morning that none of your students would have been in class yet, though some early risers reply with thoughtful platitudes. You'll deal with the rest of the paperwork later.

With that taken care of, you take the biggest, most grounding inhale before dealing with the brunt of your work: your dissertation.

Insufficient data. It blinks up at you like a curse, and you almost want to throw your laptop out of rage. Right, because reading through six books isn't enough. Like your advisor hadn't looked through your proposal, and fucking accepted it before you started in earnest.

The rest of the day is a haze. Truthfully, you don't get anything done, simply staring at the words before you as if they've somehow transformed into an incomprehensible language. You try searching for the reference recommendations, intending to make some headway through the readings, but only find half in the local libraries. Some bookstores carry the titles, but between the shipping and the prices of each book, there's no way you could afford all of them. You're too tired to try searching through the annals of the internet.

By the time night arrives, your vision has started swimming. No amount of blinking makes the stinging in your eyes go away. Possibly a mixture of strain and the excessive crying you've done all day. There's a dull throb by your temples and the space between your brows feel like something's trying to push from inside out. You haven't had anything to eat.

Still in this frustrating, zombie-like haze, you sent and email the classes you have tomorrow and cancel them too.

Two canceled classes in a row. That's a new record.

With a sigh, you force yourself to eat a couple of crackers until the pain in your stomach subsides and your apartment stops swimming whenever your gaze lifts from your laptop. Sleep tugs at you, sweet and insistent, just as the last of your laptop's battery drains.

You wake up to knocking. Sunlight drenches your apartment in brilliant gold, harsh in its brightness, which tells you it's late in the morning. Possibly noon. The screen of your laptop remains blank when you press the power button, indicating it's dead, so you reach for your phone to check the time.

1:26 pm.

Well shit.

The knocking persists, and you're forced to ignore the 40-something notifications on the screen in favor of whoever is on the other side of your door.

"Hold on, I'm coming." you push your glasses up your nose, blinking as the world sharpens and comes into focus, and tug a robe over yourself. There's an incessant throbbing at your temples and your legs feel wobbly. Fuck's sake.

You crack your door open with a grumpy frown.

Spencer Reid stands right outside, properly dressed and bouncing on the balls of his feet nervously. His face is filled with an innocent concern that morphs to confusion, then slight amusement, before settling back to concern.

Your frown deepens. "What're you doing here?"

"It's the second day you've missed work," he says, voice low and soothing, like he's afraid you'd slam the door in his face. "Didn't return any of my texts, or Carrie Myers'. We both agreed it wasn't like you, so I came to check."

"Don't you have classes?"

"It's my lunch break." he lifts a paper bag, smiling. "I brought ramen. I figured you'd want something with a broth, in case you're sick… are you sick?"

"No," you admit, opening the door wider to let him in. "I'm not sick, it's—wait, how'd you even get my address?"

"Carrie gave it to me." He sets the food on the kitchenette in the corner. He sweeps his gaze around, studying the state of your studio, and you wince at what he might find. What he might think.

"Are you sure you're not sick? Your eyes and nose are all red, there's tissue everywhere. I was debating buying some medicine too. People tend to get some form of cold as the weather gets lower due to the—"

"I'm not sick, Spencer, but thank you for your concern." You wave him off.

"Oh… then why?"

"It's my dissertation." you force a laugh, self deprecating.

He looks at you blankly.

You stare back at him. When it becomes clear he expects more explanation, you add:

"I got my advisor's feedback for my initial findings."

Spencer blinks, like he's trying to decipher a puzzle from your words. "You skipped classes because you got feedback?"

You cheeks burn, though you're not sure if it's from indignation or embarrassment. Most post-grad students understand that 'feedback' is code for I spent the next several hours sobbing and contemplating my life choices.

"Have you never had a draft return to you with so many corrections you want to, I don't know, just throw up?" you ask instead.

It's not his fault, you tell yourself, it isn't a universal experience to have crippling anxiety over feedback, after all.

He shakes his head. "Well, no. Feedback is part of the academic process. I find it to be very stimulating."

"Must be nice." you mutter, "Really, you've never cried over a shitty draft? Or a failed test?"

"I've never failed a test." He winces as he says it, like he realizes his words would just make you feel worse right after they're out of his mouth.

And he's right. Tears spring to your eyes at the unfairness of it all. Right. Of course. At some point, you must have forgotten he's a genius. How silly of you to think you're somewhat equals, just because you're friends. No, he outclasses you in experience, education, and intellect. He doesn't struggle over this the same way you do.

"Well, fuck, good for you." you try to say it as a joke, but the words fracture around a sob.

"I meant–" he isn't able to tell you what he meant as your embarrassingly loud sobs interrupt his words, and then he's right there, crossing the space and gathering you into his arms as fresh tears streak hot down your cheeks.

The world turns to slurry when he takes your glasses off and places it on the counter. Then, ever so gently, his hand cups the back of your head, gently guiding you into his chest.

You don't fight it. It's inexcusable, how many times you'd cried the past two days, but there doesn't seem to be an end to your tears. Especially now, when Spencer's got you wrapped up and pressed against him like you're sacred and fragile, something he wants to protect.

Something splinters inside you, and it erupts through your tears, free flowing and spurned on by his warmth. By his comfort. No one's held you like this in ages, you realize. You shudder in his arms, suddenly cold.

"Shhh," you feel his chin pressing against your hair, his free hand rubbing circles over your back. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, just let it out."

You sob, half convinced you're ruining his blazer, and too exhausted to care. Beneath your cheek, the fabric grows damp from your tears, and sob even more, guilty now for dumping this on him when he was probably expecting someone delirious from fever. Instead, he's saddled with a weepy, mess feeling ashamed for being so vulnerable, and god you don't even want to imagine how you look right now.

Even more, it all feels so right, being held like this. Cocooned in his warmth and the clean, perfect smell of him, and the pressure of his arms around your body like a grounding force when you've been sick with anxiety and self doubt and stress.

"Sorry," you mumble voice thin and watery with tears.

"Don't apologize for having feelings and caring about your work." he whispers, the circles on your back continuing despite your tears subsiding. "I may not have the exact same experience, but I do understand the… the feelings of inadequacy and frustration and how overwhelming it can all get."

"No, like, I'm sorry for ruining your clothes. And making you worry."

"Don't be," you feel a deep sigh heave out of his body, the air tickling your ear. "If you're at a point where you've missed two days of work because of this, then you clearly needed a good cry, darling."

"I thought we agreed to only use that in public."

He laughs, slowly unwinds himself from you. His big hands cup your face, tilting your head up to look at him. Big, earnest eyes stare at you, the light making them glint amber. "I think we can make an exception right now."

