lils

Here’s the thing: Spencer Reid is no prude. He has studied the human body and anatomy extensively as a young boy, and has such a vivid, graphic memory of them from his time working at the BAU. But those had always been under the guise of science, where he could step back and assess things objectively. Often, the human parts are injured, devastatingly mangled. Viewing them requires compassion and intelligence, not lust. 

He has no idea what to do with the thought of bodies in this way—scantily covered by pretty patterns and thin fabric. Your body specifically. The very idea causes a shudder through him, the familiar heat. Focus, he tells himself, hands shoved deep in his pockets, balled into tight fists. His nails bite into his palm, and he welcomes the sting, focusing on that instead of the image of you in that navy silk slip… or in the pretty purple lace set… or—

“Spence?” 

“Yes?” 

“I’m gonna try these on, okay?”

A panicked look must cross his face, because you laugh, a hand reaching out to caress his cheek.

“I won’t be long, baby. None of these clothes can hurt you, and the sales people don’t bite.”

He’d feign offense if he were in a better state of mind, but he’s a little too panicked to come up with a response. You don’t understand. The very idea of you trying on lingerie is sending some very dangerous images to his brain. Images that, in turn, are causing very physical problems. Specifically in his crotch area. Still, he’s in public. He’s a grown man with working functions and impulse control. So he nods, forces a smile on his lips. 

Satisfied, you press a quick kiss to his jaw, and hurry off to the corridor on the far corner of the boutique, where a line of fitting rooms await. He watches the bundle of lingerie in your hands. He hadn’t even noticed what you were choosing, but Spencer decides that’s for the best. It’s easier to fight his imagination if he doesn’t know the details of your choices. Easier to sit on one of the lounge chairs and fiddle with his hands, gnawing on his lip anxiously, patiently, waiting for you to reemerge with a smile that tells him you’ve made your choice. 

Still, being alone while other women mill about is making him restless. He stands, wandering over to the fitting rooms, “Angel?”

“Yeah?”

He doesn’t like being impatient, he doesn’t even mind waiting for you but god he can’t get his mind to focus. “You almost done?”

“Not yet!” 

He nods, before realizing you can’t see him. “All right, I’ll be right here then.” he answers, leaning on the wall and staring at his feet so he doesn’t seem like a random creep. But then you’re calling out to him again.

“I want to show you.”

Oh, you really are bad for his health. 

“Don’t come out!” he says quickly, looking around. The store isn’t busy, but still, the idea of other people catching sight of you makes something in his chest tighten.

A giggle, and then your head pokes through the heavy curtains, “Okay, then you come in.”

Once again, he is powerless to say no. His feet move, one in front of the other, even though his mind is telling him no, this is a bad idea, turn back. Still, he finds himself in the enclosed space with you. A full length mirror greets him, and that’s where he sees you first. Swathes of artfully arranged black lace and soft mesh fabric that barely cover your body, fastened only by thin straps over your shoulders. 

So very dangerous.

“What do you think?” your eyes meet his in the mirror, deceptively, infuriatingly innocent.

“It’s-uh-pretty.”

“Just pretty?” your head cocks to the side, lips pulled into that pout and Spencer swears the room has no more oxygen. He’s about to pass out.

“Gorgeous,” he manages to say, “Stunning, radiant, angel it fits you perfectly.” his eyes drop to your chest and the words stop abruptly, though his mouth remains slack.

You twist to the side, examining your reflection. The fabric floats around your body, giving him a view of your perfect ass underneath. The panties you have on are a baby blue, not matching the sultry, inky ivory of the slip you’re wearing, and he wants to ask why don’t they match, but no words come from his open mouth.

“Spence, baby, you’re gonna catch flies.” your teasing remark wrenches him from his reverie. You whirl around to face him, half naked and mused, the loveliest creature he’s ever seen. He manages to tear his gaze away from the mirror and focus on the real thing, and how did he ever get so lucky with you?

“No flies anywhere.” he replies, hands finding your waist. His grip is shaky, but firm. Your eyes flash with mischief and he knows he’s a goner. 

“It’s just a saying.”

“I know.” he dips his head, unable to help himself. Soft lips latch onto your jaw, open and warm, “God, you’re so beautiful.”

“In this slip?” Your giggle goes straight to his groin. 

“In anything,” he pulls back, trying to reign in his desire, “In nothing.”

Your brow raises, and he lets out a soft sheepish laugh. 

“Sorry, it’s just…” he trails off, his hands rubbing your hips through the flimsy dress. Mind absolutely devoid of any thought except for how beautiful you look in this tiny piece, how it clings to your breasts and shows teasing hints of your nipples through the thin lace.

“What was that, Spence?” you murmur teasingly, stepping into his personal space. Bodies flush. The lack of distance between you, the familiar softness of your body melting into him brings his attention to the growing tightness at his crotch.

“Mhm? N-nothing.”

“Doesn’t feel like nothing.” There’s that sparkle in your eyes again, devious as you sway your hips against his carefully. The action makes his steadily swelling cock twitch with even more want. 

He has to swallow a moan, but the warning still comes out strangled, “Angel.”  Really, you’re closer to the devil right now, tempting him like this. He tightens his hold on your hips to steady you, brows furrowed as he tries to calm down. 

It’s too late though. You’re both well aware of the growing tent in his pants.

“All right,” you step back, wearing a mask of mock surrender, “Fine, no more teasing. You can go back out now, I’m gonna change again.”

“What?” 

One corner of your mouth lifts into a smirk, “I was being naughty, I’m sorry. You can go back out, I just wanted to show you this slip.”

Evil. You’re evil and dangerous and Spencer Reid is so utterly in love with you. And a little turned on by it.

“Angel, I can’t go back out there!” he whispers, tugging his tight pants. It’s no use. He’s so worked up his cock is beginning to ache in its confines. 

(Okay, so more than a little turned on.) 

Your eyes fall to his crotch, widening comically as though you’re seeing it for the first time, “Oh, would you look at that!” You step back into his space, hands coming up to cradle his jaw. He leans into your touch, welcoming your sweet mockery with his usual, eager docility. “Got worked up for me, hmm? All from seeing me in this slip?”

He nods, hands finding your hips again, holding you to him. “You knew what you were doing.” There’s absolutely no hint of accusation in his voice. You both know it’s true anyway.

“Mhm. And I can’t let you walk back out there like this, can I?” you lift yourself to your tiptoes to press a soft kiss to his cheek, “Not after you’ve been so patient with me.”

A sharp inhale as he feels your hands on his belt. What he would give to just be completely buried in you right now, to lose his mind in your tight heat, but— “We’re in public.”

“We’re in a room.”

“A fitting room.”

“Still a room.” you’ve pushed his pants just enough to free his cock. Even being out of his pants eases some of the tension, the length springing out and jutting from his body. Long and embarrassingly red. Your hands close around it, one hand at the base and stroking up and down, the other at the tip, squeezing gently, thumb running over his slit and spreading his leaking pre cum. 

He fights back a moan and promptly loses.

“Spence.” Your voice is low, but stern, “Keep quiet.”

He nods, teeth sinking into his lower lip to contain his moans. He squeezes his eyes shut, too overwhelmed by the vision of you in nothing but a flimsy slip and panties, in this well lit, public room, giving him a hand job. No, he can’t watch, he’ll bust then and there, but he knows you’re only getting started.

Your hands work up and down his length, twisting just the way he likes, all while continuing to thumb at the tip. Unable to help it, his hips buck into your hands, shamelessly fucking your palms while his cock twitches in them. 

“Look at me,” you croon, breath hot against his neck. Once again, as though his body is wired to obey your every command, his eyes fly open. He moans immediately at the sight of you, which makes you tut disapprovingly. With a shake of your head, you stop, and he can’t help but let out a whine in protest.

“Why’d you—” “You’re too loud, baby, they’ll catch us.” 

He watches with a dazed, glassy eyed confusion as you hook your fingers through the waistband of your panties and tug the lacy blue material down your legs. Crumpled between your lovely hands, it turns into a small ball of fabric which you hold up to his mouth, “Bite down on this.”

His brain seems to snap at attention. “I-I can’t, isn’t that store property?” Leave it to his mind to worry about logistics and practicality.

You chuckle, pulling his collar down for a kiss. When his lips meet yours, he wonders why he ever questioned you.

“It’s mine,” you mumble against his mouth. A nibble at his lower lip sends tremors whispering down his spine, “We’re not allowed to try on panties in this store. Something about sanitation.”

Sanitation. The very thought makes him chuckle. It seems so insignificant now, with what they’re about to do.

Still, he accepts the explanation, and allows you to slip the crumpled panties into his mouth. He bites down, tasting hints of your arousal as the fabric meets his tongue. It becomes very clear that he needs this gag, because he immediately moans at the taste.

You giggle soundlessly, the effort to keep silent making your shoulders quiver from your laughter. “You just can’t help yourself huh?” You give his cock a few more strokes, lazy and playful, before walking over to the mirror and bracing yourself against it by your elbows. The panties nearly fall from his mouth as he watches you push your hips back, the slip riding up to expose your ass and the wet, swollen folds beneath. 

Is this heaven? It must be. Just him and his angel, who’s offering herself up and watching him intently through the reflection in the mirror.

“Come on, baby, before the sales people get suspicious.” you murmur. Your eyes flash dangerously in the mirror, but he knows it’s not a mere trick of the light. You’re getting a kick out of this too, the same way he is. 

With a choked sound, muffled by the lace, Spencer steps up behind you. Cock in hand, he lets the blunt tip glide across your soaked folds, letting your arousal mingle with his precum and coat his length. Normally, he’d use his fingers first, coax your walls into a more relaxed state, but you’re right. There’s no time for that. Someone could check up on the two of you any time. The thought makes his cock twitch, and he finally eases into your entrance, slowly pushing into the familiar warmth of your pussy.

He sees your mouth fall open from the stretch. It never gets old, this initial penetration, the way your body always seems to yield to the sheer size of him, no matter how long it has been. He knows he’s moving on borrowed time, only moments to bring you ecstasy, but still he allows himself to savor this first entrance, the tight grip of your pussy around his cock. 

And then he moves, rocking his hips back and forth, watching the mirror for your reactions, trying to make sure he’s not hurting you. But the mirror only reflects pleasure on both your faces. Your face lax, a vision of bleary eyed bliss. His own brows are furrowed with concentration as he shifts his hips, trying to hit the spot from this new angle, one where you’re upright, but bent slightly and anchored by your arms against a wall. 

One of his hands grip your thigh, lifting it up so that your knee is braced on the mirror as well, opening you up to him a little more. His cock sinks another inch deeper, teeth biting down on the panties as he feels you clench.

“Fuck!” you groan, and he knows he’s found the spot. He moves both hands on your waist, holding you steady, marveling at the way he towers over you in this position. A sense of power fills him, warm and glowing from the trust you’ve put upon him. His thrusts grow firmer, steadier, as he feels your tight pussy fluttering and clenching around him. Spencer has to fight the urge to bury his entire length in you; you’ve never done that before and he doesn’t want it to happen on some random quickie.

Still, even though he’s not all the way in, he knows he’s doing a good job, judging by the increasing gasps that leave your perfect mouth. The looming threat of being found, the promise of people beyond the heavy curtains excites him, alarmingly so. And it seems like you’re on the same boat, as you keep glancing over your shoulder, half keeping watch, half daring people to yank those curtains back and expose the debauchery happening within the tiny space of this dressing room. 

He shudders at the thought, thrusting into you more roughly than before. It sends him deep inside your walls, and a cry escapes your lips. Your gazes meet in the mirror, equally mortified, nervous, and excited. 

Spencer continues to move, fucking you in this position. If someone heard, they must have opted to ignore the sound instead, and he’s going to take advantage of that fact, bending his body over yours so that his chest is flush against your back. You clench around him in response, your body greedily eating up every inch he’s allowing himself to give you. 

“God, you’re in so deep.” you gasp, “So, so deep, feels so good.”

He recognizes this state, mindless and vocal from pleasure and he knows you're close. 

“Spence, oh my god baby, so big, you’re - oh fuck, yes!”

It makes him proud, his chest filling with a warmth only you can seem to produce, the very act of reducing you to this babbling, nearly incoherent mess but it also poses a problem. You’re becoming too loud. Too risky. In the heat of the moment, and without stopping the rhythm of his thrusts, Spencer yanks your panties out of his mouth and transfers the fabric into your own. Crumpled up, damp with his saliva, they stop the silly, pleasure drunk stream of words that have been spilling from your lips.

Your eyes meet in the mirror again, his own amused and slightly apologetic, yours barely comprehending.

“Gotta keep quiet, angel.” he murmurs, voice gravelly from disuse, “We wouldn’t want an audience.”

A whimper, smothered by your own panties, perks up his ears and goes straight to his cock. “God baby, you’re so good, letting me have you like this.” he gasps, dropping his head to the crook of your neck. 

His cock feels sensitive, ready to burst at any given moment. His thrusts become sloppy, erratic, one arm wrapping around your waist to keep you tethered to him because he can feel your legs and thighs quivering under his weight. Spencer uses his other hand to brace against the mirror, staining the once clear glass with sweat and condensation.

“Angel, ah!” he’s aware his volume is increasing as the pleasure intensifies, so he bites down on the closest possible thing—your shoulder. As teeth sink into flesh, your pussy tightens around his cock in response, and he’s done for, unraveled, spilling his cum deep into your being. He continues to thrust, recognizing the way you’re squirming against him, the nearly vice like grip of your walls on his thick length.

“That’s it,” he gasps soothing the bite with his lips and tongue, talking and fucking you through your own orgasm, “That’s it angel, come for me, please, need to feel you, that’s it, there you go.”

Normally, he’d bask in the afterglow, hold you to him until neither of you can breath and the lack of space becomes claustrophobic. But not right now. He has to remind himself you’re still in a public store, separated from people by mere fabric—heavy, curtains, sure, but still fabric. So he holds out his hand in front of your mouth, allowing you to spit out the wad of lace into his palm, and pulls out of your fluttering cunt carefully. His cock still throbs but is slowly softening. He helps you stand up.

“God, that was—I can’t believe we did that.” Spencer whispers. Unable to withhold his affection, he peppers your temple and forehead with kisses, relishing in the sweet sighs of contentment that leave your lips, now no longer cushioned by the panties.

“‘Twas so good,” you bury your face in his chest, and he holds you, supports your weight by wrapping his arms around your waist, “‘M so sweaty.”

He laughs, “Yeah, this fitting room got a little heated.”

“Ruined the slip.” you peek up at him, eyes no longer flashing with mischief but cloudy with pleasure.

“Good thing I’m buying it for you then,” he presses his lips to your sweat stained forehead, “There’s no way you’re leaving without it.”

Thank you for reading! Part of the big useless dick chronicles collection.

You had been around the Cody family for as long as you could remember.

You’d grown up in the same neighbourhood, spent more nights at the Cody house than your own, and had been attached to Deran at the hip since you were kids, when you had crashed your new bike straight into Deran. 

Over the years, you’d become something of an unofficial Cody.

Except Smurf had never particularly liked you. Then again, Smurf didn't like anyone. Not even her own sons. She only loved herself. You had learned early on that the safest way to deal with Janine Cody was to smile politely, say as little as possible, and never let her know when she'd gotten under your skin.

Her sons however, were completely different. 

Baz tolerated you to an extent that meant he never really spoke to you. Craig adored you and protected you like it was his personal mission. Deran was your boy, and you were his girl. You were the first person he came out to, crying into your shoulder as you comforted him and reminded him how loved he is. 

Pope was.. something else entirely.

There had been something between you two since they were teenagers. Nothing either of them had ever acknowledged, nothing that had ever been said aloud. That didn’t mean the other boys wouldn’t mention it.

Craig would offer to drive you home and Pope would step in, silently staring him down until he would hand Pope the car keys. You would rather drive home in silence with Pope than drive with Craig awkwardly flirting with you all day, any day.

“Your’e staring again” Deran would tease when Pope literally couldn't peel his eyes away from you at a party. Pope would just grunt and sip his beer. Why would he take his eyes off you? Who could ever do that?

Pope Cody had never been particularly good at showing what he felt.

Especially when it comes to you.

It was nearly midnight when you pushed open the front door of the Cody house. You weren't surprised to find the place full, they had just completed a job after all. However, you were shocked at the atmosphere. There's no celebrating, no cheers and beers. Just silence. 

Derran was pacing.

Craig was arguing with Baz.

And Pope was standing in the middle of the living room looking like he was about thirty seconds away from putting his fist through a wall. You had to look away, that should not be an attractive look on him.

"Well," you said lightly, "this looks healthy." Every head turned at your voice. Derans eyes softened immediately, Craig breathed a sigh of relief and Baz nodded his head.

"Crash."

"Hey, Der."

You kicked off your shoes and wandered further inside, completely ignoring the tension. Pope's eyes followed you as they always did. He couldn’t help it, not that he wanted to. 

“Thank god you're okay” Deran sighs, tugging you into a hug. A rare display of affection from him. “Job went bad”

You pull back, rubbing some dirt off Derans face before scanning the room. Your part went well, you kept the cops distracted and made sure to tell the boys when the alarms began, so how did it go wrong?

“You’re all alive” You say coolly, leaning against the kitchen island. “And nobody looks seriously injured, so tell me exactly what went bad?”

Typical Crash. Always seeing the bright side of the situation. Pope's lips quirked, not a smile but not a frown either, like his face had forgotten how to move.

Craig flopped down onto the couch dramatically, dropping his cigarette beside him. “Bullets flew Crash! Actual bullets man”

Baz leaned against the wall near Pope and crossed his arms. His expression was tight, annoyed but not surprised.

Then Pope finally spoke his voice low, rough from screaming at his brothers on the way home.

“It went bad ‘cause some dumbass inside tipped off the cops last minute.” He glared at nothing in particular, the air between them all still crackling with tension.

“I wonder who that could have been” Baz speaks finally, his voice accusing as he looks over at you.

The room went dead silent.

Your sunny expression didn’t drop but you tilted your head and your fingers stilled on the edge of the granite stopping their tapping.

Baz held your gaze, jaw working slowly under his stubble.

He wasn’t accusing you outright, not yet, but everyone knew what that look meant in this house. Baz had his suspicions, and he wasn’t planning on letting it go anytime soon.

Deran glared at Baz, a silent ‘don't you dare’ passing over his gaze

Pope? Pope didn't move at all, just watched you like you were suddenly made of glass about to shatter.

“Are you accusing me of something Barry?” You finally say, your eyes fixed on his, not letting even a flicker of fear show. You know you did nothing wrong, know you did every part of the job smoothly. It's not your fault some extra cops ended up patrolling that night. 

The use of Barry - Baz’s full name, the one no one ever used landed like a brick.

Craig made a tiny "ohhh" sound under his breath and slowly sank lower into the couch cushions like he wanted to disappear.

Derran took half a step forward, but Pope moved faster. He stepped between you and Baz without thinking, shoulders squared, stance wide as he locked eyes with his brother.

Baz stared at Pope. Pope had always been the quiet enforcer, the one who did what needed doing without question, the son who listened to Smurf, obeyed orders, and never once challenged her authority.

And now here he was, blocking Baz from even looking at you wrong.

Craig grabbed a pillow and hugged it like a shield.

"I'm just saying, her job was to distract the cops" 

You didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink. You just kept her arms crossed, that calm mask still perfectly in place, like you hadn't just been accused of betraying a family you’d basically lived with since childhood. Pope’s hands curled into fists at his sides.

His breath came shallow and quick through his nose, the way it did when he was one second from losing control completely.

“She distracted them,” Pope said, voice dangerously flat. “That’s what you told her to do.”

Baz didn’t back down. “And suddenly they knew where we were five minutes later? Convenient.”

Derran snapped then, finally moving, and shoved Baz hard on the shoulder.

“Enough.” Deran hisses up at his older brother. “It’s not her fault that a few extra cops were on shift tonight. We still got a good amount money, and no one got hurt”

Baz didn’t like being pushed, he opened his mouth to argue again but Pope cut in before he could.

“She did her job,” Pope said flatly. “We pulled out clean. We’re alive.”

Baz held Pope’s stare for exactly three more seconds before he looked away.

Not out of fear, Baz wasn’t afraid of anyone in this house, not even Smurf when she was pissed, but Pope had that look. The one that meant: Push me and I will break you.

It was something worse than rage, it was quiet fury, the kind that came from someone who'd already lost everything before and wouldn't let it happen again over some stupid accusation about his girl who's not his girl. (yet)

Baz exhaled sharply through his nose before grabbing a beer and storming down the hall to check on Lena.

Silence settled again. You glanced around the room, avoiding everyone's eyes before walking out and heading to the pool.

Pope watched you go through the window, your silhouette glowing faintly under the pool lights. You dipped a toe into the water before sitting on one of those lounge chairs, arms wrapped around yourself..

He didn’t hesitate.

The second you had wrapped your arms around yourself, he turned on his heel and followed, quiet as a shadow. 

Outside, the air was cool and the summer humidity was still lingering, even late into August. The pool gently rippled in the soft evening breeze as Pope sat down beside you.

Pope didn’t say anything when he sat down. His shoulder nearly touching yours, close enough to share body heat but not so close it felt like an invasion. He stared straight ahead at the dark water, hands resting on his knees, his posture immaculately straight.

Then Pope reached over, slowly pulling her hoodie’s drawstring tighter for you. You was cold, he could see the slight shiver. 

You didn’t react at first, just let him adjust the hoodie, your breath quiet and even. When his fingers brushed the fabric near your neck, you finally turned your head slightly. Just enough to glance at him from the corner of your eye.

Pope’s face was unreadable, as usual, in the dim glow of pool lights, sharp jawline shadowed, hazel eyes distant like he was thinking about ten things at once, as usual. Just Pope being Pope.

You eventually leaned into him, moving subtly until your shoulders pressed properly together for warmth.

Pope didn’t pull away when you leaned into him. If anything, he  relaxed, just a fraction. A tiny drop in his shoulders, the first sign of ease since before the job went south. The only type of ease that you could bring him. 

Pope’s voice was low, barely above a whisper, rough like gravel and smoke when he finally spoke.

“Baz doesn't know shit. You did good tonight.”

You hadn't panicked during the job. You hadn’t screwed up your part of distracting cops by being obvious or suspicious, you’d done exactly what you was supposed to do without getting caught yourself.. It's not your fault the cops put extra security around the bank tonight.

You don't reply, but your body relaxes even more against him. You believe him. He turns his face slightly, resting his cheek against the top of your head. Your hair smelled like vanilla and cigarette smoke. He could live here forever. 

Inside the house, the mood had shifted. The kitchen was silent now, Craig and Deran had moved to sit at the table, passing a joint between them as they shared the apple pie Smurf had made earlier.

Craig stared down at the pie, staring into it like it held answers. Deran looks out the window, watching Pope and his best friend. 

Craig took a slow drag from the joint before passing it back to Deran. “They look cozy,” he said casually, too casually.

"He's leaning on her." Deran muttered, unsure of how to feel

"I can see that."

"He's actually leaning on her."

"Yes, he is."

Deran took the joint without saying anything, bringing it to his lips and inhaling deep. He held the smoke in for a long moment, like he was using it to stall his thoughts. Because yeah, Pope was practically leaning on you.

Pope Cody didn’t lean on people. He stood alone, always had, even when surrounded by brothers or Smurf’s crew or whatever chaos came with being a Cody.

“Never seen him do that,” Deran said finally, quietly, to Craig.

Craig nodded, taking the joint back from Deran and tapping ash into an old soda can.

“Yeah,” he said. “He’s always been different with her.”

The way his eyes followed yours even when you weren't talking.

How he’d shut down any conversation that got too personal around you, like protecting something fragile. How if someone made a joke about you in front of him? Pope didn't laugh. He just... stared. And it shut them up fast. If someone got too close to you at a party? Pope was staring them down until they moved.

Deran leaned forward on his elbows now, watching as you tilted your head slightly, resting it against Pope's shoulder like you belonged there.

Honestly, you do.

thank you for reading!! likes, comments, reblogs and feedback are GREATLY appreciated <33

oblivious¡andrew x obvious¡reader m.list (coming soon)

You pulled away first, started avoiding him hoping it would prevent further incidents and protect your precious peace of mind. It worked, for a time, until something else happened. Another slight. Another apology. Another pardon. 

Spencer forgot to refill the coffee pot. An honest mistake, you're sure, but you were tired. It had been a long day, long week, long month with the amount of cases you were juggling; always running from scene to scene, or battling your fear of flying thirty thousand feet in the air, or listening to him talk when you had already told him you had a headache. All you wanted was a coffee.

It wouldn't have stuck with you, if it hadn't been him who was responsible. You wouldn't have even blinked if Emily or JJ—or anyone else—had put their hand up to take the blame for the sad, empty coffee pot. But of course it was him.

It was always him.

So you misplaced the file he was working on ("Sorry, Spence. I know I left it around here somewhere…"); and he let you borrow a pen that exploded all over your blouse ("Crap— I'm sorry! It must have gotten too warm in my car."); and your desk chair broke so you took his instead of one of the spares ("My bad…but are you sure you've always sat there? No, I'm certain you usually sit somewhere else. The same spot for seven years now? Are you gaslighting me, Reid?"). 

It wasn't until Spencer physically knocked the mug out of your hands, spilling your coffee all over the carpet, that the team noticed something was up. So much for those acclaimed profiling skills.

And the worst part? Spencer offered to clean that carpet. No, he insisted on it, and he apologised at every chance he got, all wide eyes and worry lines, really leaning into his kicked puppy appeal, and that was the moment your quiet battle turned into an all-out war.

Snide comments were ping ponged across the bullpen, the conference room, the jet—anywhere that put you and Reid within earshot of each other turned into your own hostile work environment playpen. He called you so many variations of the word "bitch" you were convinced he had shoved a thesaurus up his ass (all without actually calling you a bitch; that was too far), and you responded by slipping the word "virgin" into every sentence for two full shifts; he made a daring remark about the "borderline inappropriate" cut of your shirt, and you stole a sweater from his go-bag and wore it the rest of the day to "protect his eyes"; you got yourself a boyfriend, and he got…weird.

Reid's always weird, in a Reid way; awkward, rambling, would-be-a-good-court-jester kind of weird. But this was different. He was different.

He stopped fighting. Raised his pitiful little white flag and just stopped. No big argument, no letter from HR, nothing.

You just thought he'd gotten bored of the back-and-forth, or maybe his New Year's resolution was to stop being a total bitch (you can call him a bitch; that's fine) and become a total bore instead. It wasn't something you thought anything of— and you wouldn't even be thinking about it now if things weren't…like this.

Three months ago, you broke up with your boyfriend. (No big deal; people break up all the time.)

The last time you had sex was three months ago. (Again, nothing crazy; you've abstained for far longer than that in the past.)

You're stuck in a car for twelve hours… (Average stakeout; nothing to write home about.)

…with Spencer Reid… (You've done it before; you can do it again.)

…and you're pretty sure you're ovulating. (Literally happens every month; you'd be more concerned if you weren't ovulating.)

All of these factors are insignificant on their own. Mundane things that happen to everyone, anywhere, any time; mundane things that have all happened to you at one point or another, and it really, really shouldn't be a big deal.

So why does it feel like you're dying?

Spencer's talking to you, he has been for some time now, and you can barely hear him over…whatever this is. And you certainly can't look at him, because then you'll—

Christ, have his hands always looked like that? Were those veins there when you got in the car? The definition? Have they always been that big?

Okay, arms and legs crossed, eyes forward, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth…

…is he sweating? Can you smell is sweat right now? Is that really what he smells like?

Correction: breathe in through your mouth, and out through your mouth.

You're sweating, that's for sure. 

Fuck, it's hot in here.

"Are you listening to me?"

"Uh huh."

"You haven't been listening, have you?"

"Sure I have." You rub your eyes, trying to get to whatever thing has hijacked your mind. "You said this guy, uh…wasn't bitten by a spider? So how is he Spider-Man?"

"I…" His gaze burns a hole straight through your temple and into your brain, sears it from the inside out. "I said that ten minutes ago."

"Oh." Pull yourself together. "Run it back?"

"Run it back?"

"We have time, don't we?" You squint at the dashboard, carefully avoiding any hands or forearms or biceps or— "There's…six hours left of this…oh my God."

"Don't sound too thrilled," Spencer mutters. "Anyway, the reason he's Spider-Man is because he was trying to recreate the abilities of the original Spider-Man in other people—this is set in the future, remember? He actually wanted to discontinue his research after a human test subject died, but Tyler Stone—that's his boss—had other plans…"

Garcia once told you about this alternate universe trope in a lot of her "fandoms" where characters have this almost wolf-like biological hierarchy thing going on— or something like that, you weren't paying much attention. You remember her talking about how certain people experience "heats" like animals do, and you're sure this must be the real-life equivalent.

You've been sitting in a hot car for six hours, unable to sleep, with a coworker who is inexplicably getting more and more attractive with each torturous minute that passes, and he's talking about fucking Spider-Man. Not even regular Spider-Man, either; he's talking about Spider-Man from the fucking future. 

And that's not to say that Reid was unattractive before this nightmare began, Morgan doesn't call him "pretty boy" for no reason, but you weren't attracted to him. Okay, maybe a little, or…more than a little—but not to the extent that you are now.

Right now, you feel positively in-fucking-sane. 

"…and in order to get himself off of Rapture, he uses an older template of his unaltered genetic code to overwrite his current biology. However, his subordinate Delgato sabotages the machines and, instead of being restored to his old code, his genes are rewritten to contain fifty percent spider DNA—that's how he becomes Spider-Man."

A pause. Spencer doesn't pause unless he's awaiting a response.

"…uh huh."

The leather squeaks as Spencer leans over to scrutinise you. "What did I say?"

"That he, um—" You shrug as you clear your throat. "Someone fucked with the machine, and now his DNA is half spider."

Another pause. Longer.

What is he waiting for? You answered his question.

"Um. I just figured that all Spider-Men were bitten by—"

"Can you look at me?"

"Nope."

You weren't supposed to say that out loud.

"…nope? What— what do you mean nope?"

"We're supposed to keep an eye out for our unsub," you mutter.

"So you can't spare a glance?"

"Nope," you repeat, popping the "p" this time so it sounds more intentional.

Spencer sinks back into his seat, but his gaze doesn't leave you.

"Did I do something?"

You shake your head quickly. "No, you're…fine."

He's fine? Really?

"Look," he sighs, "I know we've never really…seen eye to eye. And I've been, um, distant—"

"Just keep talking about Spider-Man, Reid."

"—but I think, if there's ever going to be an opportunity to talk things out, then—"

"Please."

"—this is it."

He talks over you, unapologetic. Bulldozes your words with his own, and with a kind of resolution that leaves the air feeling even heavier. The heat inside of the car mixes with whatever poison gas he's just released, makes it impossible to breathe.

Does your sweat smell as strongly as his does? If so, you should invest in a better deodorant— and stop breathing through your nose.

"Can we open a window?" you ask stiffly.

"Nope."

"Reid, please—"

"Are you trying to say I smell bad?"

God, no.

"Yes," you snap, "and I'm sweating like a dog in…"

As your words trail off into obscurity, Spencer scoffs. "Fine, open your window. It isn't even that warm in here, I have the AC turned up all the way."

"AC my ass." 

The air that hits you as you roll your window down feels like heaven. You lean back in your seat, finally able to breathe, but then you hear that damn squeak.

Spencer's leaning over to adjust the passenger side fan. His hair tickles your nose, and when you freeze up, he cranes his neck to look at you, and he smiles.

"Hello."

"What are you doing."

"I'm fixing your—"

"I just said you stink, Reid."

"Stop breathing through your nose, then."

There's brain matter leaking out from your ears. Eyes locked in this subdued, almost dead stare. Homed on his lips. You're roadkill, flattened under his tyre, using the last of your strength to blink and twitch. Slow and laboured. Helpless.

When the hell did he start looking like this?

"…thank you, Doctor."

Your efforts to keep your voice steady prove futile. You sound as weak as you feel, breathless and—Christ—like sex. 

Close enough to kiss. You could lean in, that's all it would take. He'd taste like his coffee, strong and sweet, at first, with a bitterness that hits you just as you pull away, drags you back in for more. You hate his coffee, and yet…part of you…

"You're welcome, Agent."

Spencer pulls back, returning to his seat before you can do anything rash. The fan hits your face, but it does nothing to cool you down. 

Despite your best efforts, your gaze follows him. Sticks to him like a magnet, dumb and dead and desperate. He doesn't seem to notice how he's killed you.

He reaches for the steering wheel, holds it like he's going somewhere. Fingers flex against the plastic, tendons working. Veins. Just…veins.

He probably has a big dick.

And you're looking out of the window, putting yourself in time-out, because what? 

What is wrong with you? This is Spencer. Awkward, bumbling, pain-in-the-ass Spencer. You can't be thinking about him like this. It isn't right. It's…

That day, when you stole his sweater, he had only made that remark about your outfit because you had caught him staring first.

"There is actually, um, something I've been meaning to…talk to you about."

And you had only kept it on for as long as you did because it was comfortable. Because you liked how it smelled. How it reminded you of him.

…and he never even asked for it back. You could have kept it. He would have let you keep it.

Just how long as this been happening?

"I asked Hotch to pair us together on this."

His words hit like a bucket of ice, and you snap back to him, frowning. "What?"

"I wanted— I don't know," he sighs. "I needed a moment alone with you—"

"A moment?" you hiss, leaning forward. "We're here for twelve hours, Reid. We've— we've already been here for six, and you're only just saying this now? What took you so long to—"

He cuts you off, spitting out the name of your ex boyfriend like a curse—like it means anything.

You scoff, all irrational, hormonal thoughts forgotten. "What about him?"

"He's the reason I took so damn long, alright?" He's talking to the steering wheel; you're staring at him like he's lost his mind. "Because I…I had a plan, at the start of the year. I-I was going to ask you out, but—"

"Reid."

"You got this…stupid rock of a boyfriend, and— and I concluded that I was the idiot. I-I told myself that I had misread everything, and that you were never…interested in me, like that."

"Are you serious—"

"I'm not finished." Releasing the steering wheel, Spencer turns to you with this big, sarcastic smile. "The idiot here is you—"

You practically launch yourself across the seats, meeting his open, smug mouth with a kiss that leaves him floundering, grasping at the leather to keep himself steady so he doesn't fall and, more importantly, so he can kiss you back. He matches your hunger like it's second nature, like it's been simmering quietly within him for as long as it has been in you. Like he's spent months letting it eat him alive.

Everything is on fire. Your skin burns at the same temperature his does; tongues meet in a blaze amidst scorched lips and molten teeth. 

He pulls you over the centre console. Your knee hits the gearstick, and he mumbles an apology into your mouth, adjusts himself so you can straddle him with relative ease. 

Those large hands settle like anchors on your waist, pressing you down just enough for you to feel how his body responds to the kiss, to this position, to you. And it's enough to make you moan, because you were right: if the bulge in his slacks is anything to go by, Spencer Reid has a big dick. It's a wonder his ego isn't supersized, too.

It hardly registers that you're rocking your hips until he's whining on your tongue, trying to move in tandem in a way the car seat simply won't allow for. You reach around blindly, and the seat gives a rough, begrudging jerk before it reclines. 

"Okay…" Your chest heaves against his as you pull back just enough to let yourself breathe. "I concede…I'm an idiot…"

Spencer exhales a shaky, smile-ridden sigh as his hand finds your cheek. The curl of his lips reads as nothing but affectionate; pure, unfiltered fondness offset only by his words. 