You feel the swell of his thumbs smoothing over your skin, catching the lingering tears with a gentleness that makes you want to start crying all over again. And you must look like you're about to, possibly from a swift glassiness covering your eyes, or a quiver of your lips, because his whole face softens with even more concern.

He says your name and you watch his lips wrap around the syllables, languid and sure, like he likes the taste of them on his tongue.

Before you know it, he's pressing those same lips on your forehead, quick and chaste, leaving the patch of skin burning. His thumbs keep swiping over your cheekbone, back and forth, like it's instinct. And maybe it is. It's the same motion he does over your knuckles when he holds your hand.

You barely manage to keep yourself upright from the realization.

"I have to go back," he says, sounding apologetic, "I have a lecture at 2 that I can't miss, but I'll come here as soon as everything's dismissed, okay?"

"You don't have to." Your insistence is beginning to sound ridiculous, but he doesn't make fun, or get frustrated.

"I know." he presses his lips to your forehead again, a brief, almost noncommittal thing you're worried will occupy your mind for the rest of the day. "I know. But I want to, really."

And it's stupid, the way your chest tightens at that softness, the way you just want to sink into it and let him envelop you.

"Eat. Please." his head jerks back to the counter, at the takeout ramen he thoughtfully brought.

You nod, numbed by surprise and anxiety and an inexplicable, vague ache beneath your sternum.

You wish you could pinpoint where it is, file it as something fixable through medication or surgery, but you know deep in your gut that it isn't that type of affliction. If only it is; if only you could be rid of it through some magic pill.

Spencer looks like he wants to say more, but he lets his hands drop to your shoulders instead, squeezing there firmly, and then he's walking out the door, leaving you reeling in the middle of your messy apartment.

It takes a while before you're able to unroot your feet from the spot, blinking dumbly at the food he's set for you. Finally, you slump into your little dining set to eat, fully braced to have some cold noodles, but to your surprise, the whole thing is still warm.

Funnily enough, you don't think it's the cause of the warmth spreading through your whole body.

You apartment is a mess. Not in a quirky, lived in way either, but reaching slob levels, someone-might-suspect-you-of-hoarding kind of mess. Clothes strewn about, mixed with books and pens, stacks of papers from your students everywhere, like your small studio is a weird stew of everything that makes up who you are.

You're a little embarrassed that Spencer had to see it in this state—it isn't normally this bad, but the past few days have been so busy and then you hadn't had time to tidy up any of it. If you'd known he's coming, you would have at least hidden the worst of it. Shoved them under your bed or the closet, kept up the impression that you've got everything under perfect control.

But, having something in your stomach has given you some clarity. You move, albeit mechanically, to tidy your space, stacking back the books you don't even remember grabbing from the shelves, making your bed, clearing the takeout and other trash that might still be around.

Once your studio resembles something respectably habitable, you finally trudge to the bathroom. The woman in the mirror stares back at you, puffy-eyed and familiar, with skin that's somehow both dry and disgustingly oily. You wince.

A small part of you twists when you realize Spencer saw you like this. Unadorned, raw, not very pretty. But it prompts annoyance from a bigger, more rational part, because why the hell do you care that Spencer Reid saw you in such a state?

It's the vulnerability, you think, it's not fun to be taken by surprise when you're in such a state, especially by someone who has never seen you this way before. After all, you've always prided yourself in appearing competent and professional, so as to avoid the judgment.

The small part tells you it's also embarrassment—he just saw you without make up, held you when you hadn't even made an effort to smell nice. Tells you that, as much as you'd like to pretend you're above it—the vanity of perception, this projection of confidence—you aren't immune to it.

What the actual fuck.

You strip off your pajamas and hop beneath the spray, welcoming the cold.

It will, hopefully, jolt these stupid thoughts right out of your system. It's a quick shower, almost clinical in the order—shampoo, conditioner, body wash. Lotion when you've dried off, then you leave your hair alone, knowing you'll probably regret it later.

Dressed and feeling slightly better, you curl up with your plugged laptop, this time not bothering with the dissertation. Not yet.

Instead, you file the necessary paperwork for your sudden absence, and read through the discussion boards you've assigned for your classes. Still doing work, still being productive, but avoiding what's been causing the bulk of your stress. You'll figure it out when you're in a better state of mind.

Around six, your phone rings. Dr Four Eyes. Spencer. Calling, which he rarely does. Usually, he'll text, but seeing as you'd accidentally ignored sixteen texts from him (and even more from Carrie), he seems to have taken the more direct approach.

"Hello?"

"Hey," his voice is soft, "Did I wake you?"

"No, do I sound that bad?"

He chuckles. "You don't, sorry. I just assumed you'd be sleeping or something. Getting rest."

"I told you, I'm not sick." Besides, you've done nothing but sleep and cry for the past day, you're getting a little sick of it.

He hums like he's not entirely convinced, and you hear faint chatter in the background. Sounds of life. You wonder where he is. You wonder if you can ask. Is that something the two of you can do? If he can come over unannounced, then you're allowed to ask where he is, right?

Yes. That's how friends work. And the two of you are friends.

"Where are you?"

"At a Chinese restaurant," he says.

Oh. You thought he's coming over. But before you could dwell on the dull sting of disappointment that shoots through you, he continues.

"That's why I called. Wasn't sure what you wanted."

Oh.

"Or if you even liked Chinese food. I should've asked first. I'm still in line, it's not too late to find another place, if you want something else."

"Spencer," you laugh, interrupting him before he begins to monologue, "It's fine. I'll have some lo mein, please."

"Got it," he replies, and you could almost see him nodding in earnest. "I'll be there within the hour, hopefully."

"Okay. I'll, uh, see you."

"See you."

"And Spencer?" your voice has lowered, suddenly a little shy.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

For a moment, all you can hear are the sounds of the restaurant, conversations and footsteps and music and clanging utensils all muffled through the phone. And then, "It's my pleasure."

—

He comes as promised, looking like some sort of messy haired angel bearing more takeout and a satchel. You let him in without suspicion or confusion this time, but feeling slightly exposed.

"Have you talked to Carrie? She's been worried sick, and I didn't have a chance to talk to her after my classes."

"Yeah, I did." You'd sent your friend a very apologetic text, and then another one that simply said comments about my dissertation. Carrie had sent a throwing up emoji and said I believe in you honey, let me know if you need any help.

Spencer makes a beeline for your counter again, unpacking takeout boxes like this is totally normal.

You clear your throat, feeling awkward in your own home, and begin laying out glasses and a pitcher of cool water, "I'm sorry you're stuck with me on a Friday night."