"I forgive you."

You don't share in his smile. In fact, you swat his hand away like it's dirty.

"Bitch."

And then you're latching onto his neck, relishing the way he stutters on a gasp that, if you're hearing correctly, is laced with a curse. Faint, but discernible. 

God, the things you'd do to hear that again. 

When your teeth nip his sensitive skin, he whimpers, and you feel his cock twitch and strain against the fabric between you. 

Corrupting the golden boy, getting him to say all kinds of nasty things for you, and in a government-issue vehicle, too…now that sounds like an exciting way to spend your night. Far better than this stupid stakeout— the stupid stakeout that he requested you accompany him on.

Buttons hit the window as you pull his shirt open without care. He sputters, stammers, but you're kissing along his collarbone before he can choke out a single word, dragging your nails down his chest, and by that point all he can do is throw his head back and make his pretty little noises; you can worry about his shirt later.

As if on cue, Spencer's phone starts to ring. The hot car turns to ice, and in that split-second before the panic really kicks in, and he's just staring at you with those startled brown eyes, you swear to God he's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. 

He scrambles around for his phone, finds it in his pocket just under your thigh. He almost drops it as he brings it to his ear.

"Hel— hello? Hotch? You— p-pardon? He's— okay. Okay, we're…um— we're on our way…sir. Yes, sir. Okay."

His hand drops to his side, limp, and he exhales a sigh that shakes so much it rattles the both of you.

"Don't," you mumble, pressing your face to his neck.

"The, um, the unsub—"

"Oh my God."

"He was spotted by local PD a few blocks south. Hotch— Hotch and the team are on their way, but— but we're closer. We really need to, um…"

"Do you want my bra, or something?"

"You are such a— …she-devil."

It's so endearingly predictable. Of course Melissa—who loves snow, fantasy and fairy tales, and anything tipped with silver frost—would choose a winter ballroom wedding. The colors on the invitation say dress in the colors of the northern lights, accompanied with a palette that's admittedly very pretty. Some of these colors would be flattering on you. It's workable.

Unfortunately, the dress code is black tie. Which poses a problem.

You have black tie gowns in your closet, but they don't quite fit the whimsical winter theme. Plain black silk with modest necklines, falling straight to the floor. Just pretty enough to suggest effort, but never eye catching, never particularly beautiful. Dresses that say I made an effort while simultaneously insisting please don't perceive me.

Perfect for faculty dinners.

Terrible for pretending to be a glamorous guest at a winter fairytale wedding.

Thus, shopping.

Now for your next issue: finding someone who'll come with you last minute.

In-store shopping has always triggered a very specific kind of anxiety—the tongue-tied, chest constricting, panic sweating kind. It's irrational—you know that—but knowing it's irrational has never stopped your pulse from racing every time a sales associate asks, Can I help you?

Normally, you'd simply order online and save yourself the stress. But you don't want to risk the delayed shipping, or the inaccurate sizing. Additionally, in case the whole thing is a bust, online returns take way too long.

Besides, you have friends. Surely, you'll find one willing to accompany you, right?

Right.

Before you know it, you've dialed a number. It takes a full ring before you realize it's Spencer's.

Fuck. You stare at the screen, wondering when the hell did Spencer Reid become your go-to contact. Your thumb hovers over the end-call button, debating whether you should salvage your dignity and hang up now.

He answers before you can make the decision.

"Hey, what's going on?" he sounds soft.

Your mind flashes back to when he was here, in your apartment—in your bed—armed with takeout and reassurance and warm hugs while you cried over your dissertation.

He'd used the exact same tone then. Low enough to soothe over the frayed edges of your nerves. Does he use that voice with anyone else, or is it unique when he's talking to you?

Why do you care? You don't.

Why is that important? It's not.

You push your glasses up your nose and reply, "Hey. Um." Oh wow. Brilliant. You are so eloquent.

"Is something wrong?"

Is it too late to say you've accidentally butt dialed his number? Perhaps not. However, in that split second, you decide that the truth is less mortifying than a lie so lame as butt dialing, so you blurt it out.

"Nothing's wrong. Just wondering if you're busy."

"I'm free after lunch."

Fuck. Why couldn't he make your life easier by saying he's busy? Why didn't you just call Carrie in the first place? Why was Spencer's number the first thing you dialed?

"Would you..." You squeeze your eyes shut. "Would you maybe come shopping with me?"

No answer. You power through, against your better judgement, the words spilling in one suspended breath. "I… I need to find a dress for Melissa's wedding and I hate going shopping by myself."

There's a pause, which you use to alternate between praying the ground swallows you whole, and hoping he says yes.

"Are you sure you want me to come?" his voice more animated now, colored with confusion, "I'm not exactly knowledgeable on women's fashions."

"I don't really need you there for your expertise, just the moral support."

He doesn't answer again. An image of him comes so sharply to your mind—brows furrowed, nose crinkled, lips lightly curling like he's fighting back a smile—it makes your lips twitch before you catch the action and school them into a neutral straight line.

"It's fine if you don't want to," you begin to say, voice lightly strangled. "It's a weird request."

"No, no. I don't think it's weird at all."

You can imagine him shaking his head. Cheeks dimpled and curls gilded by light. You feel it would take too much energy to expel the thought from, so you allow it to linger. It roots like some sacred memory, and you find you don't mind it too much.

"I'm just curious why you need 'moral support' when you're shopping?"

You laugh, mostly at yourself. "It's… okay, those ladies doing sales freak me out. I feel like they're always sizing me up or something, it's a whole thing and it's dumb because I know it's literally their job to anticipate if I need help, but I just feel weird going there alone."

He hums through the phone, sounding thoughtful. You push your glasses up your nose, just for something to do.

"You know," Spencer says after a moment, "there's evidence that people significantly overestimate how much strangers notice them."

"You think I don't know that? I told you, I know this is dumb. You can say no."

"Okay."

"Okay I'm being dumb, or okay you're saying no?"

"Okay, I'll come with you," for the first time this whole conversation, he finally sounds amused.

And for the first time since he picked up, your chest doesn't feel like there's a pile of bricks sitting on top of it, impeding your breaths.

"Really?" you don't bother hiding the relief from your voice.

"Really. I can pick you up around 1:30."

Pick you up around 1:30 sounds awfully close to being picked up for a date. Your brain unhelpfully goes back to the dates of your youth, what few ones you've been on, arm and arm with a man and smiling in excitement. Traitorously, your brain also replaces the faces of the men in these memories into a tall, dimpled professor.

No. You shut the thought down quick.

This is normal friend behavior. Carrie uses the same terms, except Carrie is Carrie, not a very attractive older colleague who you're also pretending to date.

Whatever. You're getting worked up over nothing.

This is Spencer doing you a favour because he's an extraordinarily kind person helping out a friend.

You thank him, managing to sound remarkably normal considering your internal monologue has descended into complete chaos.

The boutique is just as you predicted. Too bright, too many sales associates welcoming you with too wide smiles. The air is saturated with cloying jasmine and vanilla, and soft, instrumental music hums just loud enough to hide the buzz of conversation.

""Welcome!" one of the ladies chirps the moment you and Spencer step inside. "Are you shopping for a special occasion?"

Your shoulders tense automatically.

"We're just going to look around," you answer, trying to match her enthusiasm without sounding as uncomfortable as you feel.

Her smile doesn't falter. "Of course! Let me know if I can start a fitting room for you."

"I will. Thank you." You don't move until she's turned away. Once she does, you make a beeline for the least crowded rack, shoulders still tense. Spencer follows beside you, and without a word, rests his hand between your shoulder blades. You feel the warmth of it through your coat, quietly, steadily melting some of the tension.

When you glance over your shoulder, you notice the sales associate watching the two of you from across the boutique.

Before you can overthink it, Spencer shifts. Instead of walking beside you, he moves behind by half a step. You're confused for just a moment until you realize that, with him standing at that angle, the sales associate completely disappeares from your view.

Quite literally shielding you with his body.

He doesn't say anything. Doesn't drop his hand either. Just follows you like a patient shadow, while you browse through rows upon rows of blues and greens. You feel you chest tightening for reasons unrelated to the perky sales ladies.

It's silent, surprisingly comfortable, until he breaks it with one of his usual tangents.

"You know," he says, lifting a hanger to inspect the fabric, "the distinction between black tie and white tie has become significantly less rigid over the last century. Certain movements have called out the elitism of these dress codes, as well as the ridiculous standards set upon each gender."

"I thought you said you know nothing about women's fashion?" you glance at him with a grin.

"I did a little research after you called."

"Are you aware that little usually means a lot?"

He shrugs with an easy smile. "I had a couple of hours to kill. Fashion, history, and capitalism go hand in hand."

You laugh, moving to the next rack while he regales you with more of his findings. Before you know it, you've forgotten about the other people in the boutique. Spencer Reid has successfully monopolized your attention, and though you can't believe you're saying this, you're glad he did. You're glad you asked him to come. You're glad he said yes.

Twenty minutes later, your arms are draped with dresses and you're surveying another one, when he breaks his current information dump with a question.

"Wouldn't you be cold in some of these?" Spencer looks at you with concern.

Indeed, most of the gowns are strapless, or made with thin material.

"The ceremony's indoors, everything will be heated." you reply. It had said so in the invitation.

"But getting there?"

"I can wear a coat over it on the way, don't worry."

He accepts your logic, keeps quiet as you go from one rack to the next. It lasts all of two minutes before he's asking something again.

"Am I expected to wear these colors too?" he asks, watching you peruse through shades of green.

You glance over, brows furrowing. "What?"

"Should I rent a new suit in these colors?" he says, gesturing at the array of gowns in your arms.

"I mean, men's formal wear is so much more straightforward, I think you can get away with a standard black coat and tie." you answer, checking a price tag on one dress and wincing lightly. Back on the rack it goes.

"I suppose that's true," he follows you to a different rack, hands deep in his pockets. Spencer's dressed the most casual you've ever seen him, in a black sweater without a button down collar peeking underneath, and a heavy black jacket to combat the cold. It's a good look on him, not that you'd ever admit it out loud.

"And I'm assuming you already have those already."

"I do, but wouldn't it be nice to match a little? If we're attending together, do men's accessories usually coordinate with the gown? I've never been someone's wedding date before."

You whirl to face him.

He smiles. "If we're going as a couple, don't you think that'll more convincing?"

You blink, mouth agape.

"No one would consciously notice," he continues, like this is something he's thought about for a while, "but coordinated colours tend to reinforce the perception that two people arrived together," he tilts his head, "it increases credibility."

"I suppose that's true." you say finally.

"It'll also narrow down my options."

"Your options?" your brows are probably at your hairline now.

"For which tie to wear. I wouldn't want to clash with you."

"Right."

"So, if you think about it, it's actually a good thing I came. I'll know exactly what color you'll pick, and I can match you accordingly."

"You realize it'll be unbelievably corny?" you joke, because how else are you supposed to react to Spencer Reid offering to color coordinate with you for a stupid fake relationship?

"I daresay most people would encourage being corny at a wedding." Spencer replies, grinning wide and proud.

"That's fair," you nod, "Yeah that's—oh god, I hate that this makes sense."

He laughs. "I'm just doing my job as your boyfriend."

There are three final contenders in the dressing room, all of them within your budget and fitting Melissa's curated winter color scheme.

The first dress is nice enough, a solid choice if you don't find anything better.

The second is gorgeous, a total steal for its price point, but the fabricis nearly translucent you can't even show it to Spencer without worrying about flashing him, so it's eliminated from the running.

Which leaves the third.

Save the best for last, so the saying goes, and this one is definitely it. It's cut in a timeless silhouette made of a heavier fabric than the other two, which makes it perfect for the cooling temperatures. Despite its weight, it is soft, draping delicately over your body, and flowing like liquid with every movement.

The neckline dips lower than anything you'd normally wear, while the back falls open a few inches above your hips, held together by slender ribbons threaded through loops and criss-crossing over across your back.

It's elegant. Daring. So unlike the plain, very classic dresses in your closet.

Which is probably why you like it so much.

Unfortunately, you can't quite get a whole picture of how it looks on you because you've unravelled the lacing while trying to put it on. One long ribbon is hopelessly tangled around your forearm, while the rest resemble the world's most expensive ball of string. You would be a cat's dream plaything right now.

"Fuck," you hiss. You're unsure how you fucked it up so badly, and you're terrified you'd accidentally tear open a seam if you keep twisting around. "Fuck!"

"You okay? You've been in there six minutes and forty-nine seconds, that's three minutes and thirty-one seconds longer than normal." Spencer calls out.

You stop struggling long enough to frown, even though he can't see you.

"Why are you timing me down to the seconds?" you huff.

"It's an old habit," he replies. "Need any help?"

No. Yes, but are you really prepared for that?

"I could call one of the ladies and—"

"No," you croak. You do not want one of them coming in, no matter how nice or accommodating they are, "I think you'd be… sufficient."

"If you're sure."

"I'm sure… I'm just, uh, a little tangled up."

"Ah." he knocks on your door, as if to indicate he's ready and willing.

"Don't peek or be a creep, Spencer, I swear to god."

"Of course not!"

The front of the dress is held up only by an arm tightly pressed to your chest. It's not so bad. He'll catch maybe a hint of side boob, but you can live with that. You crack the door open and peek out.

His owlish eyes greet you, concerned and unblinking. The rest of the hallway is clear.

"All right, here." You open the door wider, and turn around, letting him see the twisted mess of silk across your back. "The ribbons are supposed to go into the slots along the sides, see?"

Spencer's quiet. You feel his gaze like an insistent weight, and suddenly the room lacks oxygen.

"Spencer, do you see where they're supposed to go?" you repeat, your free arm twisting to run over the material, trying to feel for where the loops are located. "I think I missed a slot here, so it's always uneven when I tighten it."

"Yes, I see." his voice is low, hoarse, and lands in a space so unfamiliar you can't even name it. His exhale is a lick of heat across the back of your neck and shoulders, fingertips ghosting over your skin as he tugs at the silk ties, slowly separating them one by one.

"Okay."

"You really did tangle the entire thing, it's kind of impressive." he chuckles.

You can only sheepishly laugh in return, eyes fixed upon the ground, and arms crossed protectively over your chest. Anything to distract you from his proximity.

He's close enough that his scent surrounds you, the warm spices and slight musk of old books now welcome and customary.

"How'd you get so tangled up like this anyway?" he asks, pushing some of your hair back over your shoulder. The continued contact of his fingertips makes you suppress a shudder. He's going back and fixing the mistake from the top, and you're wishing the knot in your stomach is as easy to unravel as these ribbons.

"Beats me," you say, laughing weakly.

"They go kind of like shoelaces." he answers in that same hoarse voice.

You exhale. "Mhm, but those are easier to fix."

The ribbons drag across your back as he tugs, slow and steady. He repeats the same motion to the other side, quiet in his focus. Rough knuckles brush on your skin every now and then. Accidental. Probably unavoidable.

You think you're two seconds away from combusting.

The worst part is, you're not entirely sure why.

Because nothing about this is should be riling you up. He's lacing you in, for heaven's sake, not out. A friend helping a friend.

But every brush of his fingers on your skin, accidental or otherwise, lingers far longer than it should.

The frightening thing is, part of you wants to welcome it. Wants to become familiar with his touch, wants to lean in and relish it.

Spencer is quiet, guiding the ribbons through every loop with sure fingers, steadily getting lower. He fumbles with the loop by your waist. You can't help but jump.

"Did I hurt you?"

How could he possibly, moving this delicately?

"No, I'm good."

"Ticklish, then?" he asks, amused.

"I'm—yeah." Sure. Ticklish, let's go with that.

"My bad. I'll be more careful."

"It's fine, really. I'm not porcelain."

"I know, but I'd rather be."

You squeeze your eyes shut and bite the insides of your cheek. The dress settles to your form as he works, the bodice now properly hugging your torso, snug enough that you can lower your arm without fear of the top collapsing.

"Do you think it's too much?" you ask, relaxing now that you're more covered. A quick glance at the mirror confirms your initial assessment—this is the dress. Far more sensual than what you're used to

Now that it's fitted to you properly, it might be your favorite out of everything you've tried. Snug at the top, hugging your curves just enough. But the low, exposed back is a little out of your comfort zone.

"The dress?"

"Yes." You feel one harsh tug as he tightens the last row, and something in you clenches and burns.

"I don't know."

Unbidden, your stomach sinks. But then, he adds,

"This isn't my area of expertise, remember?"

You laugh, shaking your head. "You don't need to be an expert to give an opinion, Spencer."

"For a wedding? No, it's not too much. It fits the dress code, doesn't it?"

"It does. I really like it but I'm—I don't know, it's not something I normally wear."

Spencer's head lifts finally, looking over your shoulder. Your eyes meet in the mirror, equally apprehensive.

"I think it suits you." he says, "Different can be good, right?"

"Right." You exhale, relieved.

"Do you feel comfortable in it?"

You pause, considering. Are you willing to spend an entire evening in this dress without being worried about wardrobe malfunctions? You shift, turn to one side, eyeing your reflection in the mirror. Oddly enough, even though it reveals a lot more than what you're accustomed to, the dress feels very secure.

"Yeah. I do. It's a pretty thick fabric, too." You consider for a moment, before adding, "I like it.

"Then that's what matters," he smiles, watching you move around the dressing room, feeling out the dress. He adds, in a rushed tone, "For what it's worth, I think you look beautiful."

The words make you pause. Even the haphazard speed couldn't mask the earnestness in his voice. You manage a smile, murmur a thanks, because he might not know it yet—hell, you don't want to admit it yourself—but it's worth a lot.

Thank you deeply for reading, please reblog if you enjoyed!

You lift an index finger, poke at his jaw, and push him away gently. Lips thinned, brows furrowed, a play at being annoyed.

"Move."

"Aren't we supposed to act like a couple in public?" he asks, the dimple on his cheek appearing even as he fights back a smile. He catches your wrist and holds it hostage near his chest. You, for some unfathomable reason, don't pull away.

"Yeah, but there's practically no one else here." you say, nose wrinkling, "We don't need to lay it on thick—or at all, if I'm being honest."

He chuckles, but lets your hand go and inches away as you'd asked him. However, his attention is still on your laptop, large brow eyes squinting at the image on your screen. You inhale sharply, and gather your bearings just enough to close the currently open tab—a picture of you and Melissa at six or seven, with twin gap tooth smiles and matching ladybug costumes.

A picture he does not need to see that right now. Or ever, if you can help it.

It disappears from view, only to expose another tab, upon which a more recent photo is flashed. Blurry, neon lights in the background. You and Melissa, off centered and flipping off the camera, wearing tight dresses and sky high heels that you can remember pinched your toes and gave you blisters before the night was even over.

"Fuck!" you hiss, closing that window this time. Unfortunately, you've opened an exceptional amount of tabs in your search for older—and specifically embarrassing—pictures of you and Melissa, so another picture is blasted in HD right there on your screen.

This third one is the worst. Somehow, its composition is even messier than the previous one, even though this was taken in a hotel room. You and Melissa were on vacation with a couple other friends, and the photo captures the exact type of chaos that follows a vacation of four young women—a large bed, its fluffy sheets littered with make up products and mismatched bikinis.

One girl stands on the bed in denim cut offs and a tiny swimsuit top, proudly chugging vodka straight from a bottle. Melissa's kneeling in front of her, holding a large, silicone, very adult toy, and you poised right beside it, mouth wide open and your tongue sticking out.

You slam the laptop shut. Warmth blossoms at your cheeks and spreads everywhere.

Beside you, Spencer is failing to hide a laugh.

"I see you're too preoccupied going down memory lane." he says, sliding into the seat next to yours.

"Melissa's wedding organizers asked if I had any old pictures of Melissa—old, hidden ones, you know, the stuff that's not posted online," you explain, the humiliation hardening into defensiveness. Your voice is steely, even though your heart is pounding hard. He isn't meant to see those. "It's for a slideshow, the embarrassing ones are for her bridal shower and the childhood ones are for her wedding."

His smile softens in an instant, turning kind and gentle. "The ladybug one was really cute."

"The ladybug one I can live with, but Melissa might actually commit homicide if I send the other two."

"I don't think the party one was that bad. And the hotel—"

"Do not mention that, please. In fact, just forget about it." you groan, snatching your glasses off and rubbing the heels of your palms to your eyes. Rings of color explode in darkness, and your hands drop to your lap, glasses hanging between your fingers. Without them on, Spencer is a blurry image, which is good because you don't think you can look him in the eye after what he just witnessed.

"I'm just saying, they aren't that bad. Just proof you've had fun and lived, you know?" his voice is so warm you're worried your insides would turn gooey and coalesce into one messy stew.

"They're still embarrassing."

"I've had my share of embarrassing photos, trust me."

You squint at him. Sharp angles, beautiful eyes, a perfect sloped nose—all features that would photograph handsomely. "Somehow, I find that difficult to believe."

He chuckles and pulls out his phone. Humiliation evanesces into curiosity—he's one of the few people you know who, very prudently, keeps his phone in his pocket when he's with company, so this must be something big. You slide your glasses back on just as he tilts his screen to you.

For a moment, you just stare. Blink. Eyes darting at the image on his phone, to him, then back to his phone.

"Oh my god, is that you?"

It must have been from at least a decade ago. There he is, smooth faced and so thin he appears bug eyed, lips pulled in a thin line like he's unsure which muscles to use to smile. His hair is straight, lacquered down his head like an ocher helmet, so unlike the unruly mop of curls he wears now. Even in his youth, he's wearing a button down shirt tucked into a sweater vest, a detail you can't help but find endearing.

Some things never change.

You can't help it; you snort.

"Hey!" Spencer narrows his eyes in mock anger, "I didn't laugh at yours."

"Technically, I didn't laugh." you reply, grinning wide, "A snort isn't a laugh."

His response is an indignant exhale, and he pockets his phone again. You let a soft giggle slip out, resting an elbow on the table, palm cradling your chin.

"How old were you there?"

"Twenty–one."

"And already in sweater vests?"

Spencer laughs sheepishly. "I was surrounded by professors and academics my entire life, I suppose I modeled my wardrobe after them."

You could just imagine it: a younger Spencer, lankier, but equally brilliant. Losing the battle with his curly hair and taming it into a more socially acceptable hairstyle—because it's easier, or because he had no clue how to style the curls? You don't ask; being able to see the picture feels intimate enough.

A beat passes, silent and comfortable.

"Do you wanna see the pictures I've already chosen? Just the ones for the wedding though, the bridal shower ones are confidential." you offer, still smiling at him.

His face lights up. "If you don't mind."

"I don't; you're attending the wedding with me, so you'll see them anyway."

"Then I would be honored."

You boot your laptop back on, this time without the panic or the embarrassment. Spencer dutifully averts his gaze while you close the opened tabs of even more embarrassing snapshots.

Navigating through the folders quickly, you locate the compilation you've chosen for the wedding slideshow. Mostly from childhood and high school, special ones that only you and Melissa have copies of. Themed slumber parties with your precious childhood toys, more matching costumes throughout the years, your first few disastrous dabbles with make up stolen from your moms.

Spencer is quiet. Even from your peripheral, you can he that he's smiling as he watches and absorbs the photos flashing on the screen. Your childhood memories being shared in this quiet, nearly empty library.

Once you've shown him everything, you say, "Well, now you have potential material for blackmail."

He laughs. "I've no intention of ever blackmailing you."

"I will hold you to that."

Spencer clicks to the previous photo—you and Melissa as your favorite Disney princesses, knees bent in a childish approximation of a curtsy. "I like this one."

"You do?"

He nods. "You must have been really excited over something."

Surprise floods through you. You were. That was the day the two of you performed for a school talent show, and were awarded with the biggest available stars for singing a medley of princess songs.

"What? How did you know?" you ask.

"You smile with your entire face, but it's more noticeable when you're excited. Your eyes scrunch and nearly close." He points to your expression on the screen, where you're beaming so wide that your eyes are, indeed, almost closed, before glancing back at you. "You still do."

The room suddenly feels much warmer than it did a moment ago. He noticed?

"So you're saying I was always destined to have crow's feet." you joke, self consciously touching the skin by your eyes. "With the way I smile."

"You say that like it's a bad thing. I think it's beautiful," Spencer says gently, his hand closing over your wrist again. This time, when he tugs at your hand, he doesn't let go at all. Instead, he shifts and interlaces his fingers with yours, and you let him, even though there's hardly anyone in this library to catch such performance.

He goes on, like this is normal, launching into one of his typical Spencer tangents.

"It's really lovely to see someone with smiley eyes. There's a scientific explanation behind it, you know—a French scientist named Guillaume Duchenne identified it in the 19th century, naming facial muscles that get triggered when—"

But you aren't listening anymore. Too preoccupied with this new piece of knowledge—he knows your smile. You don't know what to make of it, or of the tenderness that forms in the pit of your stomach, trembling and delicate.

Your mind spins as Spencer continues to talk, explaining the functions of orbicularis oculi muscles, and you feel yourself smiling, feel your cheeks lifting so high that the corners of your eyes crinkle. You squeeze his hand carefully, trying to ground yourself through the action, and grateful for something you don't have a name for.

He returns the gesture in an instant, smiling as he talks now, and you can't help but notice he smiles the exact same way. Cheeks pushing up so high the skin around his eyes crinkle, owlish brown eyes narrowing—smiling. Smiley eyes, he said.

And he's right. They're beautiful.

Thank you deeply for reading, please reblog if you enjoyed! Also, happy birthday Lils @spencellelvrr enjoy your day my love!!!

Then not.

Across the tent a soldier stepped out from behind the partition and wiped a hand across his face. Jack looked up.

"Is it done?"

The soldier glanced back the way he'd come. "She needs a minute."

Of course she did.

Jack already knew without being told that you'd been in there nearly an hour. Long after everything that needed doing had been done. Long after Gabriel had been cleaned and prepared, long after the paperwork, long after everyone else had said what they needed to say and stepped back out into the heat. He knew because he'd been watching the curtain the whole time, waiting for it to move, and it hadn't.

He stood and crossed the tent slowly. When he stepped through he found you beside the transfer case, gloves off, hands clean but trembling, your eyes red in a way that had nothing to do with dust. He'd seen you exhausted before. This was different. This was the kind sleep couldn't touch.

Clark stands quietly beside you. "Kid."

"His collar wasn't straight." Your voice cracked on the last word. "I fixed it."

Jack didn't say anything. He understood exactly what you meant and exactly what you didn't. The collar had never been the problem. You weren't ready to let him go, and there was nothing in his training, nothing in any of his years out here, that told him what to do with that.

He stepped closer anyway. It hurt him to watch you standing there, frozen, unable to move toward the door. He kept his voice low, the only thing he knew to offer. "His family's waiting for him."

Your body flinched. "Right. Yes." You took a breath and finally stepped back. "I'm sorry."

Jack gave Clark a small nod. The signal that it was clear.

A few minutes later the transfer case was brought out into the heat, and the tent went completely silent around it. Six soldiers stepped forward to carry it. Jack was one of them. Clark too. He focused on his hands, on the weight, on keeping his steps even, because if he thought about anything else right now he wasn't going to make it across the compound.

Outside the sunlight was blinding after the dim canvas interior. The helicopter pad sat in the distance, the transport aircraft waiting beyond it. The camp had gathered along the path without anyone telling them to. Nobody spoke. Jack didn't expect them to.

When the case reached the vehicle, the soldiers stopped and stepped back into formation. Jack moved to one side. Clark stood beside him. Across from them you stood with your spine straight and your chin level, holding a stillness that Jack recognized immediately, because it was costing you everything you had left and he knew exactly what that looked like from the inside.

For a moment nobody moved.

Then Clark raised his hand in salute.

Jack's came up with it, automatic, trained, and it was returned down the line by every soldier present, the only sound the wind and somewhere distant the low building hum of the aircraft's engines. His throat tightened as he held the position. Across from him you were still standing at attention, perfect posture, perfect form, and he understood that you were holding it together through nothing but sheer will, because that was the only thing keeping you upright at all.

The vehicle began to move.

Only then did your hand lower. Only then did Gabriel actually start to leave, the case disappearing slowly up the ramp while the camp watched a piece of itself go with it.

That was when you broke.

Jack saw your shoulders drop first. Then your knees seemed to lose whatever certainty had been holding them, and the sound that came out of you was quiet and raw, the sound of someone who had held the wall up for exactly as long as duty required and not one second longer.

He was already moving before he'd decided to. He reached you in two steps and pulled you in, wrapping both arms around you, one hand coming up to rest against the back of your head without him thinking about it at all.

You didn't pull away. You pressed your face into his shoulder and let it come.

Jack didn't say anything. There was nothing true enough to say, and he'd learned a long time ago not to insult grief with empty words. He just held on, steady, while the engines spun up behind you both and somewhere over your shoulder Clark stood with his hand still raised, watching the two people he had left from that tent try to hold each other together in the middle of everything that had just been taken from them.

******

After Gabriel's transfer ceremony, the aircraft disappeared into the horizon. Yet somehow his presence stayed everywhere. In the empty chair near the mess tent. In the half-finished deck of cards still sitting on a crate. In the silence that followed every conversation now, the particular gap where his voice used to fill the space. In the jokes nobody told anymore.

War kept moving. It always did. Orders still came down, patrols still happened, the camp still woke up the next morning whether anyone was ready for it or not.

Jack hated that. Part of him wanted the world to stop, just for a day, just long enough for everyone to fully acknowledge that Gabriel was gone. Instead soldiers reported for duty, vehicles rolled out, radios crackled with the same routine traffic, and life continued like one man hadn't left a hole in the middle of all of them.

So Jack did what everyone else did. He kept moving. Checking equipment, checking ammunition, checking routes that didn't need checking. Volunteering for patrols, for sweeps, for anything that kept his hands and his attention occupied. Because the second he stopped moving, he started thinking, and every thought led back to Gabriel. Every single one.

Across camp you weren't much different. You worked every shift available, took every patient, stayed longer than necessary, found reasons to be useful long after the necessary work was done. The two of you were doing the exact same thing. Just in different uniforms.

A few days later Jack was checking his gear when your voice cut through the quiet.

"You volunteered."

Not a question.

Jack didn't look up. "Yeah."

"You don't have to go."

"I'm going."

"You just got back."

He kept adjusting a strap that didn't need adjusting, checking a weapon he had already checked twice.

"Jack."

Nothing.

"Look at me."

Slowly he lifted his head, and the second he did he knew you could see straight through him. You always could. Not physically exhausted, not really. Something colder than that. Like part of him had shut down after Gabriel died and simply never bothered switching back on.

"Don't go," you said.

His jaw tightened. "It's a sweep."

"You volunteered." You stepped closer. "And you haven't rested properly in days."

He almost laughed. The irony would have been funny if it weren't so depressing. "You too."

A tired breath escaped you. "True." You folded your arms. "But if I pass out, at least there's a hospital bed waiting for me."

A small smile pulled at the corner of his mouth, the first one in days. Then it disappeared, because the truth came out before he could stop it.

"To make sure nobody else ends up like Gabriel."

Silence settled between you. There it was. The thing he hadn't said out loud yet. The thing everybody already knew without needing it confirmed.

You stared at him. Then slowly closed the distance. "But what about soldiers like Jack Abbot?"

The question hit harder than he expected. For a second he couldn't answer, because the truth was ugly. The truth was that he hadn't thought about himself at all. Not since the explosion. Not since watching Gabriel die. Not since watching you cry.

A muscle jumped in his jaw. His eyes dropped away. "The day I signed up," he said, voice rough, "the day I got on that plane." A pause. "I stopped putting myself first."

You shook your head immediately. "No."

"Yeah."

"No." The anger in your voice surprised him. "You think Gabriel would've wanted this?"

Jack barked out a laugh with no humor in it at all. "Gabriel would've volunteered before me."

That hurt because it was true. Gabriel would have been first through the door, first on the helicopter, first running toward danger without a second thought. Which was exactly why he wasn't here anymore. The thought settled heavily between you.

"Jack."

He looked at you. Really looked. And suddenly you didn't seem angry anymore. Just tired. Heartbroken. Scared.

Your voice dropped, quiet and small and entirely honest. "I don't want you to go."

Something cracked inside his chest. The silence that followed felt endless.

Then you whispered, "Please stay."

Your eyes glistened. And for the first time since Gabriel died, Jack wanted to. God, he wanted to. If it had been anyone else asking he would have walked away without hesitation. But it wasn't anyone else. It was you.

For one terrible second he imagined dropping the bag. Telling command no. Staying. Choosing himself. Choosing you.

Instead he stepped forward, wrapped his arms around you, and pulled you close. The hug was brief and tight, the kind soldiers gave before deployment, the kind neither of you actually wanted but both needed anyway. His voice came low against your hair.

"I'll come back."

You closed your eyes. "This is weird."

He huffed softly. "What is?"

"The first time we haven't argued."

That finally earned a real chuckle, small and tired. "That means hell froze over."

You didn't laugh. Somehow that felt worse.

When you pulled back your eyes searched his face. "Promise me you'll come back in one piece."

Jack froze. Because he should have promised. He should have lied. He should have given you something, anything, to hold onto. Instead, "I won't promise that."

The hurt that flashed across your face followed him for weeks afterward.

He squeezed your shoulder once. Then picked up his gear and walked away. He didn't look back. Because he knew if he did, he wasn't leaving.

******

The location looked abandoned. A cluster of damaged buildings sat beneath the afternoon sun, broken walls, collapsed roofs, too quiet. Jack hated quiet. Quiet usually meant somebody was waiting.

The team moved carefully through the compound, weapons raised, eyes scanning every doorway, every window, every shadow. Jack's instincts were screaming. Something was wrong.

Then gunfire erupted. The first shots shattered the silence and soldiers dove for cover, more shots following in rapid succession until the entire compound dissolved into chaos.

"Contact left!"

"Move!"

Jack returned fire, called positions, directed movement as the team pushed forward. Then someone screamed.

He turned. One of the younger soldiers was down, hit, bleeding out fast. Without thinking he moved, exactly the way Gabriel would have, exactly the way Gabriel always had. He sprinted toward the soldier, dropped beside him, grabbed his vest, and started dragging him toward cover while bullets cracked overhead and concrete exploded somewhere close. Somebody was yelling. Jack barely heard them, because all he could think was not again, not another one, not today.

Then somebody shouted a warning.

Too late.

The world turned white.

The explosion hit with enough force to lift him off the ground entirely. Pain erupted everywhere at once. His ears rang, his vision blurred, the sky spun above him in a way that made no sense. For a second there was no sound at all. No gunfire, no shouting. Nothing. Just darkness.

And then a voice. Familiar. Terrified.

"Jack!"

The darkness shifted.

"Jack! Don't you dare leave me!"

Again. Closer. Louder.

"Jack!"

*********

PRESENT TIME

Jack woke up with a sharp inhale.

For a second he didn't know where he was. The darkness of his bedroom slowly replaced the battlefield, the walls and ceiling and silence settling into place where dust and gunfire had been a moment ago. Pittsburgh. His chest rose and fell heavily, sweat clinging to his skin, his heart hammering against his ribs while the phantom ringing from the explosion still echoed somewhere behind his ears.

He dragged a hand across his face. "Jesus Christ."

His head hurt. The familiar ache behind his eyes that only ever showed up after nightmares. Nightmares he hadn't had in years. He thought he'd buried that day, buried Gabriel, buried the explosion, buried your scream along with everything else.