"Please, stop apologizing for something I volunteered to do." he replies gently, but there's a hint of amusement in his voice now. "Besides, where else do you think I should be?"

You shrug. "Out. I dunno, maybe with your–"

"My girlfriend?" he looks up, grins as if to say it's supposed to be you remember, and you want to simultaneously punch those dimples off his face and press your lips on each indent.

"Your friends." you glare, accepting your takeout box of lo mein with a huff.

Spencer laughs. "I think I'm exactly where I should be—taking care of my 'girlfriend' who missed two days of work."

And you really do try not to let that affect you because you know he's kidding, this relationship is fake, but there's warmth spreading just beneath your skin until the tips of your fingers tingle.

"Do you want to talk about it? The dissertation." Spencer asks. He's sitting on the armchair across from your bed and eating the rest of the wontons with a fork.

You'd both abandoned your sorry excuse of a dining table and found more comfortable spots. You're sitting cross legged on your bed facing him, napkins laid in front of you to catch any bits of food.

"Not really." you groan, setting aside your empty carton of food. "It's nothing bad, I promise. But I didn't get the scholarship grant I applied for either and I got saw the emails at the same time, so it was like… a lot."

"Oh, I'm sorry… I didn't even know you applied for a grant."

You shrug. "I passed it before I even met you. I guess it never came up. That's just how it goes, though—too many applicants, too little funding. Honestly, I'm used to the rejection, it just so happened to be one right after the other, you know?"

"It can be overwhelming." he's watching you without judgment, eyes the color of oak in the artificial light of your apartment. "If I could be of any help, you know how to reach me."

"Uh, if you happened to have eight grand lying around, I'd really appreciate it."

"I believe I'm your fake boyfriend, not your sugar daddy."

"Ew, that sounds weird coming from your mouth." you wrinkle your nose, exaggerating your disgust, just to watch him smile. "Besides, you asked how you can help."

He laughs. "I guess I could sell my first editions, if you need the money that badly."

"Oh my god, please don't. Don't think I can live with that baggage." you lay down, still on your side so you can look at him, smiling. "But now that you've mentioned it, maybe you can help me find books. For my RRL."

He nods, the food pausing in mid-air. "Yes. Definitely, send me the titles."

"Tomorrow. I don't want to deal with it right now anymore." you squeeze your eyes shut and will the world to fall away. "I've kind of had enough of the pity party I gave myself."

"I don't think that's what you were doing."

"Wallowing in my pain isn't a pity party? Feeling sorry for myself and second guessing how I even earned my way into my candidacy isn't a pity party?"

"No." his voice gentles, which doesn't match the intensity in his eyes, "Self doubt is a human emotion, and you shouldn't flagellate yourself for needing a break once in a while."

You're quiet for a moment, but then whisper. "It feels undeserved."

"What does?"

"All this… cancelling my classes, not doing anything."

"You mean taking a break?" his brows furrow, and you're not quite sure what to make of the expression on his face. It's more intense than you're used to, like he's ready to begin arguing.

"This—I don't need a break. Nothing about what I do warrants something as dramatic as this."

"You're a Phd. candidate, doing research for your dissertation, writing and publishing shorter articles, all on top of teaching—what is it, three? Undergrad courses." Spencer points out.

You look down pointedly, lips pulled in a tight line. It's not really something you like discussing out loud, precisely because most people always sound so horrified.

You get nice things when you've accomplished something.

A break has to be earned. So does respect, and your position at the university, and your dissertation.

Which makes this impromptu vacation so much more guilt consuming. You hadn't done a good job. You'd been rejected. Rebuked, on two different instances. And yet you'd spent the last two days at home, crying like an idiot.

"Hey," Spencer says again, gentling his voice, "I'm sorry. You said you didn't want to talk about it. We can… I'll drop it for now."

For now. Hopefully, his eidetic memory fails him and it never comes up again (unlikely, but a girl can dream). You smile, eyes flicking up to meet his tentatively. "Thanks."

You watch him, sitting in your armchair. He seems so painfully right, limbs arranged in that haphazard way you've come to learn means he's relaxed, and you have to fight the urge to reach over and poke him, just to make sure he's real.

"What?" his brows have met in the middle again, but this time out of self consciousness, "Sorry, did you want more?" he angles the carton to you.

"No, it's okay. Don't feel like getting up."

"Oh. Well, here," he spears a wonton with the fork and stands, the food held aloft like an offering.

There's too little time to do anything but blink and accept, mouth parting for the food, eyes fixed at his ankle, which you judiciously decide are the most interesting thing in the room. And you thank the heavens that they are. Interesting, that is.

Otherwise, your mind would have done something unreliable and silly, like linger on how long his fingers are, and wonder what it would feel to trace the veins that crisscross over the backs of his hands and crawl up beneath the rolled sleeves of his shirt.

But you are rightfully distracted by what peeks from his very professional dress pants—some very fun, very mismatched socks.

You reach out, hand curling around his forearm, both to stop him from going back to the armchair and to hoist yourself up for a better look. Black with robots on one foot, blue and gray stripes on the other.

"You do know socks typically come as a pair, right?" you say around the mouthful of food.

He shakes his head, settling on the edge of your bed, tentative as if he's afraid of imposing. "I'm aware. This is a deliberate choice."

Like a fool, you scoot to give him more room. More encouragement. Spencer takes the hint and fully situates himself by your legs.

"I didn't realize the great genius doctor Spencer Reid had such strong fashion choices." you grin when he laughs.

"It's a… thing. A luck thing."

"A luck thing?"

"Bad things tend to happen when I wear matching socks."

"That's oddly superstitious for a man of science."

"It's not superstition if it's backed by statistics."

You fully sit up now, grinning, eager to prod at his hypothesis. "Do you mean to say you've conducted enough research to reach this conclusion?"

"Indeed. I'm 81% more likely to stumble when my socks match."

"You don't think you've just conditioned yourself into being more clumsy on those days, just to subconsciously prove a point?"

Spencer shakes his head defensively. "The clumsiness isn't the only manifestation. A bad exam result–"

"I thought you'd never failed a test."

"A bad result doesn't always mean a failed one," he counters, smirking.

Your eyes roll at his smug expression, but the smile twitching at your own lips makes the action comes across fond. "How long ago is this data? I doubt you've taken any recent exams."

"Old… it started when I was young."

"How young?"

"Six." He says, laughs at the look of incredulity on your face. "Maybe it's outdated data, but the socks stuck."

"Mhm, FBI agent, professor and a fashion icon. What can't you do?"

Spencer laughs, and you have half a mind to record him, just so you can replay it over and over again. He offers another bite to you, and you've relaxed enough to accept it, though your gaze is still fixed on his silly socks.