Apparently not.

A sudden stab of pain shot through his prosthetic side and he tensed immediately. "Ugh." The ache spread upward, deep and persistent. His residual limb always acted up when the weather changed, or when stress got bad, or when old memories decided to crawl out of the grave uninvited. Today, apparently, checked every box at once.

"Fuck."

He sat on the edge of the bed for a minute, waiting it out. The pain didn't leave. He groaned and dropped backward onto the mattress, staring at the ceiling like it owed him an explanation.

He grabbed his phone from the nightstand.

Jack: Gonna take sick leave.

The reply came faster than expected.

Robby: You?

Jack snorted.

Jack: My leg hurts.

The three dots appeared immediately.

Robby: Say no more, brother.

Honestly, that was more than enough explanation. Jack tossed the phone onto his chest and closed his eyes again. Sleep wasn't happening. Neither was work.

At the Pitt, Robby took off his reading glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Abbot can't come in today."

Dana looked up from her chart. "That sudden?"

"His leg's acting up."

Her expression softened immediately. "Oh." A pause. "He should come here instead."

Robby raised an eyebrow.

Dana shrugged. "We literally have all the medicine."

Robby laughed. "I'll tell him."

"You should." She pointed toward the floor. "We're not letting him win Employee of the Month while sick at home."

"He has never once cared about Employee of the Month."

"Exactly my point."

Princess, who happened to be passing the desk at precisely the wrong moment, heard the entire exchange. Which was unfortunate for everyone involved. Her eyes widened and her phone appeared in her hand before either of them had finished the sentence.

Thirty seconds later, the Pitt group chat lit up.

Princess: 🚨 BREAKING NEWS 🚨

Princess: Dr. Abbot called in sick.

The three dots appeared instantly. Then another set. Then five more in quick succession.

Shen: impossible

Ellis: impossible

Javadi: impossible

Garcia: impossible

Princess: apparently his leg hurts

Shen: old man disease

Ellis: did he finally discover he's fifty

Garcia: he's not fifty

Shen: spiritually he is

Princess: should we send flowers

Ellis: send him a walker

Javadi: send him a retirement brochure

Across the hospital phones buzzed one after another in a chain reaction that spread faster than most actual trauma alerts. And just like that, the entire Pitt knew Jack Abbot had taken a sick day, which was somehow bigger news than anything that had happened in the trauma bay all week.

A few floors above the ER, you were in the middle of surgery.

The operating room was quiet except for the steady beep of monitors and the occasional request for instruments. Your focus was absolute. Scalpel. Suction. Clamp. Every movement precise, every decision deliberate.

Garcia stood across from you, assisting. For several minutes neither of you spoke. Then, casually, as if discussing the weather, "Abbot called in sick."

You didn't look up. Your eyes stayed on the surgical field. "Okay."

Garcia narrowed her eyes behind her mask. "He never calls in sick."

"Sounds like a personal achievement."

The scrub nurse bit back a smile. Garcia wasn't discouraged.

"His leg's acting up," she said.

Your hands kept moving, steady and controlled, exactly the same as before. Not a single hesitation. Nothing in your posture shifted at all.

Garcia glanced toward the anesthesiologist. The anesthesiologist looked at the circulating nurse. The circulating nurse shrugged. Nobody in that room could read you when you were operating, which was one of the many reasons you were good at this.

The surgery continued. Sutures, final checks, closure. A little while later you stepped away from the table.

"Good work, everyone."

The team began their post-op routine. You stripped off your gloves, then your gown. A few minutes later you stood at the scrub sink washing your hands. Garcia moved beside you and did the same. For a moment neither of you spoke. Water ran over your hands. You dried them carefully.

Then, finally, "I'll go out for a while."

Garcia didn't even try to hide her grin. "Yes, boss."

You shot her a look. It only made the grin wider.

She tilted her head. "You know his address?"

You looked at her slowly. A smirk pulled at the corner of your mouth. "I'm not that ignorant."

Garcia burst out laughing. "Oh my God."

You tossed the paper towel into the bin. "Don't start."

"Too late." She pointed at you. "You pretended not to care for an entire surgery."

"I didn't pretend anything."

"You absolutely did."

You started walking toward the door. Garcia called after you, "Tell him the Pitt survived without him."

Without turning around, you lifted a hand. "I'll let him know."

The second the door closed behind you, Garcia turned to the rest of the staff. "Told you."

The anesthesiologist sighed. "We all knew she was going."

The scrub nurse nodded. "Honestly, it would've been weirder if she didn't."

"By the way," the circulating nurse said, peeling off her own gloves, "did the Pitt make a bet on whether she'd go visit him?"

Garcia froze for a second. "Damn it. We're too late to join."

*******

Later, you showed up at his apartment.

Jack opened the door and went completely still. He hadn't been expecting anyone. Especially not you.

"You're supposed to be resting."

"I am."

"You look terrible."

"Thank you."

"You should moisturize."

"Get out."

He let you in anyway, and eventually he sat down on the couch with the particular care of someone managing pain he wasn't admitting to. You noticed him rubbing the stump absentmindedly, his thumb pressing into the same spot over and over.

"Still hurts?" you asked.

He shrugged. "Sometimes."

It was a lie. It hurt a lot, and you both knew it, but you didn't push. You sat down beside him without saying anything else and reached for his leg.

He let you.

You looked down at his leg. Hesitated. Then slowly reached for it.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "What are you doing?"

"Checking."

"Checking?"

"Do you want my help or not?"

That shut him up.

Carefully you rested your hands against his leg. You weren't entirely sure what you were doing, not because you didn't understand the injury, you knew exactly what you were looking for and where the tension would be sitting. It was harder because this was Jack, and somehow that made every step of it feel different than it should.

Your fingers pressed lightly against the tight muscle along the residual limb, working slow circles into the spots where the strain had built up.

"Still hurts?" you asked.

"Sometimes," he admitted. "If I have the nightmares."

You didn't answer immediately.

Your fingers kept moving, carefully working through the tension gathered in the muscles.

"I should've bought you that bike the day we met."

You rolled your eyes. "I would've said no."

"No, you wouldn't have."

"I absolutely would have."

"You accepted one now."

"Because you're annoying."

"And persistent."

"Mostly annoying."

"And handsome."

You shook your head and kept massaging his leg, your fingers steady and methodical. Then, quieter, "I'm sorry I couldn't save it."

Jack looked at you for a long moment. The thought sat in his chest before he said it out loud. "Hey. I never blamed you. It wasn't your fault."

"I know. Still." You didn't look up from his leg. "In my head, every time I see you, there's a million different ways I run it back. Trying to make it work out differently."

He reached down and covered your hand with his, stopping the motion gently. "Hey," he said again, softer this time. "Look at me."

You did.

"You did everything right," he said. "I'm still here. I'm still standing. That's because of you, not in spite of you."

You held his gaze for a moment, and something in your chest loosened slightly, the old guilt shifting just enough to breathe around.

"You're still annoying," you said finally.

"I know." The corner of his mouth curved upward. "Mostly annoying. Handsome, too."

You scoffed.

"Didn't deny it, huh?"

Jack looked entirely too pleased with himself.

Like he'd just won an argument nobody else knew was happening.

****

FLASHBACK

The medic tent was chaos. Blood, dust, shouting. Stretchers coming in one after another faster than anyone could process them.

Then they brought in Jack.

For a second your heart stopped. His uniform was soaked through, dark and wet in a way that told you everything before you'd even looked at the wound. His face had gone pale, that particular gray that meant his body was already starting to shut down peripheral systems to protect the core. The lower half of his leg was barely recognizable.

You moved before you'd finished registering what you were looking at. Airway. Pulse. Blood pressure. You ran the checks the way your hands had been trained to, on autopilot, because the part of your brain that wanted to stand still and stare was not allowed in the room right now.

"You can't panic." Clark's voice cut through the noise beside you. "We need to save him."

"Yes, sir." Your voice came out steadier than you felt.

The next few minutes blurred into a single continuous motion. Assessment, medication, blood transfusion, everything moving faster than you could fully track. You worked the line, you called for supplies, you watched the monitor with one part of your brain while the other part screamed at you to look at his face, to confirm he was still in there.

Then came the leg.

You stared at the wound and then at the imaging once it came back, and you felt something in your chest go very still. The damage to the blood supply. The crush injury extending higher than you'd hoped. Tissue that had already started dying from lack of perfusion, the kind that didn't come back no matter how skilled the hands trying to save it were.

"No," you said.

Clark looked at you. "The leg lost the golden hour."

"There has to be another way." You said it too fast, the words tumbling out ahead of the part of you that already knew the answer.

"There isn't."

"There is." You pointed at the scan, at the section of tissue that was still pink, still arguably viable if you moved fast enough, if you were good enough, if the universe gave you one single break today. "We can try."

Clark's expression didn't change. "Kid."

"We can try." Your voice cracked slightly on the second word and you hated that it did.

"We're out of time." His voice hardened, not unkind, just final. "You know what this looks like as well as I do."

You looked down at Jack. Unconscious, pale, alive, the rise and fall of his chest the only thing in the room that mattered right now. Then back at the scan. Then back at him again, and your chest tightened so hard it was difficult to draw a full breath.

"There has to be something," you said, quieter now, the fight starting to drain out of the sentence even as you said it.

Clark was silent for a moment. Then, "Amputate."

You shook your head immediately. "No."

"Amputate."

"No." You said it again like saying it louder would change the anatomy in front of you. Like refusing hard enough could rebuild a blood supply that no longer existed.

For the first time Clark's voice hardened completely. "With or without you, this surgery happens. The only question is whether you're the one doing it."

The words landed harder than anything else in the room. Because suddenly it wasn't your decision to make at all. It never had been, not really, not once the tissue had died the way it had died. You had been arguing with biology and biology did not negotiate.

You looked at Jack again. Unconscious. Bleeding. Alive. You hated this. You hated the choice in front of you, hated that there even was a choice, hated that every version of this ended with you taking something from him that he hadn't agreed to lose. You hated, more than anything, that saving him meant losing part of him, and that you were the one who was going to have to be the hands that did it.

You closed your eyes. Took a breath. Then another, slower this time, the kind you used to talk yourself back into the work when your body wanted to fall apart and didn't have the time for it.

When you opened your eyes again the surgeon had come back online behind them, pushing the rest of you down where it couldn't interfere.

"Get him to surgery ," you said. What mattered right now is to keep his heart beating through the next hour.

If Jack Abbot was going to survive, you were going to be the one standing there when he did. Even if it meant being the one who had to take the leg to do it.

******

PRESENT TIME

Jack leaned back against the couch and let out a slow breath.

"The next thing I remember." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I woke up in the States."

You nodded. "You needed further treatment. That's why Clark sent you back."

Jack snorted. "Could've at least warned me." His gaze drifted toward the window, somewhere past it. "I wake up, look around, and suddenly I'm surrounded by strangers." A pause. "Didn't even know where the hell I was."

Then his eyes came back to you. Softer this time.

"At least—" He stopped.

You already knew where the sentence was going. At least there had been you. At least one familiar face. At least someone.

Your expression shifted before he could finish it. The teasing dropped away.

"I didn't know you were transferred," you said.

Jack frowned. "What?"

You looked down at your hands. The memory still sat uncomfortably even after all these years, a part of the story you hadn't told him because it had never felt necessary until right now.

"I found out afterward."

"What do you mean afterward?" His voice had gone careful.

You hesitated, then sighed. "I fainted."

Jack blinked. "You what?"

*******

FLASHBACK 

After Jack's surgery, something inside you broke.

You had saved his life. Everyone kept telling you that. But every time you looked at the empty space where his leg used to be, it didn't feel like a victory. It felt like a debt you'd paid with someone else's currency.

So you worked. One shift became two. Two became three. Patients came and went and you barely remembered their names, just the blood, the sutures, the next emergency, the next life. Because if you stopped moving, you'd think what you could’ve done to save Jack.

People started noticing. A medic quietly handed you water you forgot to drink. Someone told you to sit down and you didn't.

Then Clark found you.

You were halfway through another chart when his shadow fell over your shoulder.

"Get out."

You didn't look up. "I can still work."

"Get out."

"I'm fine."

"Get out before I ban you from this tent."

That made you look at him, because you knew he meant it. You stood, your body heavier than it should have been, and the moment you stepped outside the heat hit you like a wall. Two steps. Three. Then the world tilted sideways and the last thing you heard was someone shouting for a doctor.

When you woke up everything hurt. Your head, your neck, your pride. A canvas ceiling. An IV in your arm. The cot creaked when you shifted.

"Good. You're awake."

Clark sat nearby, arms crossed.

"How long was I out?"

"Two days."

"What?"

"Congratulations. You finally beat everyone else's record."

You stared at him. "Two days?"

"You collapsed. Your body decided to remind you that you're human, not a machine that runs on coffee and stubbornness."

You groaned, which made your headache worse. "How is he?"

Clark's expression shifted, just slightly. Enough that you sat up straighter.

"How is Jack?"

He rubbed his thumb against his palm, thinking before he answered. "You can't see him. I transferred him back to the States. He needs treatment we don't have here."

The words landed harder than you expected. "I didn't even get to say goodbye."

“It’s better this way.” Clark was quiet for a moment. Then, "Because I've seen soldiers like him before. He's drowning right now. No mission, no team, no leg. He doesn't know what his life looks like anymore."

"I could help him."

Clark studied you for a long moment, and something about it made you feel eighteen again, sitting in front of a commanding officer who saw straight through you.

"That," he said quietly, "is exactly what scares me."

"What does that mean?"

He leaned back. "Kid. You have a habit of trying to save everyone. You spend every day fighting death in that tent." His voice was gentle. "You don't need to turn a man into another project."

That hurt more than it should have. "I care about him."

"I know you do."

A beat passed. Then you muttered, "Did you separate us, because he's older than me?"

Clark sighed dramatically. "No." A pause. "Maybe a little."

You laughed despite yourself. "My parents have an age gap."

"Your parents met during peacetime." That shut you up, because he wasn't wrong. War changed people. Sometimes permanently. He looked out toward the camp. "And Abbot. War already took too much from him."

You thought about the nightmares, the exhaustion, the silence you'd already seen settle into him. "I could still help."

"And what happens if he leans too hard on you?" Clark asked. "What happens if you lose yourself trying to hold him together?"

You didn't have an answer.

Clark sighed, and for the first time he looked less like your commanding officer and more like family. "I already see you as my own kid," he said. "You're talented. Far too selfless for your own good. You fight the angel of death every day." A faint smile. "And somehow you keep making it wait."

"I don't know about that."

"I do. We all do." He leaned forward. "When this contract ends, what are you going to do?"

You shrugged. "Vacation. Therapy."

"Both good answers." He pointed at you. "I want you back in school. Another specialty."

"Me?"

"I'll write the kind of recommendation letter universities fight over."

"Why?"

He looked genuinely confused by the question. "Because someone with your talent shouldn't stop here. And because you saved my soldiers."

"It wasn't just me." You smiled faintly. "Abbot taught me a lot."

"He did." A grin. "He's the anchor of this unit. I'm still the leader though."

That earned a real laugh, the first one in days.

Months later, your contract ended. Your bags sat beside you on the tarmac, the transport plane waiting in the distance. The future felt wide open and uncertain in a way that made your chest tight.

Clark walked up beside you while you stared at the runway.

"Go out there," he said. "Travel. See the world." His eyes narrowed slightly. "Meet someone."

Your chest tightened immediately, because you already knew exactly who he meant.

He studied you for a moment. "If after all of that, you still think about him." A pause. "Then go see him."

The words hurt, but not because he was dismissing what you felt. The opposite. He was treating it like it mattered, like it might survive time, like it might survive everything you'd both been through.

Then he snapped his fingers. "Oh."

A soldier appeared behind him carrying a very familiar puppy. Your eyes went wide. "Riot?"

The puppy squirmed immediately, trying to reach you.

"Can I?"

Clark looked offended. "Of course."

The moment Riot landed in your arms he started licking your face, and you laughed for the first time in days. Clark watched with quiet satisfaction.

"Kid's already attached to you anyway," he said.

Riot barked happily, like he completely agreed.

***********

PRESENT TIME 

Jack stared at you for a second. Then groaned. "I'm gonna kill Clark."

You laughed. "He'll beat you first."

He looked genuinely offended. "You underestimate me?"

"He's eighty."

"Exactly."

You raised an eyebrow. "That's not helping your argument."

"It helps mine."

"You realize he could still throw you across a room?"

Jack thought about it for a second. Then sighed. "Yeah. Probably."

That earned another laugh from you, and the sound settled something warm in his chest. For a moment neither of you spoke. Then he leaned back against the couch and the amusement faded from his face.

"I blame him sometimes," he said.

You glanced over. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "But he had more experience than both of us." A pause. "And he was right."

You stayed quiet, letting him take his time with it.

Jack stared at the ceiling. "I pushed people away." His voice was calm. Too calm, the kind that only came from years of sitting with the same thought until it stopped hurting and started just being true. "I couldn't accept it." His hand rested unconsciously on his thigh, or where his thigh used to end. "I couldn't accept that I lost part of myself."

Your chest tightened. You remembered. The angry version of him. The distant one. The one everyone warned you about later, the one who shut doors before anyone could walk through them, who refused help, who disappeared into rehabilitation and therapy and silence and didn't come back out for a long time.

Jack let out a quiet huff of a laugh. "I was an asshole."

You smiled slightly. "A little."

"A little?"

"A lot."

"That's fair." The corner of his mouth twitched. Then his gaze drifted toward the coffee table, toward a frame sitting beside it.

You followed his eyes and froze.

The photograph. Old, slightly faded, taken with your Polaroid camera years ago. Gabriel in the middle, grinning like he owned the frame. Clark pretending to look annoyed. Riot small enough to fit under one arm. Jack looking irritated because he'd complained about pictures five seconds before it was taken. And you, laughing behind the camera, caught mid-motion in the background reflection of the tent's metal trunk.

"You still have that?" you asked.

Jack glanced at it and nodded. "Of course." His voice softened. "It was sent to me during therapy."

That made you look at him directly. He was already watching you, carefully, too carefully.

"Was it you?" he asked.

"What?"

"The nurse." His gaze didn't move from yours. "The one who gave it to her."

Your stomach dropped. "Oh."

He tilted his head. "I noticed things changed after that."

You looked away, suddenly very interested in absolutely nothing on the wall.

He kept going anyway. "My pain medication changed." Silence. "The grape juice disappeared." More silence. "They started giving me apple juice."

You pressed your lips together.

Jack almost smiled. "I hate grape juice."

"I know." The words escaped before you could stop them.

The room went quiet. His smile widened immediately. "Exactly."

You closed your eyes. Damn it. He had you.

"There were only a few people who knew that," he said, his voice gentle now, not teasing, not pushing, just warm. "You were one of them."

You bit the inside of your cheek and twisted your fingers together in your lap, because the apartment suddenly felt smaller, quieter, more intimate than it had five minutes ago.

Jack kept looking at you, patient, like he already knew the answer and was simply waiting for you to be ready to give it to him. Which, honestly, he probably did.

You finally sighed. "I left instructions."

His expression softened immediately. "You did."

********

FLASHBACK 

After you got back to the States, you secretly visited. Not once. Not twice. More times than you were willing to admit, even to yourself.

The rehabilitation center was almost an hour away from your apartment. You learned the route by memory. The receptionist eventually stopped asking questions. The nurses started recognizing you. But you never signed in as a visitor. Never walked into his room. Never knocked on the door.

You stayed where he couldn't see you. The hallway. The observation window. The corner near the physical therapy room. Close enough to know he was alive. Far enough to leave when it hurt too much.

And it always hurt.

The first time you saw him standing on the prosthetic, he fell. Hard. The therapist tried to help him up and Jack shoved the hand away immediately. You almost walked into the room. Almost. Instead you gripped the edge of the observation window until your knuckles went white.

The second time, he threw the prosthetic across the room. The metallic crash echoed down the hallway and several patients looked over. Jack didn't care. He sat there breathing hard, angry, humiliated, broken in a way you hadn't seen on him before. You left before he could see the tears in your eyes.

Another time you heard him yelling at a therapist through the door.

"Just leave me alone."

The therapist stayed calm. Jack got louder.

"I said leave me alone."

You froze outside the door, listening. Not because you wanted to. Because you couldn't make yourself walk away.

The therapist said something too quiet to hear. Jack laughed, a bitter, ugly sound that didn't sound like him at all.

"My friend's dead." Silence. "My leg's gone." Another silence. "So tell me exactly what I'm supposed to be positive about."

Your chest tightened, because suddenly it wasn't about the leg. Maybe it never had been. He wasn't fighting rehabilitation. He was fighting everything. Gabriel. The explosion. The future. The guilt. 

The realization followed you home that night, and every night after.

One afternoon you were standing in your usual spot outside the therapy room when a familiar voice appeared beside you.

"How long have you been standing here?"

You didn't need to look. Clark. Of course. That man noticed everything.

You kept your eyes on the glass. Said nothing.

Clark followed your gaze. Inside, Jack was practicing walking again. One step. Another. Another. The therapist beside him, ready to catch him if he fell.

"You come every week."

Still no answer.

Clark sighed. Not annoyed. Just tired, the kind that came from watching too many people hurt for too long.

"You're waiting for him to become himself again," he said quietly.

Your throat tightened, because he was right. That was exactly what you were doing. Waiting for the old Jack. The one before the explosion, before the funeral, before the nightmares. The Jack who laughed easier. The Jack who believed he could save everyone. The Jack who had two legs.

Silence stretched between you.

Then Clark said the thing you would remember for years.

"He won't."

Your breath caught. You finally looked at him. His expression wasn't cruel or cold. It was sad, because he understood exactly what he was taking from you by saying it.

"The old Jack is gone." He let that sit for a second. Then looked back toward the therapy room. "So is the old you."

That hurt even more, because he wasn't wrong. War had taken pieces from all of you. Gabriel was gone. Jack came back different. And somewhere along the way, without quite noticing it happening, you had changed too.

Clark folded his arms. "Staying here won't save him. He has to want to get better."

Inside the room Jack took another step. Then another. His jaw was clenched, his face pale with the effort of it, still fighting, still refusing to quit even when every part of him wanted to.

Clark watched him for a moment. Then looked back at you.

"And right now," he said, his voice softening, "that's a fight he has to win himself."

For the first time since the war ended, you didn't argue. Because deep down you already knew. You just weren't ready to let go yet.

"Leave," Clark said finally. "While he's fixing himself and fighting his own demons, you go fix yourself. Improve your skills. Become better than the version of you that's standing in this hallway right now."

You looked at him. "And just leave him?"

"Not forever." He held your gaze steadily. "One day, perhaps, the two of you could work together again. But not like this. Not you hiding in hallways and him throwing prosthetics across rooms. That's not a reunion. That's two people drowning next to each other and calling it support."

Something in that landed. You felt it settle, slow and certain, the way truth did when it finally arrived after you'd spent weeks circling it.

"I will," you said.

You stood, and before you could think too hard about it you leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to Clark's cheek. "I'll see you again, sir."

He crossed his arms, but something in his expression had gone soft around the edges. "Make me proud, kid."

************

PRESENT TIME

"You were there," Jack said, staring at you. "You were there, and I pushed everyone away so hard I didn't even realize it."

You looked down. "There wasn't much to realize."

He laughed quietly. "I thought I was alone."

"You were never alone."

His eyes lifted to yours. "Then why didn't I see you?"

You swallowed. "Because I was dealing with my own grief too."

The answer seemed to hit him harder than he expected. "Huh." A small smile appeared. "You were close." His voice softened. "I didn't know."

Then he rested his head against your shoulder. For once neither of you joked. Neither of you moved away. The silence felt comfortable, the kind that didn't need filling.

"You know," Jack said quietly, "Clark was right."

You raised an eyebrow. "That's a dangerous sentence."

"He'd love hearing that."

"He absolutely would."

Jack chuckled. Then his gaze lifted toward you at the same moment you looked down, and the conversation stopped without either of you deciding it should. Your faces were closer than either of you had realized, close enough to notice the tiredness still sitting in his eyes, close enough to notice where his gaze kept drifting.

The moment settled between you. Neither of you looked away. Neither of you moved.

Just a little closer. Just enough.

Then your phone rang.

Both of you blinked. Reality crashed back in at full volume. You looked at the screen. Emergency.

Jack sighed dramatically and dropped his head backward against the couch. "I hate this hospital."

You laughed, already standing. "I need to go."

For one brief second he wanted to ask you not to. Just stay. Five more minutes. Ten. An hour. Anything. But he knew better, because this was you, and you would never ignore a patient for anything, least of all him.

So instead he nodded. "Go."

You stood and reached for your bag. Then Jack suddenly held out a key.

You frowned. "What's that?"

"My house key."

You stared at him. "Your house key?"

He shrugged, trying very hard to look casual about it. "My leg still hurts."

"Uh-huh."

"I need someone to check on me."

"Uh-huh."

"In case I fall asleep and can't open the door."

You narrowed your eyes. "That is the worst excuse I have ever heard."

"It got you to take the key."

You opened your mouth. Closed it. Then pointed at him. "You are impossible."

"And yet you're taking it."

With a sigh you slipped the key into your pocket. "I'll give it back."

"No rush." The corner of his mouth lifted.

Your pager buzzed again. You headed for the door.

"Try not to die," you said.

Jack scoffed. "Pretty sure that's your job."

You shook your head and left.

The apartment fell quiet. Jack stared at the closed door for a moment, then at the empty spot beside him on the couch where you'd been sitting a minute ago.

A slow smile appeared.

Because for the first time in a very long time, when you left, he knew you were coming back.

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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.

“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. “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. “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 ♥️

+ Autistic Spencer, engrained into all of my one-shots re: him. (should’ve been canon i say as they drag me away kicking and screaming)

Warnings: sub spencer (like total, tell me what to do i am beneath you spencer), soft dom reader (with explicit mentions of her being hard dom, she’s versatile i love her), inexperienced spencer (but not a virgin this time !!!! oh my god, we’re making progress), crying, condescension, praise, some light degradation, copious amounts of begging (take a shot every time spencer uses his manners and says please), handjobs, head (reader receiving, spencer mentioned to receive), sex on every surface — SEX MARATHON (oh my god someone sedate them holy shit???????), they’re cute if you can believe me after reading all of that.

— this one is kinda academic!! learn something new while you goon guys!!! intellectual gooning!!!

w.c: 3.2k

A/N: tap tap tap is this thing on??? I apologise, it has been like a year and I can’t promise how consistent I will be with posting henceforth, but here i am…..

────────────

Spencer doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

Midnight. The world feels pale and weightless, rinsed out and left to dry. He’s airy, courtesy of the Cabernet Sauvignon split over dinner.

Not drunk, he tells himself. Outside the restaurant, the light bleeds off the street lamps in a slow haemorrhage. He stumbles, wayward in movement: flushed cheeks, wine-soft mouth, half-unraveled already.

You’re standing beside him, and he never learnt how to talk to pretty girls. Not really. Not when it matters.

His mind won’t stop. Alcohol affects cognitive function, warnings smeared across college bulletin boards. He can confirm; right now, he is not functioning remotely. He should’ve told you, god he really should’ve told you that you’re beautiful. That he saw you a month ago and has been ruining himself in the weeks between.

If this is a humiliation ritual, then he will gladly regard it as a kink.

What do you think of him? The question nags.

Spencer, Spencer who you think is too soft. He wears a halo like the crooked glasses he traded last fall. Intellect like the black-hole in his stomach.

He is too good, too good for you, too good for anyone. He’ll stare at you like a wounded animal, but feed from touch regardless.

He’s a mess and you’re relating him to divinity. Well, divinity and wing-clipped birds.

Here. Now. In this moment that spills back into time, his brain is a blur of obscure facts, futile etymology, half-formed footnotes. Freud’s death drive loops behind his eyes, fucking Thanatos—right now?

“Good?” you ask. “Maybe we shouldn’t of ordered a bottle, ostentatious.”

Spencer laughs boyishly. He can’t believe you agreed. Internally, he’s 14 again; all elbows and unbrushed hair, holding the kind of loneliness that calcifies into something permanent.

He remembers the way girls used to approach him: lacquered nails tapping against lockers, mascara-heavy eyes, dressed in body spray and spite. Daring each other to flirt with the boy who could recite the periodic table backwards.

He fell for it. Fell for it until it carved something mean into his stomach. Something he never quite outgrew.

“It’s etiquette,” he argues, too earnestly.

“Ettiquette. Right. Next time, we should order everything off the wine menu and see how long it takes for us to get kicked out.”

Spencer is too strangled by the notion of a next time to even discern the rest of your sentence.

He blinks at you. ”Next time?”

“Yeah, Einstein.” your shoulder knocks into his. “Next time.”

You say it so definitively. Like you know, are terrifyingly consciously aware, that you own the noose looped around his throat.

Spencer is fine suffocating, if it means his mind will call cease-fire. Shut up shut up shut up. That last glass of wine was a big mistake.

He thinks of Pascal’s wager, betting on belief, even without certainty. No, he thinks of Camus’ absurdism, the conflict between humans search for meaning. No. Japanese ma (間) - the space between, the silence that holds tension. Fuck fuck fuck.

The smart ones always make dumb decisions. He should’ve never picked up the bottle in general.

So what’s he going to do? Word vomit. (…. nothing screams successful end-of-date behaviour like a spontaneous lecture on metaphysics and emotional dysfunction).

“You know, Schopenhauer believed that existence is driven by this blind, irrational force—The Will—and that it, um… well, compels everything to keep striving, desiring, even though fulfilment is always temporary.“

Great start. He’s going to die alone. “So we chase, we want, and we think that when we get the thing we want, we’ll be at peace, but we’re not, because..”

He makes a small, helpless gesture, like he’s trying to pull the words to him..

“The Will just,… finds something new to want. We’re built to be dissatisfied. We’re—we’re biologically wired for hunger, for longing. Even this, even you, saying next time—it lights up every neuron in my brain, every craving, every ridiculous, hopeless part of me that wants to hold onto you and know there’ll be more. But if Schopenhauer’s right, it’s all just… another loop. Another itch I can’t scratch.”

Spencer wonders if there’s a fault in his binary coding. “I’m sorry— that’s a lot. I just…. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to just… let myself want something without dissecting it to death.”

He’s still half-laughing, half-apologising, all stuttered ‘i’m sorry’s’ and ‘Derek is going to kill me for fumbling this’ when you cut through.

“Spencer. Genuinely, who cares?” You catch his wrist, sharp enough to register. “I’m not telling you there might be a next time. I’m telling you there will be.”

When you make decisions for him, it feels like a relief his prefrontal cortex can’t justify; you’ve short-circuited his need for autonomy by offering something even more seductive: certainty.

If he pops a boner right now, please have the decency to look away.

You sigh, “Stop running theoreticals in your head, genius. You just have to show up. Think you can manage it?”

Spencer swallows. “Um—yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I’ll uh,” he gives you this awkward, ‘I’m really trying!’ smile, “I’ll write it into my calendar…?”

“Preferably in red ink. With a little exclamation mark.”

“Oh. Okay. Yes ma’am.”

─────────

Spencer likes dates. Like when your knees knock under tables, likes your ankle hooked around his, likes the drag of your thigh when you shift in cramped spaces.

His favourites exist in coffee shops, when you overstay, just to psychoanalyse a stranger three tables over. When you stand up to stretch, soft and godless. He picks lint from his sweater like it means something, shows up with flowers and dumb memorabilia; pressing receipts into your palm, ‘Keep this, it’s from the night we first met,’ all wide-eyed intimacy that comes in a soft package.

He wears your hair tie like a wedding band around his wrist. Starts to humour horoscopes, simply because your star-signs match. If they decide to deem you ‘incompatible’ one day, he will resort back to fuck the stars, what are they anyway? Hydrogen and helium gas bombs. They’re wrong,… baseless.

Seventh date. You have him up against a bookcase, and he can only recite [ Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxyg… ] as you carve your way down his neck.

He keeps pausing, to highlight the legal risks of public indecency, to compare you to the Golden Ratio. 1.618: he can trace the sequence in your bone structure. He’s found it in autopsies and blood spatter and now, somehow, in the curve of your eyebrow.

“You should um…. come back to my place.” Spencer winces. “Ha, that sounded like a proposition. It’s not. I mean—I don’t think it is?”

He laughs, dropping his head to your shoulder. “I just…. have this list of movies I want to watch with you. Because people, normal people, do that right?”

“Last time I checked…”

“Okay. Yeah. Good. Um, here’s your warning. My TV buffers randomly, and the subtitles are stuck in Dutch for some reason, but… I have good snacks?”

Your hands bleed through his hair, sinking to the scalp. If he moans right now, he will kill himself.

Instead, he just blushes, pulling his head up to meet your gaze. “I’m aware I’m not selling this well.”

“Heeey. I like subtitles. Subtitles are good. I’m a talker, so it’s probably for the best—“

“—You like talking. I love talking. Everyone always looks at me weird when I pause 12 angry men to explain how Juror 8’s entire argument hinges on cognitive bias theories that weren’t even formalised until decades later, but! but! they’re so obvious if you just know where to look—“

He cuts himself off, goes to apologise (for the nth time this week). You beat him to it.

“Or when you try to explain how Solaris isn’t about space at all, it’s about the impossibility of human connection and how every interaction we have is just a projection of ourselves on the other person. Yup. Been there. My friends hate me. Movie nights are banned. It’s a crime.”

Fuck. Everything. You simply exist, talk all your pretty intellectual words, and now nothing else feels sufficient for him.

Queue the vows.

Sometimes, he gets off on the thought of exclusivity, commitment. Statistically, he knows that’s not marketable. Porn doesn’t cater to emotional stability.

Monogamy. Eye contact. Not exactly a thriving niche in adult content.

“Right. OK. You just summarised Solaris in one sentence. Cool.” he blinks, then again…. “Let’s get married.”

He stares. Kicks himself mentally. Attempts to backtrack. “I mean… platonically! Intellectually! The cost of living is too high right now to live alone— not….”

You scoff. “Platonically? You just had my tongue down your throat.”

“What? And you don’t kiss your friends?” he says, before holding up his hands in surrender. “That’s um, I was joking. I have never done that, won’t ever do that—can we leave now?”

“Scared we’re gonna get caught?”

“Yes, actually. I’m ah, a very serious FBI agent. It would be…. distasteful?… to be seen in such a compromising position.”

“You’re into it.”

“Yeah…” he sighs, like he’s disgusted by his own perverted actions, “Potentially.”

─────────

Spencer’s place is quiet, paper-soft around the edges—patchwork blankets thrown over mismatched furniture, books stacked into every miscellaneous corner.

The city outside is slick. Shitty late night weather: puddles that reflect sodium streetlights, fractured constellations smeared across the asphalt. It’s humid, everything outside smells of petrichor and old stone.

You’re both splayed across the couch, watching old re-runs as you debate over a movie. Dumb little arguments, interrupted by messy kisses that escalates into tangles of limbs and skin, and ‘oh? what was I saying?’

He lives in his own untouchable haze of domesticity. Leaving behind pen smudges and ringed coffee stains. He’ll let you kiss him, sweater half-on, collared shirt underneath creased. Pausing to pull himself together, only to ruin it all over again when his lips return obediently to yours.

Right now. Present moment. You’re straddling him. Bunched up fabric and heated touches He makes a noise somewhere between a gasp and a sob.