He's quiet for a moment, wiggling his ankles to make you chuckle.

"You know, while it may be true that I've never failed an academic test, I have also failed others." he murmurs.

"Like?" you sit up, knees tucked to your chest, arms banded around them. You're on one end of your bed, and he's sat on the other. Casual, intimate.

Platonic, you tell yourself.

"Gun qualifications. I was really bad at those. Physical exams–oh, I had to be in remedial for those." he smiles, gaze dropping to the patterns on your bedspread. "Honestly, in my first few years with the FBI, my mentors had to write multiple letters vouching for me before I could be allowed on the field."

"So what I'm learning is you're a teacher's pet."

He laughs. "I'm just saying. I've… Earlier, when I said I've never failed one. I misspoke. I'm sorry I upset you."

"No, don't," you sigh, resting your chin on your knees. "It's okay, I was already upset. Anything would have set me off."

"Even so. I don't want you to think I'm unfeeling, or insensitive. I—it's hard for me to read the room, sometimes." he reaches out, gently takes one of your hands.

You have the urge to pull away, only because it feels good and you want him to keep doing it. Doing this, even when the two of you are alone and there's no need to act like a couple.

You squeeze his hand instead. "I don't think that about you at all."

He smiles, soft and warm and not the first time, you feel utterly doomed.

"Maybe not, but I'm still sorry. And… well, yes, I do know how it feels to be so anxious over something it makes me physically ill." he squeezes your hand back and doesn't let go. "And if that's how you've been feeling since yesterday, then you shouldn't feel guilty for missing a couple of days to sort yourself out."

"You said we wouldn't talk about it anymore." you remind him with a pout.

Spencer chuckles. Squeezes your hand again, thumbs moving in slow, absentminded circles like it's second nature, "All right, I'll stop. What do you want to talk about instead?"

"I dunno. Maybe nothing." you admit, feeling scraped raw. He honors it, staying quiet and holding your hand, until you add, "I don't want to keep you."

He shakes his head. "There's nowhere else I'd rather be."

"Even if you're just sitting with me, doing nothing?"

"I'm holding your hand." he says, tightening his palm around yours with a soft smile, "That's not nothing."

And maybe you've done nothing to deserve his kindness, or his company, but you smile and let yourself enjoy it all the same.

!! those highlighted in red will require a trigger warning if/when they are posted. please keep this in mind when voting.

if you would like additonal insight into a fic before casting your vote, feel free to pay a cheeky visit to my inbox—i'll happily leak a little information.

EVENT CONTENDERS ─ ✧

𑣲 - fluff | ✴︎ - angst | ‏꩜ - hurt/comfort

⟢ teach me how to not stare at you | 𑣲 a few of your own | neighbour!spencer, meet cute, mutual pining ⟢ sleeping in a bed half empty | 𑣲 ꩜ staying still | s3!boyfriend!spencer, work trip, fear of abandonment ⟢ the edges of your soul | 𑣲 forever | husband!spencer, newlywed fluff ⟢ beneath the weight of the earth | ✴︎ ‏꩜ anyway | boyfriend!spencer, chronic illness & poor mental health (reader) ⟢ i know your name (but not who you are) | ✴︎ all my love | ex!spencer, nostalgia, moving on but not really ⟢ seasonal bugs in a canvas tent | 𑣲 ‏꩜ dan | BAU camping trip, a real heart-to-heart after a rough year ⟢ you're the moon | 𑣲 orbiter | post-prison!spencer, keeping him grounded at the function ⟢ the sound of your feet on the gravel | 𑣲 ‏꩜ we go way back | boyfriend!spencer, living together, work stress ⟢ under the glow of the tv light | ✴︎ willing and able | ex!spencer, bitter arguments in hotel rooms ⟢ love was a deadline | ✴︎ glue myself shut | ex!spencer, the death of a relationship, moving away ⟢ won't you stay gone? | ✴︎ 23 | s2!spencer, addiction, loss of contact ⟢ if these trees started talking | ✴︎ 𑣲 end of august | college au, bittersweet, summer after graduation ⟢ your hands are all over my scent | ✴︎ halloween | ex!spencer, ghosting, surprise reunion ⟢ a cup of burned coffee, and a cheque to cash | ✴︎ paid time off | boyfriend!spencer, toxic relationship because it beats being alone ⟢ the rattle of your keys | ✴︎ ‏꩜ doors | post-prison!spencer, fear of abandonment, emotional unavailability

You stare at them. “Funny, I don’t remember agreeing to that.”

Emily, leaning against the edge of a neighboring desk with her arms folded, lifts one shoulder. “That’s because we didn’t ask. We’re telling.”

You grimace and lean back in your chair. “I just got through my first week back, you guys. I’m exhausted.”

Garcia softens. “Exactly. You got through your first week back! We need to celebrate, honey.”

You glance over toward Spencer on instinct, and he’s already looking at you. Garcia follows your line of sight and lights up.

“Oh, good idea. Reid! Tell your girlfriend she should come with us.”

You narrow your eyes at him. “Don’t you dare.”

Spencer, who should most definitely understand the danger he’s in, simply pushes back from his desk and says, very calmly, “I think you should go.”

You blink at him, utterly betrayed. “Et tu, Reid?”

Morgan lets out a bark of laughter from across the room. Emily actually smiles. Garcia clutches her chest.

Spencer, to his credit, has the decency to look a little apologetic. “You made it through your first week back,” he says. “You should celebrate.”

Emily nods toward him like he’s finally said something useful. “See? Even Boy Wonder thinks you need a drink.”

“And fries,” Garcia adds. “And female companionship. And a chance to talk about something other than work or the deeply haunting state of Reid’s current hairstyle.”

You drag a hand down your face. “Why are you all like this?”

“Because,” JJ says, “you’re our friend, and you’re back, and we want to hang out with you.”

Garcia nods emphatically. “Exactly. You survived a gunshot, surgery, physical therapy, what I can only assume is the world’s clingiest boyfriend, and your first week back on the job. You can survive one night of dive bar drinks with the hottest women the FBI has to offer. Women who happen to adore you, I might add.”

You blink at her. “This is emotional terrorism,” you say with a deep sigh.

Garcia beams. “So that’s a yes!”

“It’s not a—” You stop. Exhale. “Fine. One drink.”

JJ smiles immediately. Emily looks pleased in the most annoying way possible. Garcia claps once like a Disney villain.

Emily reaches over and grabs your bag off the floor before you can change your mind. “Great. Let’s go, ladies, before Greenaway remembers she has free will.”

You stand with a huff that’s mostly for show and shrug into your jacket. Spencer is already there by the time you straighten, close enough that nobody else would clock the way his hand brushes your elbow.

“You okay?” he asks quietly.

“No, Brutus.” You give him a look. “You betrayed me.”

Spencer’s expression stays impressively neutral. “I encouraged healthy socialization.”

“You sold me out to a hostile coalition.”

He chuckles softly. “I’ll come pick you up later,” he says. “Whenever you want to leave.”

You glance up at him. “I can just take a cab home, Spence. You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t have to,” he says. “I want to.”

Garcia is already halfway out of the bullpen. “Greenaway! Move your brooding little booty. We’re leaving.”

You roll your eyes and sling your bag over your shoulder.

Spencer catches your wrist for one brief second, just enough to turn you back toward him.

“Have fun,” he says softly.

Then, before you can say something sarcastic and ruin it, he leans in and presses a quick kiss to your temple.

He steps back like he didn’t just do that in the middle of the office, and you stare at him. 

“What?” he asks.

Morgan passes behind Spencer and lets out a low, entertained whistle.

“Shut up, Morgan,” you and Spencer shout at the same time, still looking at each other.

Morgan just grins wider and keeps walking.

Spencer nods toward the door. “Go. I’ll see you later.”

Emily appears at your side and pushes you out of the bullpen and toward the elevators with an arm around your shoulder. “That was disgusting.”

Garcia grins. “No, it was adorable. Big difference.”

JJ presses the down button and smirks. “I’m suddenly much more interested in our topics of conversation this evening.”

The elevator opens with a ding, and Garcia ushers everyone in with entirely too much enthusiasm. You step in last, turning just in time to catch one more glimpse of Spencer standing by the bullpen doors, hands in his pockets, watching you leave with that soft, wrecked look he never quite manages to hide anymore.

—

The familiarity of O’Keefe’s hits you all at once the second you push through the door.

Warmth. Noise. The sticky smell of beer and fried food. The hum of conversation layered over a game playing on one of the TVs in the corner and music from the jukebox near the bar.

“Oh, thank god,” Garcia sighs, pressing one hand dramatically to her chest as she leads the group towards a booth in the back. “A room full of alcohol and bad decisions. I’m home.”

You exhale through your nose at that and sit down, accepting your fate for the evening.

“Okay,” Garcia says, clapping once as the waitress appears. “We need mozzarella sticks, fries, and something colorful with lots of tequila in it.”

Emily glances at the drink menu. “No tequila for me tonight. Jack and coke, please.”

JJ laughs and hands the menus back in a neat stack. “I’ll just take a beer.”

You look down at your own menu without really reading it. “Whiskey, on the rocks.”

Garcia hands over the menus with a satisfied sigh. “Perfect. We’re off to an excellent start.”

Emily glances at you. “You still have time to fake a migraine and leave, you know.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

The drinks come, and feel your shoulders unclench by accident after your first sip.

You realize this feeling is another thing nobody tells you about getting injured badly enough to disrupt the whole architecture of your life. Everyone focuses on the obvious parts — surgeries, scars, whether you’ll be okay, whether you’ll be normal, whatever that means. What no one really prepares you for is how strange it feels to start participating in your own life again once the worst of it is over. How bizarre it is to sit in a bar on a Friday night, in jeans and boots and lipstick with your girlfriends around a wooden table, and realize the world kept spinning while you were busy focusing on surviving.

There’s also the more humiliating part, which is that you haven’t done this in what feels like forever. Drinking, or hanging out with friends, or just simply sitting still and talking and existing without a doctor asking whether your pain is sharp or dull or a man you love watching your face too closely every time you stand up. The whole thing feels weirdly high stakes for something as stupid and simple as greasy fries and cheap liquor.

Garcia raises her glass. “To Greenaway,” she says, voice softening in a way that makes you self-conscious, “being back at work and a semi-willing participant in girls’ night.”

Emily lifts her glass. “A triumph.”

JJ’s smile is warm when she reaches in with hers too. “To Greenaway.”

You look at all three of them over the rim of your glass. “This is disgusting,” you mutter, which is about as close to thank you as you’re willing to get.

You let your glass clink against theirs anyway.

For a while, the conversation behaves itself. Garcia launches into a story about a disastrous blind date with a man who described himself as “alpha-adjacent,” which makes Emily nearly choke on her drink. JJ talks about Henry’s current refusal to sleep unless one sock is missing, which Garcia insists is “actually very chic of him.” After a waitress drops off the fries and mozzarella sticks, Emily tells a story about a truly alarming hostel she once stayed at in Prague, and before you know it, you’re contributing your own horror story about a motel in Kansas that smelled like mildew and bad choices.

Penelope points at you with a fry. “See? This is nice. You’re socializing,” to which you roll your eyes in response.

By the time you’re halfway through your second whiskey, the room feels warmer, the edges softened just enough that you stop noticing how many people are around you and start noticing smaller things instead. The exact shade of Emily’s lipstick. The glitter worked into Garcia’s eyeliner. The way JJ laughs with her whole face when she actually lets herself. The fact that you’re here at all.

You’re halfway through a story about the world’s most idiotic suspect trying to outrun Morgan during a case in Vermont last year when your phone buzzes against the table.

You look down, and Spencer’s name glows up at you from the screen alongside a text preview:

How’s it going? I hope you’re having fun.

Your mouth twitches before you can stop it.

Emily clocks it instantly. “There it is.”

You look up. “There what is?”

“Your face,” Garcia says, delighted. “You have a face!”

You cock a brow suspiciously. “Everyone has a face, Penelope.”

Emily leans back, arms folded. “No, she means your Spencer face.”

You stare at them. “My what.”

“Your Spencer face! You get this, like, very specific look on your face when you talk to him, or hear other people talking about him, or anytime you even think about him. Sorta smug, sorta soft, very in love. It’s adorable,” Garcia explains.

You pick up your phone and groan, “I hate all of you,” before typing back under the table:

i’m… surviving. no rescue required yet but it’s minute-by-minute

Three dots appear almost immediately.

Glad to hear it. Love you.

“It’s undeniable,” Garcia says, catching your expression. “That is, without a doubt, your Spencer face.”

You slide your phone face-down onto the table. “Say that one more time and I’m leaving.”

Garcia leans both elbows on the table and gives you a look that’s far too bright to be trustworthy. “Okay. So. Since Reid has officially entered the chat—”

“No.”

“—we have questions.”

“Absolutely not.”

Emily lifts a shoulder. “You had to have known this was coming.”

Well, she has a point there.

Garcia starts firing off questions immediately. “How clingy is he? Are you moving in together? Who fell first? Who said I love you first? Did he cry when you said it? Did you cry? Was there background music? Candles? Rose petals? Should I be offended that I wasn’t invited as a witness?”