He wonders if you believe in limbic resonance. Wonders if his nervous system has attuned to yours emotionally.

“I want…” (he pauses, the words you, you, you lingering in his horny, sleep-deprived mind). “I want to.. be able to show you how I feel,” he says, which is an odd way of saying ‘I want to make you feel good.’

He’s just glad he can speak. Everything feels like glass and balanced china.

“This… yeah, .. shit Spence. “ — you can feel the pressure, the prominent bulge that presses between your thighs.

Maybe you’re hedonistic for dragging your hips against it. Earning a choked whimper from Spencer, who looks like he’s about to unravel.

“But—“ your voice drops mean. But what? You have the physical manifestation of warmth beneath you? What could possibly be more important than taking care of him?

“We should really figure out what movie we’re watching. I still haven’t seen Rashomon, which is a crime in itself….”

Interesting use of free-will.

It’s bait. Spencer knows it’s bait. Still, he’s a naive loser with a hard-on and prominent inexperience, so he bites, predictably. “Yeah. Huge crime.” pause. “Oh— ohmygod, you’re torturing me. That’s worse. That’s the actual crime here.”

His hips arch up to meet yours. Yes, yes please. He does not get out a lot (read: at all), and this is an amalgamation of every wet-dream, come to reality.

If he wakes up to tangled sheets, sweaty with damp in his pants, he will sue.

“You’re the worst.” he whines, “I really really don’t care if it’s bad manners, I want to kiss you again. I want to do a lot—don’t… please, I will beg. I have no dignity, I don’t care.”

You think there might be fatal consequences if you don’t remove his clothes in the matter of seconds. So, diligently, like a good house-guest, you work on his tie: tugging at the knot, unravelling it to start on his shirt.

“Thank you,” he says , genuinely terrified you’d leave him half-hard to watch a movie about the philosophy of justice.

Torso bare: he’s lean under those grandad clothes. Skinny, with olive-toned skin and sensitive nipples. Whore, you think, virginal, you settle on.

“Please—“

“Please what?” you repeat, pushing your hand against his chest, palm outstretched, forcing him back against the cushioned surface. “Use that big brain of yours to tell me what you actually want. I need words Spence, i’m sick of hearing pointless begs.”

“Anything,” he whimpers out. Little ah ah’s that bounce off the walls of his very grown-up apartment. In contrast, he feels like an angsty teenager now. “You could do anything to me. That’s what I want— I’m… I’m very good at following instructions!”

He will debase himself. Because, hello? He’s hard, throbbing and needy, and if you want to use force to coax him into coherence, then yes please…

No complaints here.

Your top comes off. Discarded fabric marking its way across his hardwood floor. Something incriminating. Perhaps it constitutes as evidence; that you have him, painfully awkward Spencer Reid, who averts his eyes and fumbles over sentences, all blushed and undone on the same couch he litters with academic journals.

Of course anything academic has been sidelined; he’s too busy marking his way across your breasts, messy lips latching onto nipples, leaving behind tethered strings of saliva, to care about…. IQ’s and WAIS scores.

“Do you think about this often?” you tug at his hair, pull him off your skin like a leashed dog. “Spencer. Listen to me when i’m speaking to you.”

“Mhm,.. ‘m sorry…”

He looks like he’s about to cry. He’d argue tears of fucking joy.

“Do you touch yourself and think of me?”

Everything is coming out wrangled. “Yes—“ he whimpers, “All the time. I can’t stop…. That’s bad. I’m sorry. That’s really bad….”

The TV is still playing. To Spencer’s dismay, it doesn’t muffle every indecent word that leaves his bruised lips undisclosed.

“I think about you every time I do—do that.”

They’re going to take away his badge, demote him to some office rookie. He will be punished for every night he’s stuck his hand down his pants and came to your name.

“The other day… when you dropped me off, when you got really close, I had to um,… you know, in the shower.”

He has the audacity to follow that confession up with: “I respect you, so much. But—you’re making me dirty. And I—“

Spencer’s hand clasps around your wrist, dragging your palm to his erection, the fabric soaked through with pre-cum.

He bucks up. Whines, like he can’t handle the consequences of his own actions.

“It’s a— a psychological process.” he says, in a last ditch attempt at maintaining (some) semblance of control. “When you see something you like, the visual stimulus affects your autonomic nervous system, which is.. um, linked to your hypothalamus. I’m, ah.. I’m a little overwhelmed,… if that helps?”

A pained whimper tears through him. “Oh— oh,” he can’t help himself in grinding against your palm.

You’re having a psychosexual effect on his brain. Everyone point and call out shame shame shame. “I need you,… just, just take care of me. Please?”

“Oh look at that, you asked so nicely. That was an actual request, well done.”

“I can be nicer.” Spencer argues; pathetic. So pathetic that it aches.

Someone collect his backbone on the way out.

You remove his pants, his stained boxers. If there’s anytime to play coy, it’s now, when you’re wrapping a hand around his cock: long, curved, with cum pearling around the pretty flushed tip

Everything is messy. The soak of saliva and lubricated arousal. “How does that feel? Poor baby, so deprived…”

It might be time to admit that he’s in over his head. How you’ve managed to reduce his thought process to base instinct is beyond comprehension.

It’s impressive. Spencer wants to study your skills in a lab.

“Feels,..” his words spill into sloppy whines, head falling back against the couch to bare the unmarred expanse of his neck. “You’re good. Too good! This is— you’re… I can’t last. I’m sorry, I can’t.”

It’s mean. Mean, making him watch as your hand drags down his length. He’d take notes, if he wasn’t so gone, because fuck, his own palm never felt this good.

This is corruption. Everytime you brush your thumb over his tip, he is being tainted. Left with too much pleasure for his big, yet so so dumb, brain!

Swollen lips part, forming a little o. He’s liquid, melting, coming apart at the seams. The orgasm itself makes him choke back mewls; it feels like warmth, it feels like he just debunked Schopenhauer, because for the first time, in his jagged life, he’s satisfied.

Personal record. He lasted 30 seconds. At least he didn’t cry,… improvements improvements. (A mercy kill sounds ideal right now.)

He doesn’t care about eloquence. Noise control, a filtered disposition. You’re kissing him through it, gentle parenting at this point, talking out soft praises that he’ll repeat later as he pre-orders a ring.

( ‘So perfect. There’s my boy. Shh shh, I know it’s a lot, you can take it.‘ ) Spencer wants your words under his skin. ( ‘Mm. You really needed this. It’s okay, princess. I’ve got you.’)

This is a well-respected FBI agent. Condolences to the victims of the cases he works on.

“I didn’t know it could feel like that—“ he’s clambering over you, a fervid tangle of limbs, trying to communicate through actions.

He fumbles with the button of your jeans, stuttering out sorry! sorry! when his hands fail at simple tasks.

“Shh—slow down. Hey, eyes on me.” you say, coaxing his gaze to yours. “Chill out, Einstein. I’m not going anywhere. Literally, you’ve kinda got me cornered here.”

“Mm, yup. Can we stay like this forever?” he laughs, abandoning task to kiss you again. “Well, y’know… after i’ve gotten you off, of course.”

“Wow, a real gentleman.”

“The best. You should probably keep me.”

“Every intention. Knees.”

Spencer drops immediately. Like he was born to be reduced to such a demeaning position. There, he hooks his hand around your ankle and repositions you: legs draped over his shoulder, thighs parted - adequate room for him to slot between.

“I have an oral fixation. So, yeah. You can shut me up like this anytime. In fact,” he looks up, smiles, inches from your clit. “I insist.”

He’s not careful, nor considerate. He’s still strangled by the belief that he needs to repay you for making him see constellations. Burdened with the holy weight of being wanted, his tongue drags across your swollen clit, collecting wetness, before drawing it into the heat of his mouth.

Face drenched, cheeks smeared, he buries himself, sees god as he traces halos. He really really doesn’t want to do a subpar job. His mind has fixated, so now he’s going to overcompensate.

He is so so good at pleasing. He wants you to be proud, to give him a gold star and glowing reviews. He wants to be needed, to find some use in himself. To appease and provide and let you dictate his entire existence.

Your thighs tighten, groans, punctured moans crowding the stuffy air with noise. You feel the push of his fingers, long, deft digits, filling up hollow space, carving their methodical touch inside.

“Fuck—Just like that. There we go. So much better when your mouth is preoccupied.”

You can hear him whimpering, muffled little begs, careless and hurried, as he suffocates. He pushes through, abandoning trivial concepts like oxygen, pft—unnecessary. It’s a myth, Priestley was wrong. Lavoisier named a fallacy.

“Good boy. Good fuckin’ boy.”

Spencer stares up at you with a mouthful of pussy. Doe-wide eyes, glossy. “Just for you.”

Then, he’s returning to the task: tongue dragging between folds, leaving him to sloppily suck at your swollen clit.

He’s not sure who’s getting off on this more.

His fingers curve, earning a strangled gasp that has him nudging closer. You can only cant your hips upwards, limbs flagging, squirming as the bliss runs through. Snaking its way around your body until you’re overstimulated, hiccuping broken sounds.

In the aftermath, he has the audacity to press a chaste kiss to your clit. To clean up his mess, like a respectful citizen.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Pointless. Every inch of him is smeared. There’s cum on the couch, and Spencer is currently situated on his knees, looking all too confident in his ministrations.

“Maybe we should’ve done this in the shower,” you say, knocking your thigh against his flushed cheek. “Shit, i’m going to ride you so hard for that.”

“Right now? Is that an option? Please say that’s an option.” he stands, stumbles, nearly knocks over a book as he fights the need for friction. “Because im hard again. And yeah—ow.”

He eats his own words.

Every sexually-suppressed nerve in his spent body is assiduously destroyed. You christen his kitchen, his bathroom, bed and dining table. He cries into the sex, let’s you bully him through every thrust: ‘Cmon, harder. I know you have it in you. Don’t make me disappointed.’

He genuinely, hand over heart, sobs when you take his overused, very confused, cock into his mouth later. His entire body is a bruise. You own every scrape. Tears spill down his flushed cheeks, wetting the soft skin there. “Shut up,’ you say, ‘Just stand there, look pretty and fucking take it.’ Or, ‘Behave. Show me that I’ve trained you well.’

And you have! You really have! Because he does shut his mouth, and he does thankyou after.

Refractory periods are apparently banished, you seem hellbent on corrupting him in every position, angle, and—

He has blame. Vindictive, censurable blame. If, mid-way through attempt 2 of after-care, he gets a little too fixated on the sight of your slick-wet skin, the steam of the shower, and his wandering touch.

And sure, maybe he drops to his knees the moment you suggest Star-Trek for background noise.

Every part of him is impure. Maybe he was born to live inside you.

Post-touch, stretched out across the mattress, the sheets are kicked aside: relinquished, probably in dire need of being burnt, entropy spilled between linen. Spencer turns to meet your stare.

“This is so unhygienic,” he mutters, pressing the pad of his forefinger to your bottom lip, cracked open, still branded by his teeth. “I’m gonna have to bathe myself in hand sanitiser.“

“Well I clearly can’t trust you in the shower.”

“Hey.” he pouts. “I want a do-over. Let me wash your hair. Then you can wash mine, and it’ll be just like that one shampoo ad I saw.”

“Mm, nothing makes stocks sell like the promise of domestic bliss.”

“Exactly!” he rolls over, rests his chin between your breasts—the same ones that are stained red, imprinted with Spencer-owned bruises. “Hear me out on this: shower, nap, movie marathon.”

You laugh, gather his face in the palms of your hands. Watch, real time, as he softens into molten gold “Yeah, OK. You’re on.”

There’s this study on Oxtocin, how it creates memory impressions during intimacy; a clinical way of saying that he will remember every detail of this until the day he dies.

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 headlights and neon and streetlamp glow, and Spencer guides you toward the curb where his car’s 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 little 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 ♥️

Spencer Reid had always known he wanted to be a father one day, he just never expected to be doing it alone - with a baby girl in his arms in an empty hospital room. He’d pictured a smooth birth, a short stay in the hospital before returning to their home - the three of them, as a family. He’d pictured first steps, his wife recording from every angle, her laughter bouncing off every wall. He’d pictured science fairs, chess tournaments, spelling bees, his wife beside him as they cheer with tears in their eyes. But she won't be there for that. She won't get to see it. She won't get to see the firsts, she won't get to be there for late night feeds, for sick days and injuries, she won't get to see the little moments and she won't get to see the milestones their baby girl will make. She's gone.

“Unforeseen complications,” The doctor had said as Spencer crumbled to the floor. “There was nothing we could do. We tried to stop the bleeding but she was gone before we could get her stable”

The words hadn’t sounded right to Spencer, and they still don't now. Hours later as he stands in the empty sterile hospital room, his baby girl sleeping in his arms, blissfully unaware of the life they now have to live. This isn't the life he had planned for her. 

She should have been held by her mother who would have tear tracks down her face but the softest, most loving look in her eyes, love only a mother can show. She should have been rocked slowly in her moms arms, cradled like she was made of glass. She should have got to hear her mom say her name. 

He should have got to wake in the middle of the night to an empty bed, only to tiptoe into the baby's room and see his wife rocking her to sleep, messy hair, tired eyes and touch so gentle as she sang lullabies as the baby would coo softly.

They should have fallen asleep on the couch together, baby curled up on her chest, a half finished bottle dangling from Spencer's hand, his other cradling his wife and baby. 

Their daughter should know her mothers face, should light up at the sight of her, at the sound of her voice. She should be able to cling to her mom when she's scared. Her mom should be her safe space, her comfort when the world gets loud and when everything feels impossible.

But now all of that only lived in his memory, a future that would never come.

He will never get to grow old with his wife, his soulmate. He’d always pictured growing old with her, even from their very first date. Not in a cinematic, epic love story way that is only shown in movies. No. Just a quiet life, together.

He pictured Sunday mornings with coffee neither of them finished, evenings on the porch wrapped in blankets, watching the world slow down. He imagined more children, boys and girls, all with their own personalities and quirks that make them who they are. He imagined holding her hand while they listened to their children talk about their own life—college, heartbreak, career, maybe even kids of their own.

He thought about anniversaries and special events they’d celebrate together, and forget together . Too caught up in life to remember until days later- when they’d laugh and spend the night celebrating in their own way. No grand gestures needed, no pressure. 

They’d fight, they’re good at that. It's how they started of course. One night of misunderstanding and feelings being hidden for too long and the walls broke down, like a dam giving way, letting a flood of truth wash through, reshaping their future. Angry love confessions and heated kissing, turning into a love they could never live without. Healing them in the best ways possible. Their relationship began with a fight, and ended in silence.

They’d fight about silly things, missed deadlines, who was supposed to pick the kids up from school, late work nights. They wouldn't be giant fights, full of screaming and slamming doors. Voices raised, maybe, but never harsh, never cruel, just two soulmates navigating their life together, just trying to be perfect for each other. The anger would fade, it never lasts long, not with them. There would be silence, a moment of stillness and then the recovery. Soft conversations about what to do next, on how they can do better. Soft ‘i love yous’ and ‘im sorries’. Love is never perfect, it's messy, it's hard, it's complicated. And if you do it right..it's everything. 

They’d grow old together, live on a farm maybe. The kids could grow old, would start their own families, their own stories. They’d stay together, grow together. Die together. 

But that's only a dream, a glimpse of what could have been because now..

Now he would grow old without her.

He’d raise their daughter alone. He’d sit at that farm alone. There would be no more children. He will never get to fight with her again, he will never get to say ‘i love you’ to her again and hear her soft voice whisper ‘i love you more’. He’d grow old alone, never love another, never remarry. He’d only think of her, talk to her in his head. Everyday he’d write in a journal, the things he would tell her if she was there he would keep track of, in the hopes that one day they could be reunited. 

When his memory dies, when he can't remember his life, when even his daughter's name is a mystery to him, he’ll always remember her smile. When his life starts to fade she’ll be there. He’ll see her again. He just has to live a lifetime without her first. 

He never pictured that.

He takes a shaky breath, his daughter stirring slightly in his arms. He forces himself to focus on the now, he can't rewind time, he can't get stuck in his head. He has a daughter to raise. And a funeral to plan. 

A/N: sooo yeah. sorry about that x thanks to @reidvrmore for not killing me as i was writing this and updating her almost every line and @esote-rika for your (un) kind reactions when you read this :))

The remainder of the evening unfolded much as you expected—though certainly not quietly. Once home, Brookend Manor hummed with excitement, every corridor echoing with some variation of your mother’s delighted retelling. She recounted your dance with Prince Clark to your father and the assembled household at least half a dozen times, each version acquiring new embellishments with the enthusiasm of a playwright revising her favorite scene.

Your father endured it with good-natured patience, and the servants—who absolutely had other duties—suddenly discovered an urgent need to polish the same section of banister, adjust already-straight drapery, or ferry imaginary messages through the hall. Their ears, for all their attempts at discretion, were shamelessly attentive.

You escaped to your room the moment courtesy permitted, slipping away before you could be cast as the heroine of their evening’s entertainment.

There, in the quiet of your bedroom, your writing desk awaited you. The quill rested neatly beside the parchment, the ink catching the candlelight in a dark, reflective gleam. For the first time in a long while, you hesitated. 

Writing of society was effortless. Secrets, whispers, political undercurrents—easier still.

But writing of yourself?

Of the closing waltz? Of Prince Clark, who had inexplicably chosen you in front of the entire ton?

That was considerably less convenient.

Still, you sat. Still, you dipped the quill.

You attempted three separate openings before conceding what you had known from the start: there was no graceful way to omit yourself without inviting more suspicion than inclusion ever would.

So you wrote.

And rewrote.

And smudged the same line twice.

Hours later, the column lay complete at last.

Ink stained your fingers before you realized how long you had been seated there. The candle had burned low, its flame bending slightly with each quiet draft that slipped beneath the door. At its base, pale tallow had gathered in quiet folds, mirroring the hours you had allowed to pass unnoticed.