JJ snorts into her beer.

You put your glass down carefully. “You all need professional help.”

“Don’t worry, I have a therapist on speed dial,” Garcia says. “What I don’t have is information.”

Emily tilts her head. “C’mon, Greenaway. You can’t really expect us not to be curious about our two coworkers who are dating.”

The thing is, they’re not wrong to be curious. The Spencer they know isn’t the same Spencer you know. They know the version of Spencer with brains and facts and a perpetually crooked tie, the one who hides half his personality behind statistics and awkwardness until people make the mistake of thinking that’s all there is to him. But you, by some impossible stroke of luck or an undeserved & pre-determined string of fate, have been granted the privilege of knowing there’s so much more. And somewhere along the line, without asking permission, he stopped feeling like a part of your life and started feeling like the shape of it.

Maybe that’s why this line of questioning makes your skin feel too tight — because they aren’t asking about a silly little coworker crush like they had been at that margarita night Garcia hosted many months ago. Now they’re asking about your actual life. About something real enough that if you look at it directly for too long, the brightness and warmth nearly blinds you.

“You gave him a key to your place, didn’t you?” JJ asks, breaking you out of your trance.

The table goes quiet for half a second.

You look at her. “Who told you that?”

JJ shrugs. “No one had to. When he first came back to work after you got shot, he was so worried about leaving you alone all day, so I went with him to check on you at lunchtime. He let himself into your apartment with a key on his usual keyring, and he looked very comfortable doing it.”

You look down at your drink. “You people are so invasive.”

Garcia points at you triumphantly. “Aha! That’s not a denial!”

You take a long sip of whiskey that does absolutely nothing to save you.

“It was… practical,” you say, which immediately sounds like a lie, even to you. “I gave it to him when I was still stuck at the hospital so he could bring me things from my place. Then he didn’t want me to be alone while I was recovering, and…” You lift one shoulder. “He still has the key.”

Emily’s mouth curves. “Very practical.”

“Shut up.”

“So,” Emily says. “How serious is this thing, really?”

You could dodge. You should dodge. You should say something glib and slippery and let them all chase their own tails around it.

Instead, because your second glass of whiskey is now treacherously empty and because these women have somehow figured out how to disarm you with minimal effort, you hear yourself say, “Um. I guess it’s… pretty serious. Yeah.”

Garcia actually slaps a hand over her heart. “Define pretty, please. Pretty pretty please!”

“God, I don’t know, you guys,” you say with an exasperated sigh. “Serious enough that, yeah, he has a key to my apartment. Enough that I can’t remember the last time I spent more than, like, four hours without talking to him, outside of when we’re asleep. Enough that everyone in this room is apparently allowed to bully me about him.”

JJ leans forward slightly. “Do you see a future with him?”

You look at her, then at the table, then at your empty glass. The honest answer rises before you can kill it.

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “That’s kind of the problem.”

Garcia goes so still you’d think someone muted her with a remote. Emily’s brows lift. JJ just watches you.

You let out a short, humorless laugh. “Not, like, a problem-problem. Not in a bad way. Just… I think he got serious about it before I realized I was letting him get serious, and then I was already in it too, apparently, before I’d even noticed that was happening, and then one day I looked up and he was just…” You stop, irritated by the catch in your own voice. “Everywhere. In every corner of my life.”

You swirl your glass against the table and stare at the condensation gathered on the rim, trying very hard not to think about how exposed you feel right now.

Then, because the alcohol has successfully eliminated your usual filters, you add, “He’s annoyingly good at staying, through pretty much anything. And… I think he’s teaching me how to be good at staying too.”

Garcia makes a strangled noise and beams at you.

“Oh my god,” she whispers. “You are in love-love.”

You roll your eyes. “That’s not exactly breaking news.”

“It’s not,” JJ says gently. “Anyone with eyes can see it nowadays. But it’s still nice to hear you say it out loud.”

You stare at her — at all of them, really: Garcia glowing with vindication and affection, Emily pretending not to be touched, JJ looking so proud it hurts, and another thought arrives uninvited: they love you too. Not in the way Spencer does, obviously — not in the all-consuming, low-voiced, hand-at-your-waist way. But still, in a real way, in a way you don’t think you’ve ever been loved by friends before. In the show-up, drag-you-out, celebrate-your-first-week-back, make-fun-of-you-until-you-stop-deflecting way.

You laugh despite yourself, because what else are you supposed to do with this? These women, this bar, this absurd line of questioning, this life that somehow expanded around you while you were busy trying not to die?

Garcia pulls your focus back to the conversation at hand. “Now I need to know if he’s actually romantic or if this is all just the natural result of extreme pining and good bone structure.”

You bark out a laugh. “Good bone structure?”

“He has, like, a tragic poet jawline, Greenaway. You’ve obviously noticed that.”

You shake your head and reach for another fry. “Yes. Fine. He can be romantic,” you admit.

Garcia leans so far across the table you’re worried she’s about to fall into the mozzarella sticks. “In what way?”

You hesitate, because how do you explain Spencer as a boyfriend? How do you explain that privately he’s still Spencer, still dorky and earnest and too smart for his own good, but also softer than anyone would guess, and sharper too? That he remembers everything you say and acts like that’s normal? That he takes every tiny thing he knows about you into consideration before planning dates? That even the physical things with him somehow feel impossibly specific, like he’s learned your body with the same frightening thoroughness he learns everything else? That he can be so maddeningly practical one second and then look at you like you’ve just hung the moon in the sky with your bare hands the next?

Eventually, you say: “He notices things.”

Emily’s expression shifts first, like she gets exactly how loaded that answer is.

Garcia, predictably, wants more. “Such as?”

“Everything,” you say. “If I’m cold. If I’m tired. If I’m trying to pretend I’m not either of those things. He remembers stupid little things I say and then acts on them weeks later like that’s normal behavior. Like, last week, he bought me this ridiculously expensive brand of coffee beans from a cafe on the other side of the city because I mentioned them once in passing. He keeps my favorite pens stocked at his desk and in his bag because he knows I chew on mine until they stop working.”

JJ’s smile turns genuinely soft. “That’s… really sweet.”

You grimace. “Yeah, well. Don’t encourage him. I can’t handle much more of it and still keep my dignity intact.”

Emily props her chin on her hand. “How bad?”

You look at her. “What does that mean.”

“On a scale from one to ten, how embarrassing is he as a boyfriend?” she asks with a shrug.

“Honestly?” you say. “Pretty bad.”

Garcia crows in triumph. “I knew it.”

You look away. “I mean, I’m sorta embarrassing too.”

That catches all three of them off guard. You feel your face warm and immediately regret opening your mouth. But it’s too late now, so you plow forward.

“I miss him when he’s in the next room,” you mumble. “Which is humiliating and codependent and probably very concerning.”

JJ gives you a look that is somehow both sympathetic and deeply entertained. “That doesn’t sound concerning. It sounds sweet.”

Garcia puts both hands over her heart. “You are so disgustingly gone. I love it.”

You lean back in the booth and look up at the ceiling like maybe some god out there in the universe will mercifully strike you down before this gets any worse.

The strike never comes.

—

At some point after their humiliating interrogation, the conversation drifted. Garcia got louder. JJ got funnier. Emily, somehow, got both meaner and more affectionate at the same time. Somebody put more money in the jukebox. A second basket of fries appeared and disappeared. Then another round showed up, and then maybe another one after that, and after a while, keeping count lost its appeal.

Garcia made a passionate argument about who from the BAU would last the longest in a zombie apocalypse (“Survival isn’t just about brute strength! It’s also about adaptability and vibes!”). JJ reached that dangerous stage of tipsy where everything struck her as deeply, genuinely hilarious, including your comparison between Rossi in reading glasses and the Tootsie Pop owl. Emily had one elbow on the table, chin in hand, and the sort of lazy, amused smile that meant she was enjoying everybody else’s nonsense immensely.

The whole room has

gone pleasantly soft around the edges. Warmer. Louder. The lights above the bar blur into dull gold halos. Every time Garcia laughs, it seemed to set off the whole table half a second later. Your own body has gotten looser too, the good kind of loose — shoulders unclenched, thoughts less guarded, the usual sharp corners of you sanded down just enough.

But beneath all of it, quiet and constant, is the simple thought that if you asked, Spencer would come pick you up in a heartbeat.

You didn’t realize how much you were counting on that until the room tips one degree too warm and the thought of trying to get yourself home without him suddenly felt both very impossible and completely undesirable.

So you text him.

come get me?

And, because he’s Spencer, his reply comes almost immediately.

You got it. On my way.

The fuzziness only intensifies after that, but you’re at least mostly aware of what’s happening around you. Garcia has somehow moved on from zombies to explaining why she could absolutely win a bar fight if motivated by love. JJ is smiling into the rim of her drink. Emily has abandoned subtlety entirely and is now openly enjoying your slow descent into drunken sentimentality, which is rude but expected.

Then O’Keefe’s front door opens, and there he is.

Spencer pauses just inside the bar for half a second, scanning the room. His shoulders ease the second he spots you, that familiar little drop in tension so slight most people would miss it. You don’t. You never do.

He makes his way over, tie gone, coat on, hair a little wind-mussed from the cold outside. He looks tired in that way only he can: wrung out around the eyes but still put together, still handsome even under shitty bar lighting and the accumulated weight of a work week.

He stops beside the table and waves awkwardly to the entire group.

“Hello,” he says.

You tip your face up, far too happy to see him for someone with any pride left. “Hi, baby.”

The entire table goes silent.

Spencer’s brows lift the tiniest amount. Then his mouth softens into that look — that one that always makes your pulse jump.

“Hi,” he says softly, just to you.

Garcia clamps both hands over her mouth. Emily looks delighted. JJ’s expression has gone so calm it circles back around to dangerous.

You point a finger at all three of them. “Don’t.”

“No one said anything,” JJ says, holding both hands up defensively.

Garcia lowers hers from her mouth just enough to whisper, “Yet.”

Spencer, because he is either merciful or trying very hard to be, just asks, “You okay?”

You nod a little too emphatically. “M’great.”

Emily deadpans, “She’s drunk.”

“I’m not drunk,” you say, while reaching for Spencer’s hand and missing on the first attempt. “I’m just… friendlier than usual.”

Spencer takes your hand himself and laces your fingers together before you can fumble again. “Of course.”

He says it so gently that it almost makes you emotional, which is very much not helping the situation.

Garcia, meanwhile, has given up all restraint. “She told us things.”

“Penelope,” you warn.

Spencer’s gaze flicks from her to you, faintly alarmed now in the way of a man who knows there are degrees of terror in your mind and that drunken honesty ranks highly among them. “Things like…?”

Emily takes pity on him, sort of. “Nothing classified.”

JJ sets her glass down. “We mostly just confirmed what we already suspected.”

Spencer, still holding your hand, blinks once. “Which is?”

Garcia leans in, beaming. “That you’re absolutely, totally, completely obsessed with each other.”

You look at the tabletop. The wood grain is suddenly fascinating.

“Ah,” he replies with a soft chuckle.

JJ hands you your purse from where you abandoned it at the opposite end of the booth. “Text us tomorrow so we know you’re alive.”

Garcia points at Spencer. “Take care of her, loverboy.”

He nods. “Always.”

You wish, briefly, for the floor to open up and swallow you whole. But instead, Spencer helps you stand with such absurd care it’s almost offensive. His hand settles lightly at your waist as he steers you through the bar, and your body goes willingly.

—

The night air outside is cold enough to bite.

It hits your face sharply but clears none of the pleasant fuzz in your head. The city glows around you in smeared halos of headlights and neon and streetlamp glow, and Spencer guides you toward the curb where his car is parked, one hand still warm at your back.

He opens the passenger door and looks at you with that quiet, attentive expression that makes you feel both cherished and mildly threatened.

“You good?” he asks.

You lean against the car and squint at him. “They interrogated me.”

Spencer’s mouth twitches. “That does sound like them.”

You point at him. “It’s all your fault.”

“My fault?”

“You made me go!”

He waits while you lower yourself into the passenger seat and leans in just enough to buckle you, and the whole thing is so stupidly sweet that you have to look away and pretend the dashboard is wildly interesting. He closes the door once you’re settled and walks around to the driver’s side.

When he gets in, he glances over at you as he starts the engine. “I didn’t make you do anything. I just encouraged a night out with your friends.”

“Still Brutus,” you mutter, which is met by a low chuckle and shake of the head from Spencer.

The rest of the drive home is quiet in a good way. Spencer keeps one hand on the wheel and the other resting open between you, and somewhere around the second red light you lace your fingers through his.

He looks over.

“What did they ask about?”

The questions blur together in your whiskey-soaked brain. “Everything,” you say after thinking for a moment. “They were very nosy and a little deranged.”

You turn your head to look at him properly. His profile is too familiar now — the slope of his nose, the soft concentration in his mouth, the line between his brows that shows up when he’s listening carefully.

“They asked what you’re like as a boyfriend,” you add.

Spencer glances over, faintly amused. “And?”