Soft footsteps moved along the corridor outside and, as they always did, paused just beyond your door.

A moment later, Eveline entered with the sort of silence only long practice could perfect, closing the door behind her without so much as disturbing the air. Your lady’s maid by title. Your closest friend by everything that mattered.

She approached your desk without ceremony and gathered the folded pages from beside your ink pot, checking the ribbon that held them before taking them up properly in hand. She did not ask what you had written. She never did. She had no need to.

The two of you had grown up wandering the same halls long before either of you were entrusted with secrets worth guarding. You had shared scraped knees and stolen sweets, whispered confidences and opinions about half the county. Loyalty had never required declaration between you; it had simply existed, steady and unquestioned.

She slipped the pages neatly into her apron, promising—as she had so many nights before—that they would be delivered before the first trace of dawn touched the rooftops.

And yet.

There was something else tonight.

A brightness in her expression she attempted, and failed, to disguise. The corners of her mouth betrayed her. So did her eyes.

You saw it forming before she ever gave it voice. The same thought that had already taken hold downstairs and, by now, very likely half of Berkshire. So you spared her the trouble of asking.

“It was only a dance, Evie,” you said softly.

“Yes,” she replied just as quietly, though her eyes gleamed in the candlelight. “But the closing waltz. With the prince.”

You shared a look.

Hope flickered plainly in hers. You answered it with composure.

Evie did not press the matter. She rarely did. She had long ago learned how to say just enough and leave the rest for you to untangle in your own time. At times it amused you. At others, it tested your patience. But it was a rhythm the two of you had kept since childhood, and one neither of you had ever felt the need to disturb.

She offered one last knowing smile before slipping from the room, the door closing behind her with the softest click.

Left alone once more, you set about dismissing the night as you always did. You undid your gown’s remaining clasps, washed at the basin, extinguished the candle, and finally slipped beneath the covers.

Yet the moment you closed your eyes, rest refused you.

You remained awake in the dimness, your thoughts returning again and again to moments you had not intended to carry with you.

The prince’s hand at your waist. 

His voice, low and sincere. 

The way the ballroom had turned as one body toward you both.

Being the spectacle of your own craft was proving far more exhausting than anything else.

By the time the first sliver of morning light threaded through your curtains, you had slept, at most, a handful of uneasy minutes. You blinked up at the pale glow and exhaled, resigned to the day forcing itself upon you. Your mind drifted inevitably to your column, which by now would be making its way through Berkshire drawing rooms and breakfast tables alike.

Despite your best efforts, you kept circling back to the lines you had penned in the late hours of the night:

…a waltz that captured the full attention of the ton. His Highness, Prince Clark, chose a partner that left whispers echoing long after the music faded…

You halted the recollection there, eyes squeezing shut.

Enough.

You had written it.

You did not need to relive it.

You pushed the thought aside with as much resolve as you could summon, shutting it away like a door against an unwelcome chill. 

The night was over. The column was written. Your part in it was done, if only your mind had been willing to behave accordingly.

You drew a slow breath, willing your pulse to steady—

A sharp knock broke the quiet.

Before you could answer, the door opened with uncharacteristic haste and Evie slipped inside. Whatever formality the knock had satisfied, the rest of her gave way to urgency. Her face held something you could not immediately place. Her steps were quicker than usual, her apron slightly askew, her breath uneven as though she had hurried the length of the corridor without pause.

You pushed yourself upright in bed, blankets gathering at your waist.

“What is it?” you demanded, already bracing. “Did something happen with the Quill? Has someone found out?”

It was the only explanation that made sense.

Panic rose swiftly and without permission. If someone had traced the column back to you—if last night’s waltz had drawn too much scrutiny—if a phrase, a turn of ink, had betrayed you—

Evie shook her head before your thoughts could carry you any further.

“No, my lady. It isn’t the column.”

She crossed the room with careful urgency and reached into the pocket of her apron.

“It is… well, this arrived.”

You blinked at her. “Arrived? What do you mean arrived?”

She didn’t answer.

She simply extended a folded letter toward you, sealed in crimson wax.

Your confusion deepened—until you saw the crest impressed upon it. The seal glinted in the early morning light, unmistakable and impossible to misinterpret.

Royal.

Your breath caught.

No.

Surely not.

You swallowed, pulse quickening at the base of your throat as your gaze lowered to the direction written upon the fold.

Your name—written in a firm, elegant script.

And beneath it, without pretense or intermediary—

Prince Clark.

Your fingers hovered above the folded letter, suspended in the smallest, sharpest moment of disbelief.

So this was the fuss.

This was the urgency.

This was the reason Evie had nearly torn your door off its hinges.

A letter from the Quiet Prince. 

For you.

The parchment seemed to settle in your hands with a gravity that had little to do with paper. The crimson seal still held its impression, and your name lay across the front in dark, deliberate ink—refined in hand, yet bearing something far more personal beneath its polish.

Apparently you had gone silent for far too long.

“Open it,” Evie whispered, though whisper felt far too restrained for the excitement lighting her entire face. She was nearly bouncing where she stood. “If you do not, I will.”

You turned your head slowly, fixing her with a look sharp enough to quiet an entire drawing room. It did absolutely nothing to her. She only grinned wider.

With careful fingers, you broke the seal.

The seal gave way with a soft crack, the sound far too loud in the hush of your room. You unfolded the letter slowly, smoothing the page against your palm as though the gesture itself might lend you composure.

It was standard in form. Courteous. Proper. Precisely what royal correspondence should be.

And yet the contents were anything but ordinary.

You read.

To Lady Y/N Y/L/N of Brookend,

I hope you will forgive the impropriety of writing so soon after last night. I can only offer, in my defense, that your question has stayed with me longer than I anticipated.

You asked whether peace and loneliness are truly different, or if we have simply grown accustomed to mistaking one for the other.

It is a fair question. A generous one. And not simple to answer.

Yet, in the quiet of this morning, a line from one of my favorite volumes returned to me:

“The peace of solitude is not the ache of loneliness, for one nourishes the soul while the other starves it.”

I cannot presume to hold the answer you sought, but I hope the sentiment may offer clarity where my own explanation failed.

If it would not trouble you, I would like the opportunity to speak with you again. A walk through the palace gardens this afternoon, perhaps? The violets are in bloom.

With respect,

Clark, Prince of Berkshire

He had not written of the waltz, nor of appearances or whispers. He had written of your question, and in doing so had made something quietly significant of it. It was not a command, nor a royal summons disguised as obligation. It was an invitation.

And that, somehow, unsettled you far more.

Evie leaned closer, trying desperately to read your expression rather than the words. “Well?” she pressed. “What does it say? Do not leave me to perish in suspense.”

You lowered the letter slightly, your pulse misbehaving in your throat.

“He wants…” You paused, the absurdity of the moment finally overtaking you. “He wishes to see me again.”

Evie made a sound perilously close to a gasp and, with dramatic surrender, sank onto the edge of your bed as though her usual restraint had deserted her entirely.

“How soon?” she demanded, her eyes flashing up to yours.

You glanced down once more, your pulse still behaving in ways you did not approve of. “Today. He suggested a walk through the palace gardens. The violets are in bloom.”

Evie was on her feet again in an instant, as if propelled by artillery.

“Oh, we must begin at once,” she declared, half-turning toward your wardrobe as if she meant to start pulling dresses at random. “The palace gardens, you said? Violets in bloom. You cannot wear anything too bright, it will look—no, no, you must look effortless, but not careless. Something soft. Something that suggests—”

“Evie.” Your voice cut through her spiral.

Your voice cut cleanly through her ascent.

She halted mid-step, one hand hovering dangerously near the wardrobe latch.

“Slow down.”

She turned back toward you, looking faintly wounded by the notion.

You folded the letter with deliberate care and set it upon your bedside table. “Has anyone else seen the delivery?”

Evie shook her head quickly. “No. I intercepted it myself. Nora ensured the footman kept his distance. But…” Her expression shifted, sobriety overtaking excitement. “The courier remains outside. He is waiting for a reply.”

Of course he was.

Which meant it was only a matter of time. Before a passing servant noticed. Before your mother stepped into the corridor. Before the household realized a royal courier had arrived at Brookend with a sealed letter bearing your name.

Your thoughts began to race—far quicker than your pulse would permit.

Last night had been… whatever it had been. A dance. A conversation. A passing curiosity.

But courtship? No. Certainly not.

You rose from the bed, drawing the coverlet aside and straightening your posture as though already preparing yourself for the consequence of your own resolve.

“I shall inform him I am not interested,” you said evenly. “That will be my reply.”

Evie stared at you.

She blinked once.

Then again.

She regarded you as though you had proposed setting fire to the palace. “That is…” She faltered, gathering breath. “That is madness.”

You turned your head slowly.

Evie stiffened at once, collecting herself with visible effort. “Forgive me,” she amended quickly, though the apology softened her tone rather than her conviction. “But you cannot refuse the prince as though he were Lord Kane requesting a second dance. He is the Prince.”

“I am aware,” you replied, your calm sharpened to an edge.

You did not look away.

Evie lifted her hands in quiet frustration, as if she might physically arrange sense into you if given the opportunity. “Then I beg you to behave as though you are.”

You looked down at the letter again—at the careful hand, the measured courtesy, the quiet invitation wrapped in violets and philosophy. It was dangerously thoughtful. Entirely unlike the conversations you had endured from men who believed their titles entitled them to your time.

And yet, your resolve did not waver.

“My answer remains,” you said softly.

Evie’s mouth parted, then closed again, a dozen objections gathering behind the silence and none yielding precedence.

You did not wait for them.

You crossed to your writing desk, the growing light of morning catching the faint ink stains still marking your fingers from the night before. With studied composure, you took your seat and reached for fresh parchment.

Behind you, Evie released a quiet, stricken sound.

“My lady, you cannot,” she began, her voice rising despite herself as she paced the length of your chamber in short, agitated steps. “Do you understand what this signifies? Prince Clark has never made a formal attempt at courtship. He has danced, yes, but never the closing waltz. And now he writes to you by morning.”

You began to write, the scratch of ink steady and undisturbed, your posture composed as though you were merely responding to a polite dinner invitation.

“Perhaps His Highness is bored,” you said, your gaze never lifting from the page. “Perhaps he seeks novelty. There are any number of women in the ton eager for his notice. He may direct his attentions there.”

Evie made a sound caught somewhere between disbelief and prayer. “Bored?” she repeated, scandalized. “He is not seeking diversion. He is asking to call upon you.”

When you reached the final line, you signed your name with practiced precision, watching as the ink settled cleanly into the parchment.

You set the quill aside with quiet precision.

“Not after this,” you said, passing her the letter.

Evie accepted it as one might accept a live coal. The parchment was still faintly warm from your hand, the ink drying in dark strokes across the page. 

She cleared her throat and began to read, her voice far too loud for the delicacy of the matter.

“To His Royal Highness, Prince Clark—”

“Evie,” you hissed, eyes darting instinctively toward the door. “Hush.”

Her eyes widened at once. She lowered her voice immediately, though the astonishment within it did not lessen. She continued, softer now—but each word seemed to fall with increasing weight.

To His Royal Highness, Prince Clark,

Your letter was most considerate. I appreciate the sentiment, though I assure you further reflection upon my question was not required.

As Jane Austen reminds us, one must know one’s own happiness. I do, and therefore see no reason to mistake it for an afternoon in the palace gardens.

Thus, I must decline your invitation.

Do give the violets my best. I am certain they will receive your attention with decidedly more enthusiasm than I.

Respectfully,

Lady Y/N Y/L/N

By the time she reached the final line, Evie’s eyes had widened to an almost alarming degree. She lowered the parchment with great care, as though any abrupt movement might undo the damage of what she had just read.

“You cannot send this,” she said at once, her voice strained but kept mercifully low. “You simply cannot.”

You lifted a brow, composed in a way that only further distressed her.

“Why ever not?”

“Because,” she whispered fiercely, stepping closer to you, “you have just declined the Prince of Berkshire and implied that flowers would welcome him more warmly than you.”

You folded your hands neatly atop the desk.

“It is polite,” you replied.

“It is audacious,” Evie countered.

A flicker of amusement tugged at the corner of your mouth, but you subdued it. The ink had settled completely now. The words were set. Irrevocable.

“My lady,” she pressed, lowering her voice still further, “this is not a gentleman you may dismiss as though he were some persistent viscount. This is—”

“Prince Clark. Duke of Berkshire. Yes, Evie, I know.” Your tone remained measured, almost painfully so. “But I am under no obligation to feign an interest I do not possess.”

Evie released one of those long, suffering sighs that carried years of familiarity within it. It was the sigh of someone who knew you too well to win an argument and yet felt compelled to try. The sigh that said you were being relentless, immovable, entirely yourself.

For a moment, she simply studied you, as though weighing loyalty against prudence.

Before she could arm herself with another protest, you rose and pressed the letter back into her hands.

“Send it,” you said. “Now. Before anyone observes the courier at our gate and begins asking questions neither of us wishes to answer.”

Evie hesitated.

“Evie.”

Her shoulders softened in reluctant surrender. “Very well.”

“And be quick, please,” you added, smoothing the fabric at your waist as though the matter were already concluded. “The less time it remains in this house, the better.”

Your expression gentled, if only by a degree. “Thank you, Evie.”

She regarded you for a moment, half reproach and half reluctant admiration, until the expression eased into a small smile. Then, with a slight inclination of her head, she slipped from the room, the parchment held securely in her grasp. The door closed behind her with a quiet click, leaving you alone in the stillness that followed.

Only then did you allow yourself to breathe.

Relief arrived quietly at first, then settled with greater certainty. The matter had been addressed civilly and decisively, without spectacle, without promenades beneath blooming violets, without murmurs of courtship gathering force before you could contain them. You had answered him as you would any gentleman who presumed too far.

A bullet dodged.

Or so you believed.

The rest of the morning passed in deceptive calm. You dressed. You walked briefly through Brookend’s lower gardens. You attempted to read, though the words slipped past without settling. The household carried on as it always did, footsteps measured, doors opening and closing in steady rhythm—blissfully unaware of the small act of defiance that had departed your chamber at dawn.

It was some time later, when sunlight had begun to stretch in long bands across the main corridor, that you saw Evie again.

There was no haste in her now, no wide eyes or breathless urgency. Instead, she stood at the far end of the hall waiting for you, composed but unmistakably aware.

And this time, it had not gone unseen.

The disturbance of it had already passed through the house in hushed ripples, quiet in form and obvious in effect, and you felt it as surely as you had felt the prince’s presence behind you in the ballroom.

Thankfully, your parents were away for the day. A visit in town. A matter of accounts, perhaps. Whatever the excuse, it spared you immediate interrogation, though not for long. Royal mail twice in one day was enough to set half the ton speculating for a fortnight. By evening, someone would mention it. By tomorrow morning, questions would bloom as loudly as any violet.

Evie approached you slowly, a knowing curve resting at the corner of her mouth. Not alarm. Not astonishment.

Recognition.

She placed the folded letter into your hand with measured care.

“You did decline him,” she said softly. “It would seem he is not prepared to leave it there.”

You lowered your gaze to the fresh impression upon the seal, still crisp, newly set. The wax bore the royal crest as confidently as before, as though it had never once been refused in its life.

Something in you shifted as the seal broke.

The wax yielded beneath your thumb, and you unfolded the parchment with quiet care, aware all the while of Evie’s attention beside you. The corridor felt suddenly too bright and far too open, yet you made no move to seek the shelter of privacy. Not yet.

Your gaze moved across the page.

To Lady Y/N Y/L/N,

I received your letter this morning and appreciate its honesty, even if it was not the answer I had hoped for. 

You write with admirable clarity, and I would not presume to contradict a lady’s stated wishes.

However, your words did raise a question of my own.

You quote Miss Austen to suggest that one must know one’s own happiness. Yet the sentence does not conclude there. She continues that one may desire nothing but patience, or give it a more fascinating name and call it hope.

I find myself curious as to why you chose to omit that portion.

Rest assured, I will honor your decision and refrain from requesting your company again today.

But I must confess—your letter has done little to dissuade my wish to speak with you.

I remain,

Clark, Prince of Berkshire

When you reached his name at the close, your brows had drawn together more tightly than you intended.

It was not that he had misunderstood your refusal.

It was worse than that.

He had understood it entirely—and chosen to examine it.

There was no offense in his tone. No wounded pride. No retreat. Instead, there was something far more inconvenient.

Interest.

Evie shifted beside you, unable to bear the silence. “What is it?” she asked carefully. “What has he said?”

You folded the letter once, then again, your expression unreadable except for the faint tightening at the corner of your mouth.

“It is nothing,” you replied evenly.

Which, of course, meant it was anything but.

You did not wait for further questions. You turned on your heel and began walking toward your chamber, skirts brushing softly against the marble floor. Evie followed at once, her steps quicker to match your own.

So. Prince Clark did not withdraw easily.

Very well—neither did you.

To His Royal Highness, Prince Clark,

I acknowledge your continued courtesy.

However, I do not believe my thoughts are a matter for a prince to trouble himself with.

I trust this settles the matter.

Lady Y/N Y/L/N

You read it once. It was concise. Controlled. Unmistakable.

Evie hovered nearby, watching you with an expression that suggested she had accepted her fate as accomplice to madness.

“You are certain?” she asked quietly.

“Yes,” you said, your voice unshaken.

Once the letter had been sealed and the wax set, it was carried to the courier still waiting far too near Brookend’s gates, where he received it without question.

By evening, the reply arrived.

Again.

To Lady Y/N Y/L/N,

Your thoughts trouble me no more than a riddle troubles its solver. Which is to say, not at all, except in the most engaging way.

If this was meant to end our correspondence, it has instead given me another question to pursue.

Respectfully,

Clark

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