“And I had to say things.”

His brows lift. “Tragic.”

You nod dramatically. “Exactly. It was.”

By the time he parks outside your building and gets you upstairs, your thoughts have all softened into a single, inconvenient ache.

He helps you out of your coat, sets your purse down on the table, gets you water without asking. You sit on the edge of the bed while he moves around the room, toeing off his shoes, unbuttoning his cuffs, setting his watch on the nightstand.

He’s tired. You can see it in the slope of his shoulders and the care he’s no longer even trying to hide. He’s always gentler with you when he’s exhausted, as if all the extra effort it usually takes to conceal the full force of how much he cares has finally burned off.

You watch him longer than you mean to, and he catches you. 

“What’s up?”

You shake your head. “Nothing.”

Spencer’s expression shifts. He comes over and kneels in front of you, hands resting lightly on your knees.

“What is it?” he asks softly.

And there it is — that awful tenderness. That exact, patient attention that always seems to make honesty feel both easier and much, much worse.

You look at him and find, with some irritation, that the words do not want to come out in anything resembling order.

“They asked…” You stop, frown, start again. “Um. They asked if this is serious.”

Spencer’s face softens so visibly it’s almost unbearable.

“Oh,” he says.

You nod, suddenly more nervous than you were in the bar, which makes no sense because it’s just him. Just Spencer, the man who has a key to your apartment and alphabetizes your spices and picks you up without hesitation and tells you he loves you at least five times a day.

But that’s exactly why it’s so nerve wracking, maybe.

You look down at the front of his shirt instead of his face. “And I told them yes.”

A beat of silence.

Then, quietly: “Okay.”

You let out a breath that sounds more annoyed than relieved. “No, see, that’s not enough.”

Spencer’s left hand moves from your knee up to your chin, guiding your face up just enough that you have to meet his eyes.

“What do you need me to say?” he asks gently.

“I—” You stop. Try again. “I don’t know. Something normal. Or not normal. Just…” You gesture vaguely between the two of you because apparently language has abandoned you. “They asked and I said yes and now I’m in my head about it because we’ve never actually said so out loud in those words, and I know that’s stupid because, like, obviously we’re serious. Duh. We say I love you. You have a key to my freaking apartment and we haven’t spent a night apart by choice in months. I know what this is. But I just—”

You stop again, mortified.

“It’s not stupid,” he says.

You swallow. “It’s not?”

“Not at all.” His thumb brushes once across your cheek. “And yes. We’re serious.”

The simplicity of it makes your throat go tight.

Spencer gives the smallest, softest little playful shrug. “I mean, think about it. You have a key to my apartment too.”

You almost laugh. It comes out sounding too close to a sigh.

Spencer watches your face for a second, then adds, quieter, “I think about it all the time, you know. How serious this is for me. How serious you are to me.” He glances down for half a second, then back up. “But I didn’t know if saying that would make you feel pressured, so I was trying very hard to let you get there however you needed to.”

Something in your chest folds in on itself.

It’s not even the serious part that gets you, not really. You already knew that. It’s the rest of it — the fact that he’s been thinking about it too; the fact that he’s been intentionally careful not to crowd you into saying something before you were ready. It’s so unfairly him that, for a second, all you can do is stare.

You look at him for a second too long, then reach for the front of his shirt and tug.

He comes without resistance, mouth brushing yours, soft and warm and patient.

The kiss deepens slowly. His hand slides to your waist and yours goes into his hair, because you like the little sound it pulls from him. You slide your other hand down his chest, mouth skimming his jaw, and in your softest, most shameless voice, you ask, “Are you going to fuck me now, or do I need to make a more persuasive argument?”

Spencer closes his eyes and laughs softly against your cheek. “No, angel, I’m not.”

You blink. “Rude.”

“You’re drunk,” he reminds you softly.

“I’m also charming.”

“You are,” he agrees.

“So—”

“So no.”

You grumble. “You hate joy, Spencer Reid.”

“I love joy,” he insists. “I’m a huge fan of joy. I’m less of a fan of taking advantage of you when you’ve had too much whiskey.”

You squint at him. “What if I said ‘make love’ instead? Does that move the needle at all?”

Spencer actually breaks at that, shoulders shaking with a laugh he tries and fails to suppress.

“No,” he says, still smiling, one hand sliding up to cradle the back of your neck. “It doesn’t.”

You sigh dramatically. “This relationship is so one-sided.”

“That is an absurd statement and you know it,” he says with a laugh, and leans in again — one long, slow kiss that leaves your knees weak and your head warm. When he finally pulls back, he brushes his thumb over your bottom lip. “Try again when you’re sober. I’ll do anything you ask.”

You smirk. “Anything? That’s a very dangerous offer.”

Spencer stands, mouth twisted in an exasperated grin. “Go brush your teeth, silly girl.”

You glare. He waits. You lose and grumble dramatically as you trudge into the bathroom.

Eventually, exhaustion starts to take hold. Spencer helps you out of your clothes, hands you one of his old shirts, gets you under the blankets. He climbs in beside you after turning off the lamp, and the room goes dark around the warm shape of him.

You roll toward him instinctively, your body finding his like a puzzle piece. His arm settles around you as you lay your head on his chest and tangle your legs with his. The two of you fit together too easily now, which is still a bit alarming if you think about it for too long.

For a minute, neither of you says anything.

Then you murmur, already half gone, “You liked when I called you baby.”

Spencer’s chest rises under your cheek with a silent laugh. “Maybe a little.”

You smile into his shirt. “Knew it.”

“You’re not going to start calling me that all the time now, are you?”

“God no. You know how I feel about using pet names.” You tilt your head just enough to look at him in the dark. “But… maybe sometimes.”

Spencer’s hand slides up your back, slow and warm. “I’ll take it.”

His breathing evens out under your ear. Yours follows a second later.

“Sweet dreams,” he whispers sleepily. “Love you.”

Your heart still flutters in that same embarrassing way it did the first time he said those words.

“Love you too,” you whisper back.

Tomorrow, you’ll wake up and remember enough of this to want to throw yourself violently into the Potomac. You’ll remember the bar and the interrogation and the pet name and the failed attempt at seduction and the deeply incriminating declarations of emotional seriousness.

But that’s a problem for tomorrow’s version of you. Tonight, Spencer’s body is warm against yours, his mouth is still soft from kissing you, and the awful, frightening shape of your future no longer feels quite so awful or frightening when it’s lying here breathing beside you.

Serious, you think, right before sleep pulls you under.

Yeah.

That sounds about right.

ᝰ.ᐟ

this fic is part of the greenaway!reader universe/series! you can read more about this pairing here ♥️